chopsticks

[skylee]

Not all Chinese can handle a whole fish with bones. I can't, and I can't handle whole shrimps and whole crabs either.

Since the outbreak of SARS, the HK Government has been promoting the use of 公筷. Actually it has been advocated for years but to no avail. But I think it's getting some success now since the disease kills. Now when I have Chinese meals with friends/co-workers, we all use 公筷 and 公匙. The switching between the shareuse chopsticks and the personal chopsticks needs some getting used to. But it is really not as troublesome as imagined.

Is the use of 公筷 adopted elsewhere?

[niubi]

i just had some whole shrimps last weekend...it took the tails and heads off though...and ate the rest of the shrimp including shell and dangling tiny legs. the methods in which chinese typically cook fish makes it quite easy to eat with chopsticks. however, i think its a convenience factor...like others here, i don't like "to fish" for fish bones in my mouth when i am eating fish. all shellfish of any kind from shrimp to crab to lobster, etc. etc. makes for messy eating and sometimes i just don't want to deal with it, though i love it all.

[skylee]

i just had some whole shrimps last weekend...it took the tails and heads off though...and ate the rest of the shrimp including shell and dangling tiny legs[/size'].

HORROR...

BTW, I hate it when airlines call the shrimps in their meals "prawns", giving me false expectation.

[Ian_Lee]

Actually the most skilled Chinese to handle those fishbones are those living in the Pearl River Delta. Their daily dish include either river fish or pond fish which usually has a lot of bones.

But the general rule is that the more bones a fish has, that kind of fish is more tasty.

[Lu]

(...) Is the use of 公筷 adopted elsewhere?

We used them in sars Beijing. Aand before that, in a Korean restaurant, we used one pair of kuaizi for the raw meat and one pair to take it off the barbecue and eat it.

[smithsgj]

Lu, I can't imagine anything else. Surely no-one at all, anywhere, ever would use the same chopsticks for raw meat and eating, unless they were completely stupid???? (I mean, unless using the other end of the chopsticks, or holding in boiling soup for a couple of seconds -- and neither of these practices strikes me as hygienic, though they are common)

[Guest Jasmine]

i just love shrimp fried rice......rice is the best in food.

[TSkillet]

The real skill which eludes me after 27-28 years of eating with chopsticks (I'm 29 now) is being able to cut with chopsticks - noodles, meat, and few other things. My dad can easily, my mom - sometimes - I gotta go to the kitchen and grab a knife.

[Ian_Lee]

Has anyone heard of the theory that holding different parts of chopsticks -- upper, middle, lower -- manifests his/her character?

[TSkillet]

Ian_Lee - only as dinner time jokes . . .I don't think anyone who told me took it seriously.

Different things I have heard:

Where you hold the chopsticks show how far away your eventual wife/husband will come from

People who hold the chopsticks too low are too eager, those far away are too aloof.

But who am I to talk, I cross my chopsticks, instead of using them correctly. (but based upon anecdotal evidence, at least 50% of the Chinese people I know do as well)

[wix]

Where you hold the chopsticks show how far away your eventual wife/husband will come from

I have heard this one, too.

Another tradition/superstition regarding chopsticks is that if you drop the chopsticks on the floor then you don't have to pay the bill in the restaurant.

[geek_frappa]

my love for chopsticks comes from eating baozi. i will try to drop chopsticks on the floor next time i am in a restaurant.

[Guest Chan]

Tho I believe that advanced people can do anything with chopstick as with western eating technics, my finger always hurt after holding them a long time