As a left-hander, I automatically offend my fellow diners when it comes to how I wield my chopsticks. Many a meal would begin with Dad complaining that he was sitting on the wrong side of Your Girl Reporter, as the ends of our utensils clashed and clattered together.
It’s a tradition that’s been embraced by the rest of the family so that every yum cha begins with a jostling of right-handed people trying to avoid sitting to my left.
I sometimes respond with a playful chopstick battle against my unfortunate neighbour. But it’s not good manners. After that, I usually sit slightly askew to try and avoid knocking sticks unintentionally – although that can end in the occasional skewering of a passing waiter.
It would therefore be ridiculous for me to start giving lessons in Hong Kong dining etiquette – but getting local with the social skills is an important part of hitting a new town and, luckily, I have an Extraordinary Uncle for that.
My honorary Uncle Bill Yim, Hong Kong’s legendary cartoonist, is the greatest people watcher I’ve ever known and he also loves good food. Putting the two things together makes dining out with Bill one of the great joys of life and I’m pleased to say I’ve been doing a lot of it lately.
He also never complains about sitting on my left, but that’s probably just good manners on his part, learned at an early age from a great teacher… his mum.
Bill says he was four years old when he first learned how to use chopsticks.
“My mother used to strike me across the knuckles with her spoon whenever I used the chopsticks to pick up my food with the back of my hand facing her,” Bill said.
“ ‘That’s bad chopsticks manners’, my furious mother would yell at me and warn she would hit me again if I didn’t stop doing that. ‘The back of your hand symbolises your behind. It’s rude to do that when eating with other people.’
“She then grabbed my right hand and gave it a little turn to the right so my palm faced up before I reached out for my food with my chopsticks. ‘Your palm represents your heart. Good table manners is to show you’re not hiding anything there when dining with other people,’ she said.”
Your Girl Reporter’s attention was immediately focused on whether I had been exposing my bottom all this time. Chopstick jousting suddenly seemed the least of my worries.
Bill says the origin of this tradition is unknown but one story goes that it started with a jealous concubine who tried to murder an emperor in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD).
Under cover of the dining habits of the time, she was able to hide poison underneath her palm which she quietly unloaded into the food she was serving to the ruler. Fortunately for him, the emperor’s personal silver chopsticks turned black as soon as they came into contact with the poison and he was saved.
The concubine was beheaded and a new palm-up dining fashion was born.
There are a few other taboos when using chopsticks and, Bill says, most people are not aware of them.
“Studying how people, both Chinese and non-Chinese, use their chopsticks when eating out in a Chinese restaurant is one of my favourite hobbies,” Bill said.
“And I’m not exaggerating to say most of them do not know their chopsticks etiquette.
“I’m not referring to the odd office worker who casually turns his chopsticks into a back-scratcher in the middle of a lunch in Wan Chai, or the playful kid who tries to create a scene by sticking them in his ears at a birthday party in a five-star hotel.”
Bill says there are certain superstitions based around the use or mis-use of these ancient eating utensils, although most people don’t take them too seriously these days.
Dropping your chopsticks in the middle of a dinner is one – it’s a sign of bad luck to come. This is something I do often, but the bad luck usually manifests in having a righty to my left.
If you find an uneven pair of chopsticks at your table setting, it is believed that you will miss the next train, boat or plane you try to catch.
Using your chopsticks to point at the waiter is obviously rude. It’s also uncouth to treat them like drumsticks and make a noise with them against your empty bowl. Bill says that’s because bowl-beating is associated with begging, from the days when beggars in China would go from door to door beating their empty bowls.
He saw some musicians let rip on their tableware at the end of their meal one night in the Mandarin Hotel, oblivious to their social transgression.
While Bill might forgive a little late-night percussive chopstick action, there are some taboos which are still taken seriously.
Do not plant your chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice.
“You’d be asked to leave the table if you did that,” Bill said.
“People do it only at funerals or on the altar of the deceased.”
“It’s also bad news to pass food from your chopsticks to another person’s. You might think you’re just trying to be cute in sharing a piece of pork spare-rib with your loved one, but this again is a funeral custom when the bones of the cremated are passed from one family member to another.”
So, there you have it. As far as Chinese table manners go, there are more rules than you can shake your sticks at. But don’t. It’s not polite to wave them around either. See you at yum cha. There’s bound to be a spare seat for you on my left.
© Maria Spackman 2018
You can read all about My Extraordinary Uncle Bill Yim here:
Wow! I knew there was a certain etiquette re the use of chopsticks but now I know it’s much more complicated than I imagined. Obviously I should take more meals with my old chum Bill Yim.