Correct Way of Holding Chopsticks

One of the themes I cover a lot is how there always seems to be a “right” way of doing things in Japan, which feels odd when coming from the more diverse U.S. For example, every kanji character taught to children has a specific stroke order, and students who can write a character correctly but not in the proper order will still get it wrong on a test. The Japanese obsession with doing things the “right way” is so intense, their version of “chicken scratch” lines we use when counting in the U.S. is the character for “correct” (tadashii). There’s one right way to hold chopsticks, too, although it’s not uncommon for a person to develop their own style of chopstick-holding, and I remember having discussions with my ESL students about how this person or that held their chopsticks “funny” while eating. My son is one of those people who holds his chopsticks in a non-standard way, although I’ll be darned if I can see any difference. Recently he got his first official girlfriend, and the two of them went into Tokyo to visit an amusement park and have dinner together. He was nervous enough about eating with chopsticks in front of his girlfriend that he went out of his way to order curry, so he could eat with a spoon.

As with most things in Japan, there one “correct” way to hold chopsticks.