What You Should Be Doing With Your Chopsticks At A Chinese Restaurant
TikTok has irreversibly changed how we interact with food and cooking content. It's never been easier to find quick cooking tips and recipes, and the platform has also made it far easier to create your own content. Because it's so easy for anybody to make their own short videos, people make TikToks about anything that they hold dear. That includes numerous creators who use their platform to explain how their culture interacts with food, sharing their culinary traditions so those who might not know about them have a chance to learn.
One TikTok user who does this is Vivian Aronson, aka Cookingbomb. Aronson describes herself as being "born in Chinese food, raised by rice" in her TikTok description, and this sentiment can be seen through her content. Aronson's videos are about Chinese food and food culture, and about teaching the average TikToker a little bit of what her slice of the world looks like. One recently viral entry showed how to use chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant.
Tips for Chinese chopstick etiquette
Aronson's video shows her in a restaurant, preparing her pack of disposable, wooden chopsticks for the food. She begins by simply opening them and striking the chopsticks against each other several times – "to get rid of the splints...to get it clean." Aronson then demonstrates how to fold the paper wrapper into a tight triangle to prop the chopsticks against so that the end you put in your mouth doesn't have to rest on the unfamiliar table, and concludes by demonstrating proper chopstick usage, resting the bottom chopstick against your thumb so it doesn't move.
The comments section loved the video with numerous users appreciating the tips. One comment that did arise frequently, however, regarded the cleaning of the chopsticks at the beginning. User Squishy milk man said "I was always told cleaning chopsticks was disrespectful," a sentiment echoed throughout the comments. Rubbing chopsticks together is socially acceptable Chinese chopstick etiquette, but according to Japanese chopstick etiquette, cleaning chopsticks is considered a sign of disrespect as it implies your host gave you cheap utensils.