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Interesting. Some of these are big deals (particularly the ones mentioned as important) but others I have seen Japanese people in Tokyo do quite consistently. Soroebashi - not on the table, but I've seen chopsticks aligned by pushing them against the plate hundreds of time. I've also seen them used to stir miso soup, etc. plenty.

Others I don't know that I would have much of an inclination to do and haven't seen but am not sure if it's because it really is a faux pas or just because no one else really tends to do it either.

I think if you were to do an Osaka version of this, the list would be limited to maybe 4 of these (licking, chopsticks upright in rice, passing between chopsticks, and pointing esp. toward a senior would be taboo).

Whereas when I had a date with a girl from Kyoto, one of the first things that happened when we went to eat was she had to stop me from picking up my chopsticks impolitely and show me the proper way of doing it.

Suffice it to say my Osaka-learned table manners and speech patterns meant there was no second date.

There's equally complex dining and utensils etiquette in Western culture but it's largely omitted (or even unknown) on daily basis.
I assume this is one of those cases where if you're in the culture, you'll know which rules you're allowed to break (and when) vs if you're on the outside it's easiest to just follow all the rules all the time.

Reminds me of an episode on youtube of How The British Upper Class Live | Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over where the presenter eats her eggs "wrong", much to the dismay of her posh host who tells her (in his subtle British way) that she should "sort that out".

it's like western etiquette: upper class, fine dining traditional practices are not what you'll see everyday even among polite society. the spectrum of behaviors will also depend on one's company.
I've seen those too. I was going to say that I've seen people put the bowl to their mouth and shovel food in with chopsticks, but now that I come to think about it that might well actually be from the series Tokyo Diner and Takeshi Kitano films, and may be deliberately uncouth characterisations...
I’m Japanese, but honestly, I don’t pay much attention to it. My parents used to get on me about it when I was a kid, but I still do it sometimes.
I see lots of people do things that are commonly written off as rude too. I don't know if there is much of a monoculture around what's rude or not, if people don't care (then is it truly rude?), or maybe the writings like this are simply outdated.
I am reminded of the passage in Umberto Eco's _Foucault's Pendulum_ where they reconstruct a particularly wild weekend for a Templar based on the rule of the Templars and the idea that a rule exists because it's something people do.
My heart is lightened to learn inserting the chopsticks into your mouth to make walrus fangs is not taboo.
When I first moved to Taiwan and was just getting a handle on Chinese, I asked a waiter "請給我一個筷子" - not yet being familiar with proper measure words.

The waiter (who had a bit of a sense of humor) brought me exactly ONE chopstick. I laughed and repeated 請給我另一個筷子 (Please give me another chopstick) and he brought out another one.

Of course later my friend told me that I should have used 雙 to indicate I wanted a "pair" of chopsticks.

Phew, I'm glad "inserting them into your nostrils and braying like a walrus" isn't on the list.
The article does a good job calling out the more serious offenses, although I’d personally argue that nigiribashi is just as bad as the other two. Most Japanese people would probably react with a bit of shock to those.

That said, chopstick etiquette is definitely evolving. Something like chobujubashi isn’t enforced as strictly anymore, especially with more awareness around left-handed users. Kaeshibashi, on the other hand, is becoming more common, and in some social circles, not doing it can actually come across as rude.

I was shocked to find it's a faux pas to rub disposable chopsticks to remove potential splinters. I was taught this is what you're supposed to do with disposable chopsticks.
For anyone else curious after reading "-bashi" 40 times:

(Not gonna direct quote because the damn site doesn't allow copy-pasting so they don't get a link, paraphrased):

Kirai-bashi would be literally translated to "dislike-chopsticks" and means bad chopstick table-manners. Hashi is chopsticks and bashi is the voiced form of it.

So the bashi suffix/word on the end of all of these just means chopsticks it seems.

Hashibashi - does this mean it's okay to place the chopsticks across the top if it's not to show you're finished? I heard that was okay as long as you align them not to point at another person (not across the table). If there's no chopstick rest I'm not sure where else you're supposed to put your chopsticks.

Also I'm not sure how you're supposed to eat e.g. fried rice without yokobashi or kakibashi.

