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I am not Asian, but once you learn how to use chopsticks, they're great

Bonus fact: chopsticks still varies from country to country and use to use. Some restaurants offer pairs of longer and differently colored chopsticks for serving purposes similar to big serving spoon. Foot long chopsticks are used in restaurant kitchens. Metal chopstick for open fire cooking. Chinese chopsticks usually are longer and more blunt. Japanese chopsticks are usually shorter and pointed. Korean chopsticks are usually in the middle, also flat and made of metal.

As an Asian, i never actually knew why i eat with a chopstick. I just, kinda use it

i use long chopsticks to steal food from my wifes bowl when eating a meal

Salad is so much easier to eat with chopsticks

When I was in South Korea, everyone used metal chopsticks, but I think they were steel rather than silver. They're also harder to learn to use than wooden or ivory chopsticks, I found.

In korea they actually do use spoons for rice. You can use chopsticks too, or course, but in common practice you use a spoon so you can get a big scoop of rice and then put pieces of meat or vegetable on top. It's quite practical haha

Correction: Confucius was NOT vegetarian! In his sayings ("The Analects") he indicates that his students pay tuition with dried meat. Plus I think the concept of vegetarianism came when Buddhism was spread to China, which would be about 4 centuries later than Confucius.

Hey, Simon [and crew], This was very interesting. However, based on a very interesting oversight in this video, I would like to suggest a topic for you to research. The oversight was that Koreans use a spoon for rice, not the chopsticks they use for the other food items. When living in Korea, with a family, I was told, when I tried to use my chopsticks on rice, ""Don't do that, Chinese and Japanese do that." The suggested topic is, countries whose people identify themselves as NOT being another [usually neighboring] country. Sometimes they have deliberately altered their language and customs to reinforce the differences. Examples: 1. Korea: Koreans have the same objection to picking up the rice bowl, "Don't do that, Chinese and Japanese do that." Both North and South Korea have changed their vocabulary and written languages to differentiate themselves from each other and from China and Japan. 2. Other countries: Canada, Poland, Iran etc. 3. sometimes it may not be deliberate, but a natural evolution [or a combination of factors], such as the differences between Portugal and Brazil.

I shared a house with a Japanese couple once. They cooked a Japanese Christmas dinner for everyone else in the house, and we sat down to eat it, gamely trying chopsticks. They looked at us askance and whipped out their own knives and forks. It was clear to me that their approach generally was to adapt their cooking to the use of chopsticks as eating utensils rather than the other way around, so everything was laboriously prepared with that in mind, rather than compromise with a knife, fork or spoon. However, the consumption of noodle soup with chopsticks was an ordeal of slurping far too grim to be endured, so we would avoid those sittings.

Chopsticks make sense for the dishes served in the regions where they're used. The only tricky thing is those Korean steel ones. However, with a bit of practice, even they are easy enough to use, especially as they are generally not used to convey food to the mouth but from communal plate or bowl to personal plate or bowl.

I would have thought chopsticks would have been invented and used way before spoons, forks, or possibly even knives. They're a logical extension of human fingers, and any two sticks will do. If they're good enough to start the fire, they're good enough to eat what's cooked on the fire. Surprised they weren't more ubiquitous _worldwide_ back in the pre-metal age.

Metal is expensive, in europe peasants used wooden utensils and bare hands for a long time (mostly spoons) and prepared their food with the mode of consumption in mind. Metal forks and knives where a luxury until well into the 17th century. Chopsticks seem like a one-step-removed solution from finger eating you know, with the pinching motion and all.

In most of Southeast Asia (except Vietnam), we use a spoon as the primary utensil with the fork to push the food onto the spoon. This is better suited to the long grain jasmine rice (and other rice varieties) which do not clump together as do the shorter grain rices in Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China (or South Asian varieties like basmati). In Thailand and Laos, chopsticks are typically only used when eating noodles. So thank you for adding the word "some" to your title. ;-)

I'm clearly an American Caucasian and I found it highly amusing when I was eating at Chinese buffet. I was the only one in the restaurant using chopsticks and when I picked up my bowl of rice, I couldn't help but notice the staff was staring at me. I ate it like a champ and even though Chinese or Japanese rice is easy to eat with chopsticks, they seemed genuinely surprised to see me eat it that way.

chopsticks can release food easily, unlike forks.

