About Japanese chopsticks

Our Japanese online store has a nice and large selection of made in Japan chopsticks.

Chopstix, chop sticks, chopstick are common writing mistakes so why don't you start by only calling them Hashi?

The Japanese chopsticks (Hashi 箸) have been holy tools for religious services in which Japanese offer food to a god. It was thought that chopsticks were tools to be used when a god and human beings had a meal together.

They can be used in many different ways such as holding small things, cutting, and splitting. Of course it depends on your skills and if you know how to use "the chopsticks". But the more chopsticks became popular the more the original way to employ them has changed. For example, it is also a perfect tool to fix your hair. The eating chopsticks became the hair chopsticks. Why not? They can truly be beautiful and it's only natural to feel like showing them.

Also, we have a nice selection of chopsticks gift sets for any special occasion. And for those who would like to bring their chopsticks anywhere, we have a special selection of Japanese chopsticks with case.

Easy to use for cooking, you would love our cooking chopsticks!

This is why you will surely like our selection of high quality, wood and bamboo chopsticks and chopsticks rest. We chose for you some design related with Japanese culture and arts. You will feel like a part of Japan is in your hands. Also, we have a nice collection of ramen spoons (renge) and Japanese spoons for those who don't like using chospticks.

You will want to show them, your friends will want them!

Chopsticks history in Japan

Spoon, hands, chopsticks...

In the Yayoi period (Iron Age era in the history of Japan traditionally dated 300 BC to 300 AD), when rice cultivation began, people initially ate porridge made from unpolished rice and cereals. How did they eat their meals?

It is thought that they ate their porridge from bowls with spoons because some wooden spoons have been found in ruins from the Yayoi period. Afterward, people began to eat steamed rice. In the Gishiwajinden ( records of Wei account of the Wa people), a book written in China at the end of the third century, there is a passage describing the Japanese eating with their hands.

In the Nara period (710 to 794 AD), chopsticks, made from a stick of bamboo bent into a tweezers-like shape, were introduced in Japan. Later, two sticks began to be used as chopsticks just as in the present day. The spoon never came back into use again, because as chopsticks were being used in the daily life, the custom developed of lifting up the bowl and drinking straight from it.

How to use chopsticks in Japan

The way of using chopsticks

In Japan, people have to master how to hold chopsticks the right way, to be able to use them properly. It’s not only about technical skills, but there is a special rule of etiquette which is different for each action, from picking the chopsticks up to putting them down.

There is something people must not do with chopsticks. For example, let's talk about "Koji-bashi", when people only pick up their favorite food from a dish. This is a little survival guide to eat in Japan with chopsticks:

• Sashi-bashi: Stabbing food like potatoes or tomatoes.
• Odori-bashi: Talking while waving your chopsticks in the air or pointing them to someone or something.
• Mochi-bashi: Lifting up a dish with the hand you are holding the chopsticks with.
• Mayoi-bashi: Moving your chopsticks from dish to dish while trying to decide what to eat.
• Neburi-bashi: Sucking the pointed ends of the chopsticks or removing the food stuck on chopsticks with your mouth.
• Arai-bashi: Washing the pointed ends of the chopsticks in a soup or anything else.
• Yose bashi: Moving dishes closer using your chopsticks.
• Watashi-bashi: Placing your chopsticks down, across a dish during a meal.
• Tate-bashi: standing your chopsticks up-right in your rice bowl.
• Hiroi-bashi: Passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks.

The "Wari-bashi" (half-split chopsticks), are used at the restaurant and at homes when guests come. We are, of course, referring to the disposable chopsticks. Since the old days, it is a common thing for Japanese to have their own chopsticks which they don't like other people to use. It is thought this is the reason why, Wari-bashi, the throw-away, came to be used in Japan.