Also! I thought kaeshibashi was a good thing. I've definitely seen people do that at parties.

I lived in Japan for nearly 6 years and found that concern for faux pas such as these for hashi (chopsticks) are way way overblown. I used at least one thousand disposable pairs of chopsticks in Japan and never had the desire to smooth them -- they are higher quality than Panda Express offerings. I knew about this "taboo" prior to arrival and it was simply irrelevant. Avoid the obvious symbolic references to makura gohan (bowl of rice offering to the deceased) at the end of your meal and you are probably golden. If you have kids in Japan, gaijin passing food with chopsticks to their children in a restaurant is going to be seen in a neutral or even sympathetic light. The Japanese may silently judge but they rarely sneer or harass. If you spend a lot of time with modern Japanese families you might be surprised to discover Western stereotypes of Japanese taboos are sometimes outdated and even incorrect. They are very aware that foreigners will not understand all of their customs, and many of those customs have decreasing importance as their culture evolves.
> こじ箸 Kojibashi (also known as ほじり箸 hojiribashi)

> To use the chopsticks to pick something out from near the bottom of the dish.

I think there must be some bits that are lost in translation for some of these. This makes it sound like you can't eat all of the food in a bowl with your chopsticks.

Most of these are common sense. As a tourist foreigner, you also aren't expected to know all the customs but it's appreciated when you try. The one about which direction to NOT point the chopsticks in was new to me. If you just watch what other people are doing, then try to do the same thing, you're probably on the right track.

Related to eating, one pro-tip I got from a local is that when you're ready to close your tab or get your check at a bar or restaurant, you can make a small X with your index fingers.

Really useful in a busy bar!

Some of these sound just as made-up as a lot of Western dining "rules." Maybe someone more familiar with the culture can say whether or not these are true faux pas in an everyday ramen shop or similar.
> To place one’s mouth against the side of a dish and push food in with the chopsticks.

I've seen people eat noodles and broth (e.g., ramen) like that a million times? What am I missing? How do you properly eat noodles and broth?

Always interesting to see the analogs of island vs continental culture when comparing UK <-> America and Japan <-> China. Seems like islanders, due to their reliance on trade, naturally get specialized and autistic about their craft so they can have a comparative advantage, and their obsessions carry over into stuffy traditional practices.

  こすり箸 Kosuribashi:
 To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters.
I don't know about Japan, but everybody does this in Taiwan.
> To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.

Huh, this is something that I did consistently, believing it to be good etiquette.

I once see someone's chopsticks taken away from them and replaced with a knife and fork. I've always wondered what they did wrong. Now I see they probably covered half this list. Haha
Fairly much common sense advice, with some cultural taboos like resting chopsticks pointing to the right.

I have always been a little embarrassed by my own use of chopsticks. When I was three or four years old a waitress in a Chinese restaurant helped me figure out a way to hold them that worked for me. Long story short, I am in my 70s and I have very effectively been getting food efficiently into my mouth with chopsticks my whole life - with horrible style.

Couple of funeral related ones, couple of odd customs, and the rest are "imagine what an overbearing parent would say to their 6 yo using chopsticks"
Would it not have been easier to just write down what is actually "allowed" :D
There are only 2 that really matter, those marked with "serious" because they remind of funeral rites (passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks or sticking them in rice).

Japanese people will tell you about those because they really don't like seeing people do it.

The rest, well, don't worry about it.

OK, I was probably never going to visit Japan, and this convinced me the rest of the way.
What a coincidence... I was just in my backyard shed playing with my robot chopstick. https://youtu.be/BhBXliscj0I
Does it bother anyone else when people use their teeth to scrape food off a metal utensil (rather than lips, or teeth to food)? I wish English had a specific word for that affront.
I did this once and was scolded by my date:

!!! (Serious) To stand chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice. This is taboo, as it is the way rice is presented as a Buddhist funeral offering.

Chobukubashi would make being left-handed decidedly annoying.
> 移り箸 Utsuribashi (also known as 渡り箸 wataribashi)

> To keep putting the chopsticks into the same side dishes. It is proper etiquette to first eat rice, move on to eat from a side dish, eat rice again, and then eat from a different side dish.