Sees interesting title, clicks Sees Simon without glasses and a beard "holy heck who's that?!" Sees date, "oh" Thanks for the video

I've used them often and find them quite satisfactory. A Chinese coworker once told me I handled them well and in a very dignified manner which gave me a little pride of accomplishment. The ones I have I made from oak, cherry, walnut ash and birch. Different woods can affect the taste of foods.

as an asian man using chopsticks for at least 80% of my life, it isn't much more difficult to eat with them at least with appropriate food. I'm not gonna be eating a t-bone steak with chopsticks obviously but softer meats that can be pinched apart like bigger pieces of fish and chicken if they aren't cut up smaller pretty easy with metal or wooden utensils, and said in the video eating white small grain rice over long grain.

this guy look a lot like hitman i like it

So there was this time when I saw someone eating a plate of fried rice with just chopsticks. While watching him struggle trying to scoop up the grains, I was so tempted to hand him the spoon the waiter already laid on the table and say: "Mate, it's fine... We use spoons too".

3:17 ...also, in western versions of eastern dishes, the rice is often soaked with sauces or pan juices, which lubricate the rice grains and make the separate, where in actual Asian cooking, steamed rice is served as a side with no sauces to keep it from clumping, (afaik.)

If you have tarnished sliver, put it in a bowl on top of aluminium foil (tin foil for murricans) and add boiled water and saturate it with salt. This will do a redox reaction to regain your silver. It does release stinky toxic hydrogen sulfide but this can be prevented by also adding baking soda.

You think fast cooking is important when you haven't much food? That makes no sense.

And then they evolved into the drumstick...

I seem to recall something about Confucius saying that the reason you don't have a knife at the table is because it's a weapon and the table is sort of a peaceful place. Incidentally, Europeans have butter knives that aren't sharp and don't have points. There are even some steak knives that don't have points and are just meant for cutting meat apart. Originally these were made because those points were made for stabbing and killing things and sometimes getting through armor.

Not sure if this is a real reason why chopsticks are great, but they also help you slow down while you're eating by taking smaller bites than you can with a fork. You enjoy the food more and it also helps your stomach get an accurate measure of how full you are so you don't over eat.

Your videos are amazing! You should totally advertise them.

Confucius says, "Indians don't use chop sticks, though they are Asians" :-)

I'm surprised that you didn't mention that while Thai people also believe that knives are kitchen utensils only (cutting their food into small pieces) tableware consists of spoons and forks just like in the west.

When I was a young boy, I usually used fork. It was easier to use than chopsticks. But since I've grown up, I like using chopsticks more than fork, because chopsticks touches less part of mouth and tongue so I can taste food more fully. And I feel that using metal chopsticks is cleaner than using fork or spoon.

Eating with chopsticks isn't hard. I couldn't figure it out for ages, but it's because the technique involved isn't self-evident. If you get a good description of the technique, learning to use them reasonably well can be done in a few minutes. If you don't have any explanation of how to use them, it seems impossible to understand how it's even possible. You can spend years fiddling with the things and never figure out how to do anything useful with them, or you can learn the basics of how they are used and be doing fine a few minutes later...

Ukraine here, have been eating with chopsticks for 15 years now because they are easier to clean then spoons and forks. No mystery here)

I'm surprised that they didn't mention that silver actually does have antibacterial properties (especially when citing the misunderstanding of the beneficial properties).

I am a Westener (Australian) but I find chopsticks excellent for, as Simon said, smaller foods. I use them when eating potato chips/ crisps and peanuts so that my fingers do not get dirty.

And here I thought I was just bad at eating rice with them. I'm actually pretty proficient with chopsticks, but if the rice isn't sticky, it can be hard to eat like that, and that makes sense.

