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71). Because of this, with few exceptions, the Japanese eat nearly everything with chopsticks. Many Japanese do not want to eat sandwiches with their hands, and in Japan, sandwiches are cut into small pieces and served with toothpicks (Grew, p. 266). Chopsticks play an important role from a child's earliest days in Japan to teach the importance of not eating with the hands. Around 100 days after its birth, a small ceremony is held where the child is introduced to solid food. Soft food suitable for a small baby is prepared and placed in front of the child. The mother uses never-before-used chopsticks to give the baby morsels of the solid food (Hendry, p. 36).
But while the Japanese culture was using chopsticks as part of a cultural interest in cleanliness, in China, chopsticks became a symbol of their cultural value on belonging to a group rather than standing out as an individual. In some parts of China, older members of a group prepared the food, cooking at the middle of a table and using chopsticks to manipulate the cooking food. The round table and group food preparation emphasized the group mentality. In addition, people used their chopsticks to pull food from the communal...
They felt that sharing utensils and glasses with others emphasized that people were not selfless and could act as "selfless friends" (Shih, p. 82).
By considering how the same cooking utensil is viewed in varying cultures where it is used, those interested in the history of food can see that simple every day objects such as chopsticks can tell an observant person a lot about the culture from which the tool has developed.
SOURCES
Department of Anthropology, California Academy of Sciences (CAS). "Chopsticks." The History of Eathing Utensils. DATE. DATE. http://www.calacademy.org/RESEARCH/anthropology/utensil/chpstck.htm.
Grew, Raymond. Food in Global History. New York: Westview Press, 1999.
Hendry, Joy. Becoming Japanese: The World of the Pre-School Child. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1986.
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. "Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time." Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Shih, Chih-Yu. Negotiating Ethnicity in China: Citizenship as a Response to the State. Oxford, England: Routledge, 2002.
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