So keto itself is a faux pas?

> 返し箸 Kaeshibashi (also known as 逆さ箸 sakasabashi)

> To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.

Ewww. I’d rather be rude than share germs.

Fascinating culture and raises numerous questions arising from my subsequent confusion:

1. > 返し箸 Kaeshibashi (also known as 逆さ箸 sakasabashi)

> To turn the chopsticks around when serving food so that the tips of the chopsticks that have touched one’s mouth do not touch the food.

Does this mean it is preferable to use the tips that may have touched mouth to then serve more food? Or is this considered fine because it's also taboo to touch the tips to your mouth? (which only a BARBARIAN would do!)

2. > こすり箸 Kosuribashi

> To rub waribashi (disposable chopsticks) together to remove splinters.

Just proceed to eat some splinters, then? What is the good etiquette way to handle low quality el-cheapo chopsticks?

---

I have been guilty of the above as well as:

Chigiribashi - Hold one chopstick in each hand and use them like a knife and fork to tear or cut food into smaller pieces.

Soroebashi - Hold chopsticks together and tap them on a dish or the top of the table to align the tips.

Namidabashi - Allow sauce or soup to drip from the tips of the chopsticks when eating. Namida means “tears.”

Nigiribashi - Grip both chopsticks in a fist.

Neburibashi - Lick the chopsticks.

Hashibashi - Place the chopsticks like a bridge across the top of a dish to show one is finished. Chopsticks should be placed on the hashioki (chopstick rest).

Furibashi - Shake off soup, sauce, or small bits of food from the tips of the chopsticks.

Mogibashi - Bite off and eat grains of rice that are stuck to the chopsticks.

Yokobashi - Line the chopsticks up together and use them like a spoon to scoop up food.

.. growing up my mom used to say, "What are you, raised by wolves!?" .. apparently, yes!

Glad to know I haven’t picked up any seriously bad habits, but how the heck do you keep the chopsticks aligned without tapping them somewhere?

Most of these seem related to health/sanitary practices/being considerate more than anything. Just avoiding contaminating what others are going to eat with your own utensils is an easy way to describe several of them.

> To raise the tips of the chopsticks higher than the back of one’s hand.

Not doing this is just going to be awkward. I have food between the chopsticks, and I'm rotating my hand to place the food in my mouth and the tips will become higher than the back of my hand. Otherwise will commit agebashi.

Some of these are considered rude, but ibd I do a lot of them, anyway e.g. rubbing disposable chopsticks to remove splinters, because a chopstick splinter in the gums is miserable, and using chopsticks to cut apart food. They seem less like faux pas and more like strategies. Plus, not Japanese.
My partner and I share everything we eat. I think we have passed food between chopsticks before. What's the "proper" way to do this? Just reach in to the other bowl?

Also wondering how many of these apply in a Chinese setting or any other chopstick culture. Are there a different set of taboos?

I am a yokobashi offender.

How rude is it? When the food is not well prepared for chopsticks it’s really useful. But I do see why it’s rude, because it does imply that the food is not quite right. The Chinese restaurants in my country seem to have a problem making properly sticky rice.

Some of these I’ve been told are taboos in the opposite way. For example, the one about serving or taking food from the opposite end of the chopsticks, I was told, is polite. But here they say it is taboo. Maybe they meant it’s taboo not to do that?
I love how they have words for the different kinds of rule breaking. Truly civilized people.
This would make a great poster to give to our local sushi bar chef/friend.

edit: Gemini makes great infographics https://imgur.com/a/V2D9VlM

> Kuwaebashi - To take the tips of the chopsticks in one’s mouth.

Does it mean without food?

This raises the question of what are the funeral rites.

They piece through the ashes of a cremation and pass them between each other?

I know the modern style of conveyor belt cremation is a bit impersonal.

It’ll take me a while to process this.

Highly instructive, and some quite surprising to me as a gaijin.

> To take the tips of the chopsticks in one’s mouth.

Sometimes I'm having a hard time avoiding that. Apparently I need more practice.