Confucius says: "I was born in the night but not last night"

About the toxin thing, it's because the most commonly used toxins at that time can't be fully purified, they always contain sulfides, which turn silver black. The amount of sulfides contained in green onions and garlics is quite small, and I don't think onions are native in China either (because green onions are called Cong is Chinese, and onions are called Yang Cong, literarily foreign green onion).

You looked SO different 4 years ago 😱😱😱 I'm LOVING your current look with the beard and glasses ❤

Australia invented the best eating utensil ever. The Splayd.

And here I just figured they just invented them really early in their history and didn't replace them when superior technology came about because the the more primitive method sufficed just fine. Altthough seeing as they had used knives for so long, the chopsticks could be argued an upgrade in the absence of forks and spoons. (Which their civilizations had still invented, by the way; they just used them serving implements rather than eating implements.) Knowing it was as recent an invention as the 500's BC changes that analysis on my part. As for Confucius stating it uncivilized to being a knife to the table, it probably had more to do with his pacifism than his vegetarianism. One rather grisly thing about ancient eating habits is most people owned one good knife... this meant a man's primary eating utensil was also his work tool was also his weapon. This was a day in age where a man over 30 has killed somebody in self defense, with practically no exceptions, and there was a decent chance they used their knife to do it. From that standpoint I figured that he advocated people not eat with knives because so many already bore the taint of having been used to kill... well that and it made dinner parties a very dangerous affair, as it brought lots of men who had differing opinions of one another together at one table armed and drunk. But if everyone replaces their shanks with blunt twigs, nobody gets shanked if a drunken brawl breaks out. Maybe somebody gets an eye poked out, but better monocular than dead, am I right?

Some known and minor differences between common Chinese, Japanese, and Korean table chopsticks. Chinese - Tends to be larger, in both length and width, and blunt at both ends. The larger end will be square, where as the thinner end, used for picking things up, will be circular. Japanese - Tends to be the smallest, with the pointiest thin ends not used for stabbing food, but to pick meat out of fish. Towards the thin end usually feature ridges to help pick up food. Korean - Tends to be middle in terms of size. Unlike Chinese and Japanese, common home chopsticks tend to be made with metal instead of wood or bamboo, a tradition that got passed down from the times when it was believe that metal would detect poison.

In fact, silver was used by aristocacy in the west for the same reason - because it reacts to certain poisons which commonly have sulphur in their compounds. Contrary to the facts stated in the video, both cyanide and arsenic compounds do commonly contain sulfur and do react with silver.

I was wondering how a westerner was gonna tell me about chopsticks....well-played. Turns out, I didn't know anything about them. Thank you for the video. You got yourself another subscriber.

Confucius was not a vegetarian! Although he did say a gentleman should stay away from slaughterhouses and kitchens (because he thought practicing butcher of animals and processing their body for meal is cruel and bad for the cultivation of humanity), he never said one shouldn't bring a knife to the meal table. I wonder how did you guys prepare the material for your videos. I'm very underimpressed by this episode, I hope next time you could be a little bit more serious on the fact-checking

Honestly I hate using chopsticks and only do it to satisfy others when I'm out. Otherwise I'd rather eat and enjoy my food than play with wooden sticks.

Chopsticks or no, I found that the asian method of cutting the food before cooking is just so much more practical. Some foods you can't do this with (like steak) but generally I'd prefer the "work" part to be over when I take the food to my table to eat it rather than having to cut it up all the time.

Confucius:" I only eat meat that is cut square."

I never understood why people had so much trouble eating rice with chopsticks until I decided to try my school's rice (a decision I still regret to this day). It was like dry sand. I don't understand how anyone could find that stuff appealing.

Came with a strange question, left with a well-thought out and thorough answer. Thanks!

