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Dining Guide / Japanese Dining

Chopstick Taboos

Laying chopsticks across a bowl, stabbing food, passing food chopstick to chopstick: here are the chopstick taboos (kirai-bashi) to avoid in Japan, and the reasons behind them.

Chopstick Taboos

Key Points

  1. Watashi-bashi: laying chopsticks across a bowl. It can signal you're finished and may scratch the bowl. Use the rest instead.
  2. Mayoi-bashi and yose-bashi: hovering over dishes while deciding, and pulling a dish toward you with your chopsticks. To move a dish, put your chopsticks down and use your hands.
  3. Sashi-bashi and neburi-bashi: stabbing food, and licking your chopsticks. For slippery food, bring the dish closer and grip it.
  4. Jika-bashi: taking food from a shared platter with your own chopsticks. Use serving chopsticks, or ask the staff for some.
  5. Hashi-watashi and tate-bashi: passing food chopstick to chopstick, and standing chopsticks in rice. Both recall funeral rites — bones are passed this way after cremation, and rice with standing chopsticks is offered to the dead.
  6. Pointing: aiming your chopsticks at people or things. Put them down when you talk.

Do

  • Use your hands, not chopsticks, to move dishes
  • Use serving chopsticks for shared platters
  • Rest your chopsticks when you talk

Avoid

  • Laying chopsticks across a bowl
  • Stabbing food with chopsticks
  • Passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks

Handy Tip

Most taboos come down to using chopsticks for something other than bringing food to your mouth — moving dishes, pointing, stabbing. When in doubt, put them down.

Customs That Vary

Flipping chopsticks to serve yourself with the other end (sakasa-bashi) is a traditional workaround, but more people now avoid it because the end your hand held touches the food. Among family and close friends, some households don't mind jika-bashi at all.

Practice in a Lesson

Sources