How to Use Chopsticks the Right Way? | Eat China: Back to Basics S4E4 

How do you hold your chopsticks🥢? Team pincers or scissors?

A few months ago I noticed the way I hold chopsticks was different than everywhere I see in media. I thought I was doing it wrong, but can pick up dry rice grains so I ignored it. I sat in a Chinese restaurant and saw the older Chinese patrons held them the way I do, then it hit me. I was taught how to use them somewhere around 5 years old by the Chinese owner of a local restaurant where I grew up because she was very fond of my family and took interest in the little white kid. I inadvertently learned the traditional Chinese method, because we frequented that place so often.

I was 9 y/o and was living in Hawaii when my father taught me to use chopsticks by picking up peanuts. Later, I graduated to grains of Rice. I am 76 now and will sometimes take a pair with me when I go out to eat. Excellent video!

My mother is from Yokohama Japan and I remember as a twelve year old kid here in Texas being taught by my grandmother how to use chopsticks and getting Mad and saying "It's Impossible and I would Never be able to learn!!" My grandmother very humorously pointed out the fact that I have a three-year-old-cousin who could use them proficiently and did I not have the same skills as a little three-year-old girl?!? Needless to say I am Exceptionally Proficient with chopsticks today!!! 🤠👍🇯🇵

I used to use scissor, but I broke my arm and was in a cast for a month before surgery, so had to learn to use chopsticks with my left hand. Learned pincer in 2 days and when I went back to my right hand, I had already forgotten how to use scissor, and naturally used pincer lol. so if you use scissor, and are finding it hard to learn pincer, maybe try forcing yourself to learn it with your non-dominant hand

I used to hold chopsticks like scissors when I was a kid but eventually learned the pincer way tho a slightly different grip. Having a collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean style chopsticks comes in handy for different cuisines rice to spaghetti an even for snacks like chips and cheetos cause its so easy to pick them out of the bag without getting my hands dirty XD

I used to hate them until I got older, now I love using them!

My parents both use the pincer method and I remember the instructions on chopstick wrappers in restaurants showing the pincer method. All this time, I just thought I was holding chopsticks wrong, but now I know it’s the accepted scissor method!

Lived in China for 5 years, and was taught using peanuts. My workers told me start picking up one peanut, when easy, add another peanut. When I could pickup three peanuts at once, I was proficient. Funny story, on trip to Taiwan wearing white shirt and tie (meeting customer), they took me to noodle restaurant for lunch. White shirt was speckled within minutes! 😂

When I first arrived in China I could barely use chopsticks. There were lots of Japanese students also learning Chinese in the school I attended. They taught me the more useful method detailed in the video.

Every chopstick tutorials I see in RU-vid teach the traditional way. But no one I see in person, no one in Chinese TikTok uses that way. I wish someone surveys on how people use it.

OK, so I had a noodle soup this morning. Since I live here, I have been teaching myself to use chopsticks for noodle soup, up to the point it has become automatic. And suddenly I remembered the video, how am I holding my chopsticks? The moving one is hold by thump and index finger, the fixed one is slit in the crook of the thumb and hold by middle finger. I will not try to dry bean challenge, but I guess I would manage to grab an honest number, even if my hold is not the most elegant one. Fried yellow noddles and chicken soup with star anise. Yummy!

Spork enters the room: Kneel, peasants!

I had never tried eating with chopsticks, but this video encouraged me, I plan to visit China So I decided to learn the pinchers pincing method because I think it was more elegant. I want to impress🙄 the Chinese by eating correctly and politely with chopsticks,I’m so excited about the progress🙃🤣 ❤

I had no idea there was two ways to hold chopsticks. I thought the pincer method was the only way. I taught myself to use chopsticks by eating bowls of frozen peas. I was a strange kid!

Instinctively used pincer, never would’ve guessed it was actually right.😂

I love this series so much!!!!

I'm not Chinese and no one taught me how to hold chopsticks, but surprisingly, I hold it like the etiquette teacher! I can pick up a single grain of rice with it...

I’m italian and i found chopsticks very useful when cooking. Then i got my citizenship revoked.

yep. like Liu, i was chopstick-tapped on the back of my hand to learn the proper way when i was young. made a hell of a difference now. no negative impact nor need for therapy because of a few light taps.