I moved to Japan, and have taken to using chopsticks and maybe a spoon with 90% of my meals. I'm eating pasta right now and for me they just work better than forks for almost everything. Also, I have only ever seen westerners attempt to eat fried rice with chopsticks. it's meant to be eaten with a spoon, as is curry and rice. The proper way to eat plain white rice is in a small bowl held in one hand. This way, chopsticks can be used not to pick up the rice, but sort of scoop it in.

When you look like a bald Ralph Fiennes but realise that a bald Ralph Fiennes is pretty much Voldemort :P

Is that misako aoki in the thumbnail?!?? :o

I like to use them to eat chips if I can't wash my hands to avoid hepatitis A. Also, they're great for regulating how much food I eat in one sitting since it's slows me down compared to scarfing loads of food with a fork or spoon.

In Korea they use spoons for rice, not chop sticks, even though Korean rice tends to be starchier than Japanese rice.

as an asian i think 70% of the video is crap

I love eating with chopsticks. I grew up with forks so I'm not super proficient with them but I've gotten fairly good using them. I can even eat rice without much difficulty. There is just a certain connection to the food that you don't get work a fork.

Korean chopsticks are typically stainless steel. I went to a Korean restaurant in China and was amused to find that while the American expats living in Korea were adept with the Korean chopsticks, the Chinese found them nearly impossible to use because they're much more slippery than wooden or bamboo chopsticks.

Asking why Asians use chopsticks is no different than asking why Caucasians use forks.

Wrong! You're not supposed to pick up rice with your chopsticks! That's just crazy talk! You're supposed to put the rice bowl next to your mouth and use the chopsticks to shove the rice into your mouth!

One of the major annoyances for people like me (who are Asian but NOT Chinese or Korean or Japanese) is that, as with the title of that hugely popular movie that came out a couple weeks ago, in America apparently the term "Asian" seems to be a placeholder for "Chinese", with "Japanese" and "Korean" tacked on some of the time - the proper term to use here is "East Asian". In MOST of Asia (from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent to South East Asia) people do NOT use chopsticks unless you belong to the huge ethnic Chinese diaspora. Not in Thailand (mostly forks and spoons), not in Indonesia or India or West Asia (mostly eat with their hands). Nor does most of Asia (even the Chinese) eat "sticky" rice - yes, Japanese rice is somewhat sticky and is easier to pick up with chopsticks, but even in China rice isn't "sticky" (rice sold in America - and I don't mean Uncle Ben's, which is an abomination - resembles rice sold in China and Thailand more than anything else). If you want REALLY sticky rice there is glutinous rice but it's mainly used in confections and eaten by hand rather than by chopstick.

When turning a screw, a screwdriver is a better tool than a dime. When eating, a fork or spoon is a better tool than chopsticks. I don't understand why people cleave to bad ideas.

using rice as an explanation limits to southern china and japan, leaving beijing and northern china unexplained (traditional diet is wheat and millet, not rice). moreover, Confucius may likely never touched rice in his life as it came into the chinese civilization 2000 years ago.

Not a fan of Chopsticks. I know how to use them if the setting requires it; but I am rarely ever in that type of setting. The good old fork and knife works best.

Great channel with really interesting information! The host on the other hand gives off this weird "I hold somebody hostage in my basement" like vibe.

You have it backwards; table knives were not rendered obsolete, they never existed. Blast furnace technology did not arrive in the orient until recently, consequently any metal was expensive. Most households only had one knife which they used to cut everyone's food in advance. One pot (a wok), one knife, and chopsticks minimized the amount of metal needed to fully outfit a kitchen.

basmati rice😁😍

The girl at 3:11 looks a bit like Emma Stone.

Silver is also antiseptic, which is why it has been so popular throughout history as an eating utensil. The turning black point was a belief people held to explain its properties, but silver did actually prevent food poisoning!!!

