Some of the most important chopstick rules are:
- Hold your chopsticks towards their end, and not in the middle or the front third
- When you are not using your chopsticks and when you are finished eating, lay them down in front of you with the tip to left.
- Do not stick chopsticks into your food, especially not into rice. Only at funerals are chopsticks stuck into the rice that is put onto the altar.
- Do not pass food with your chopsticks directly to somebody else's chopsticks. Only at funerals are the bones of the cremated body given in that way from person to person.
- Do not move around plates or bowls with chopsticks, use you hands.
- Do not point with your chopsticks to something or somebody.
- Do not spear food with your chopsticks.
- Do not move your chopsticks around in the air too much, nor play with them.
- To separate a piece of food into two pieces, exert controlled pressure on the chopsticks while moving them apart from each other.