I was around 35 and was going to a lot of sushi places and couldn't use chopsticks at all - it was like a slapstick comedy to watch me try to use them. I grabbed a set of disposable ones on the way out and spent a couple weeks just using them to pick stuff up around my home. Next time we went out for sushi it was no longer an issue to use chopsticks. A few months later my wife and I were out with one of her girlfriends, who was from Taiwan, and she commented that I was the only non-Asian she knew that didn't hold them like a peasant with half the chopsticks hanging out over the back of my hand. I could, apparently, pass for upper-class Chinese based on my chopsticks technique. I've since purchased a variety of chopsticks for personal use. My favorites are rather long wood ones with tapered, but not pointed, ends. I've found out that you can score some major respect at dim sum restaurants if you bring your own chopsticks and use them well. Which you almost half to do since the ones they supply are smooth plastic without a textured tip and you can't grip a damned thing with them.

a friend of mine is able to deshell a shrimp with just one pair of chopsticks on one hand. she wasn't even showing off but i was amazed.

I have the added pleasantness of being left handed. I have somehow learned the '"proper" way to hold them. I will have to get the beans out and give it a go. I can grab one grain of rice and pick it up. Maybe that is too easy though.

I learned to use chopsticks as a kid from my dad who learned it when his family lived in Vancouver for a while when he was a kid. I didn't know what the method was called, but I use pincer method. There is a modest collection of chopsticks in my cutlery drawer that I use regularly. Mostly I use them for eating, but they are very useful for bringing things out of jars for cooking that I don't want to use my hands for, like kimchi

I literally bought my first pair chopsticks i literally learned watching this video 😂😂

Of the four contestant, Robin (top left) uses Standard Grip. Top right looks like Idling Thumb. Bottom left looks like Scissorhand or Italian Grip. The bottom right appears to be the narrator herself - her grip looks new - maybe a variant of Scissorhand.

Seeing this reminded me of the time my wife asked me if I could eat yogurt with chopsticks. I told her, "I don't know. Maybe." I proceeded to eat a cup of yogurt in front of her with chopsticks without dropping a drop 🤣

When used correctly chopsticks are way more precise than a fork could ever be and they force you to eat at a slower pace naturally, which is healthier.I was taught the pincers method.

My favorite utensils are a good spork and chopsticks. Sporks are the best for foods like fried rice, tuna Mac, basically anything scoopable with chunks. Chopsticks are great for nearly everything else. I find that if there’s something I can’t properly and comfortably eat with either of those, then it’s probably not prepared properly or something. People say “what about a steak or something?!” like they got me… you just hold it with the chopsticks and slice it normally.. same as a fork. Pick up your slice of steak and eat it. Or hold it with a spork, cut it… grab a little scoop of mashed potatoes, some veggie and steak.. all in one bite. A spork and chopsticks work for everything. (Obviously a knife doesn’t count… that’s like saying salt and pepper is an ingredient. You include a knife if you need it, like with a steak or something.)

Im American and prefer to use chopsticks. I recently spent a week making a pair of steel chopsticks by hand. I put some decorative file work near the top. Also put a blue and gold oxide layer on them and made a leather case for them. If you are decent at using chopsticks try using them next time you're eating a bag of chips. It saves your fingers from getting all dirty. Ive had to alter the way i hold chopsticks because i lost about a half inch of my middle finger on my dominant hand. Took a while to re learn how to use them without the tip of my finger. If i can use them then anyone can. Its really not hard.

That guy will be Chinese Kingsman

My mom hated being taught via the beat-your-hand method. She gave me M&Ms instead. First starting with peanut then graduating to normal ones or Skittles.

i think i my teacher in like 5th grade taught us how to use them by practicing picking up marshmallows one day. i wasn't particularly good at it but loved going to Asian buffets. I would just make a point to try using chopsticks each time i went and kept trying different ways. this was before i really knew how to use the internet and i ended up developing the pincer method on my own and its the one thats stuck with me.

I always use parallel. It’s great.

I feel so validated by all of you lol. I've been using the scissor method. My family could never teach me the "correct" way of using chopsticks and so I managed. I grew up eating most of my food with a spoon. I'm awful at using the knife and fork too. I'm just second gen trash I guess.

I was taught as a kid to practice with grains of rice and crushed pieces ice. This was back in the early 80's

I used the scissor method when I was really young, then my dad trained me to do the pincer method.

I grew up learning the pincer way using the blunt tip Chinese chopsticks. Lately though I tend to prefer using the thin tip Japanese chopsticks. I feel like they give me more accuracy and precision picking up food.

in germany they had a spoon bind to them as personal food item and i adore that

Me and some friends learned how to use them (traditional) while watching a movie and eating popcorn, rule being only eat popcorn you manage to pick up. By the end of the movie we could steal popcorn someone else had already picked up withtheir own chopsticks. Good fun way to learn

Wow. Very long time ago I traveled to Malaysia and was taken to a Japanese restaurant. I didn't know anything and had no idea what was I trying to eat with the chopsticks. It was so embarrassing. First time holding chopsticks. I couldn't pick up anything. After painfully long while someone finally brought me a fork. I am much better with them now. All that chopstick etiquette was very interesting and very impressive ❤

Chopsticks are convenient and have a natural feel, (refer to wood or bamboo).