A small problem: Confucius didn't say "A gentleman should stay away from kitchen" (君子远庖厨), Mong Zi said that in 《孟子·梁惠王章句上》. And Confucius never said you shouldn't put knife on dinner table, oh and, Confucius was not a vegetarian. For example, in 论语, Confucius talked about he'd take in a student if he got paid with bacon (自行束修以上，吾未尝无诲焉。)

This video is inaccurate. The real reason Chop Sticks became popular eating utensils was because the emperor passed a law banning peasants from owning knives of any kind. The emperor's court wanted to disarm the peasants so they would be less likely to revolt and be easier to control. It was decreed no more knives for peasants, eat with sticks. Chop sticks from that point on became a symbol of the Chinese hierarchy and civilized order.

So, they eat with chopsticks because some vegetarian old hippie was afraid of knives?

Korean chopsticks have been made of metal from ancient times, and in Korea it is quite normal, and has been from ancient times, to eat your rice with a spoon.

My understanding is that when people switched from eating with their hands to using spoons and forks it caused people to have an over-bite. Does eating with chopsticks also cause an over-bite?

Silver also kills bacteria on contact, that could also explain the use of silver.

I am a 75 year old American. I use chopsticks to cheese corn curls. Keeps my fingers clean.

One of the main reasons is that in a country where bamboo is a very common plant, you can go cut a pair of chop sticks out of a plant that grows in your yard in just a few minutes, whereas if you are very poor especially, metal forks and spoons are expensive, especially if you need enough for everyone in the family to eat with.

I always heard that chopsticks came about because of a confusionism(?) belief that stabbing food was too violent.

3:10 Gummy. I'd run out of synonyms for sticky and glutinous that's suitable for rice. Thank you very much!

Also in China it's perfectly normal to eat (fried) rice with a porcelain spoon and use chopsticks for meat, vegetables etc.

With all material and technology out there but Asian still keep their tradition....which is amazing.

There's like one machining step to proto-chopsticks: find sticks I'm no authority on the matter, but I'd like to imagine that cave-ramen was eaten with twigs.

When I was a kid I always thought "How do you eat rice with chopsticks? Do you pick up one grain at a time? That seems horribly inefficient."

According to the quote in this video, Confucius had something against people who did the intermediate steps of getting food from the farm to the "honorable" table. Definitely a product of his station and time.

1: Confucius was not a veggie 2: Metal fork and knives are kitchen tools, it is considered barbaric to use it on the dinner table. It is not civilized to use metal utensils on the dinner table, they are from porcelain. 3: Sharing food at the dinner table with family and friends is a social gathering and a joyful event. 4: With a chopstick you take each time just one bite size, it is impolite to pile up food on your plate.

What I learned about this is that Confucius also taught that soldiers should not eat with their knives because they were used to kill people. Objects for killing shouldn't mix with one's food. According to this, the use of chopsticks was promoted on the battlefield and contributed to the trend.

Simon looks like my pastor without glasses! 😂

I learned how to use chopsticks growing up because I loved getting Chinese takeout. I probably still don't them "correctly" but it works, food goes from plate to mouth.

the tuition fee for Confucius was ten stick of dry meat. and the honorable man quote is from his student's word

Call this an unfounded conspiracy theory but I once heard in a documentary that chopsticks first became common table utensils in Japan during a time of famine. I can definitely see a bunch of soldiers playing a game of "who's the best" with sticks from a shrine because a) they're bored, b) its sacrilegious c) it takes longer to eat that way so d) they feel more full with less food.

Wish our Aldi carried medium or short grained rice. It is also what is needed for risotto.

0:58 noooooo don't stick them in the food!!

Koreans use spoons for rice mostly. Also have aluminium or steel chopsticks.

Silver also kills microbiological pathogens which is the reason that silver plates and silverware became popular with those that could afford them. Not, that back in history, people understood microbiology, but they did understand that those who ate off silver got sick less often.

Fun fact, rice and potatoes is the future of biopolymer 3d printing technology in terran colonization.

Confucius once said: "Man who drops watch in toilet is bound to have a shitty time".

Jesus Christ, Whistler looks like one of the bad guys from the movie Goonies. Thank god he developed the ability to grow facial hair.

Eat all you can for a set price and then the restaurant gives you one chopstick.

Confucius sounds like he needs to check his privilege.