Many people in Mauritius like to eat noodles with stir fry but uses fork and spoon, as much more practical !

I eat everything with chopsticks including potatoes chips 😜

Fulcrum come in. Yaaaaah Yodie GANG you feel me

I am European American, not Chinese. I taught myself to use chopsticks when I went to Chinese restaurants in America starting at the age of 12. In China, I was declared a chopstick master when I picked up an ice cube from one glass and put it in my glass using only chopsticks. Yes, ice cubes are available in some restaurants in China. Hold one chopstick inside of the thumb pivot fold to across the top of the ring finger nail. Hold the other chopstick in the crook of the index finger to the top of the finger nail of the middle finger. Hold both chopsticks down with the thumb. Then line up the tips of the chopsticks by pointing them down onto a flat surface. To open and close the chopsticks, just move the index and middle fingers in unison. This grip provides maximum control and force to pick up almost any size food. I like to use chopsticks for eating salad, tater tots, and food I don't want to pierce with a fork.

It was great

I started out with the scissor method because that was what everyone I knew used, but never quite got the hand of it. Then one day I tried holding my chopsticks a bit different, more like an extension on my fingers, and everything was easy - turns out I switched to the pincer method.

:3 All four of the Chineseeeee girls had trouble picking up red beans with chopsticks, and I'm not even East Asian, but I can pick up peanuts, small bits of ramen, tofu, broccoli, carrots, chow mein, eggplant, fries, and so forth with them. Lulz. 💀💀💀💀💀

Pincer method is the correct method.

I use Robin's method. I stopped by here to see if my way was the best and I think it is, I'd have no problem picking up the beans, I can pick up individual grains of rice. What I have noticed is that with the Robin method my hand can get fatigued.

It's like watching someone try to write, but with chopsticks. Number 2 was when I was a kid still learning coordination and HATING chopsticks when I was a kid.

I learned that to learn how to use chopsticks properly, you hold the top stick like a pencil for control, and the lower one in the crook of your thumb as a base (basically, the pincer method) and try to pick up a single grain of rice. I did it, so, it is possible. Now, actually eating a bowl of rice with chopsticks is a different technique (shoveling the rice into your mouth from the bowl with both sticks)... Of course, when frustration sets in, there is always the stabbing method... ;-P

Team pincer - was trained by my parents by picking up M&ms, always have a pair of Chopsticks with me

So interesting

Food halls are one of the only “third spaces” in my area. Too bad it’s a long drive away. I agree with entirely. It think food halls CAN be good for a community. But they need to be OWNED by that community for it to work.

I'm curious to learn how to use the chopsticks, I'm just starting 🥰 👍 💯 👍 🙏 ... 🎉

I just love Chinese spoons. I have about 4 or 5 of them. The only Way to Go.

3:00 As a 🇩🇪 I'd have come 2nd place on the challenge easily 😅 I use a derivative of the parallel method, while the lower stick usually rests on my middle finger not on the ring finger and the pinching looks a bit different 😅

Don't forget that chopsticks also have a huge economic advantage - saving an expensive raw material such as metal or copper - instead they use a cheap and available raw material bamboo Thus the cost is part of the convenience

I know the Triad hold. :)

I'm trying to hold them the proper way. But I've held them another way for years. Time to retrain my fingers.😅

i only know how to use 1st one taught by my friend when i was at asian restaurant, i got it immediately lol didnt expect that

I was practicing using metal round chopsticks with grains of rice, then i moved on with wood chopsticks and tried it with grains of rice again.

The trick is to do it with the hand relaxed.

Before cancer, I used to be able to pick up three peanuts at once. Stacked mind you, with the middle peanut touching only the other two.

A question to Europeans: how often do Europeans choke while eating? Here in Japan recently a first-grader child died from choking when trying to eat a quail boiled egg. It makes me wonder if the habit of eating with chopsticks has anything to do with it. Chopsticks don't cut the food, they are simply used to bring the food to the mouth. You need to cut the food with own your teeth. But children and old people usually don't have perfect teeth, so it may be difficult for them to cut or chew the food properly, and consequently may end up choking. But Europeans eat with knife and fork. So theoretically it is possible to eat with knife and fork even without having any teeth. So theoretically there are less cases of choking in Europe than Japan???

Chopsticks are not my preferred utensil, I was raised with spoons and forks. I'm stunned that people would even think that the scissor method was workable.

One thing to be said about Korean chopsticks is that, after you're used to them, you can't use anything else. Using blunt Chinese chopsticks feels as if your fingers became twice thicker and using Japanese ones feel too thin when you're eating steamed rice. However, Korean ones are noticeably heavier than any others, so there's that.

Until I had a stroke I was vertical good with chopsticks 🎉

PINCER for the win!!

i just want to say the competition was not due to superior chopstick anatomy but because he had better quality chopsticks for picking up beans

I prefer my chopsticks to taper to a fine point. I've hand sanded sets before lol, oddly enough the set of chop sticks included in the kungfu panda collectors edition game for world of Warcraft is the perfect taper lol.

Nice

That’s cool!!! Thanks for the info.❤️

I never heard of the scissor method

I’ve tried the pincer method many times and the lower chopstick always slides along the inside of my right finger when I lift the top stick .

0:35 WHO DAT ?

I remember finding chopsticks hard trying to do it the way someone told me. I eventually tried chopsticks again many years later and just decided to hold them my own way and it was easy, whoever told me I’m supposed to put a finger in between the chopsticks why are you the way you are.

I use a variant of A. I press the bottom stick against the end of my ring finger.

or you holdl both chopsticks together and use them like a spoon to scoop up stuff.

remember kids, pencil technique! in hindsight, never knew just how much of a god i am, always complimented by granny, so sweet

I just can't stabilize my fingers enough to use chopsticks. With the pincer grip, the bottom stick slides off a lot and the pincer fingers are not strong enough to move smoothly and grip.

I'd so kick his butt in the beans challenge by using them completely unconventionally. Just hold them parallel and then scoop up a line of beans :P Yeah it's not proper, but it's definitely the fastest for this particular challenge.

The funny part was it was only when I went to China to see my mother's family's ancestral home that I found out I'm the only person in the family ober in our country who uses chopsticks properly. My uncle realized at breakfast when everyone was having issues with picking up tofu and nuts while I was there using 4 chopsticks at once dual wield stuffing myself. Because nobody taught me and I learnt how on my own. It was the same time I got rid of my peanut allergy. Kill 2 birds with one stone. Learn how to pick up peanuts with chopsticks and overload the allergy reaction until it permanently stops. I funnily enough am also the only one in the family that actually uses metal chopsticks. I have 2 sets of them, flat and round ones. The flat ones come in a set with a spoon and fork all rose gold at the top half.

I'm a white guy in a very white area and had little to no contact with Asian culture growing up. So I'm not sure why I learned the pincer method all on my own in college and quickly. It just feels natural, like holding a pencil. That was 50 years ago. People who don't know how to hold a pen or pencil properly also tend to use the scissor method. For the life of me, I don't know how those people manage ether one comfortably or effectively. I just wish that the Chinese restaurant I've gone to weekly for 20 years would remember that I use chopsticks... I always have to ask. Sigh... I guess we all look alike! 😂

His way is harder for me to do. When i use just my index and thumb and have it between my index and middle finger it's way easy for me to pick up peas.

Funny enough i came from seeing how geisha's use chopsticks & they also used the bean game

My thumb is double-jointed at the knuckle so I hold chopsticks the way people hold pencils, yet my pencil grip is completely different lol

I just learning to use chopsticks.. but idk if I have for 3 months, 😅

I have adapted the design too. They are now metal and one has 5 prongs and the other has a cutting edge and a flat surface for spreading soft food items

Lol, I do use either method. I've tried, but it just won't work, so I kinda just taught myself how to use them. I know refuse to eat certain foods without my chopsticks, especially noodles, they just taste better when using chopsticks

Can’t stand people who don’t learn to use chopsticks properly. It’s the basic of Chinese culture. Should show some respect. Even the Japanese and Korean can hold chopsticks better.

length of chinese chopsticks? im planning to buy one.

While people traditionally use spoon in Thailand, every none used to know how to use chopsticks, but I feel that it is not true anymore. Among younger generation, many will prefer a fork to eat noddle soup.

There's also the 'scoop with parallel sticks' for small or sticky foods. Put the sticks almost parallel (make the ends slightly closer so the beans gravitate towards your hand) at a distance smaller than the beans and carefully scoop up beans, then you can get 5 beans on 2 sticks. Sure you go half the speed, but at 5 times the beans per load you go 2.5 times as fast. Forget 'the right way', the best style is no style...

3:48

Whenever I see people holding chopsticks close to the “eating end” I feel the same way I feel when someone holds a hammer in the middle 🙅🏼‍♀️

I was told I became proficient at age two......picking up a Chinese soup spoon with ease.

I live in Poland, central Europe. I can easily pick up individual grains or small green peas with chopsticks. But I v no idea the differences between the countries, I developed my own "style" 😂😂😂😂