- Chopsticks Chinese!
- Japanese!
- Korean!
- Western!
What?
(Smooth beat)
- Chopsticks, chopsticks, chopsticks.
As you can see, there are many types
of chopsticks in front of us.
Today we're going to talk about,
what is the difference between,
Chinese chopsticks, Korean chopsticks
and Japanese chopsticks.
Now, Klaus, you can see.
Usually, the Chinese chopsticks are made of wood.
And some fancier ones they even make out of
different materials in Thailand,
but those are made out of the
teeth of the elephants, which, now,
because animals, you don't want to hurt the elephant.
So now, really it's not as popular.
But it used to be a symbol of status
to use those kinds of chopsticks.
Now, you can also see, in Korea,
the chopsticks are made out of metal.
- Is there a reason why one is metal and one is wood?
- Yes. From my Korean friends, what they share with me,
is because, during the war-time, a family they tend to
move around a bit. So, they want to use something
that's more sustainable, and also, unbreakable.
So, metal, compared to wood, you can see,
and metal, also, when you use it,
it's also for hygiene purposes.
They feel like it's just cleaner.
And also, not just chopsticks,
in Korea they also use the metal bowls, right.
So it's also easier to heat up the food,
and also easier to cook, so again,
the rice and everything that they eat,
so, just imagine a family, a couple metal bowls
and some metal chopsticks, they're good to go.
So during war-time they developed that.
Even though now there's no war,
but they still maintain that tradition,
I thought that was pretty interesting.
Now, Jason, what about the Japanese chopsticks
- Yeah, Japanese chopsticks.
This is just one of many types they have in Japan,
or, what they call "hashi"
And, they're more pointed, they were basically made,
to be able to handle delicate foods, like noodles,
or sushi, and many other types of Japanese food,
so, there's deep history as well there.
- So, then it's easier just to get the food. Interesting.
Also, the noodles, the ramen, interesting.
And, Vic, I know you have super jumbo chopsticks
- Yeah, Klaus, have you seen these before?
- That's amazing, you can reach very far, even at the table.
- Chopsticks like these are more uncommon,
of course we would never really use this in a restaurant,
or at home, but when people are cooking.
- Yes.
Especially in the olden days,
when you've got a big fire going, especially Chinese style.
- (Dan) Oh, the oil, right?
- With the wok, and the tossing,
you don't really want to stand to close
to the fire, to the wok,
so you want to be able to reach the food that you're cooking
but you want to be able to stand far away enough,
so, hence, chopsticks that are, I mean,
almost more than twice as long as the normal ones here.
- Look at that, compare that.
Yeah, that's amazing. That's very cool.
- Yeah, and we also have these kind of chopsticks,
where, they're a little fancier,
they're more like, modern style of chopsticks.
Right, it's got some decorations at the end there,
the silver accents, right, and I would say,
these one's are pretty symmetrical,
So, I think more Chinese people would use symmetrical ones.
- Yeah, yeah
- And the Korean and Japanese ones
tend to taper off a little bit more at the tip.
- And then then often, of course,
in North America, we have the reusable,
like the one time use, disposable, right, that's it.
Kind of simple, like that, which kind of
it's half Chinese, half Japanese.
- And you know what else it reminds me of,
the western world likes to use, like,
disposable forks and spoons, well,
this is kind of like the equivalent of that in Asia,
to be able to have disposable wooden-
- Oh, so this just made of wood, bamboo?
- Yeah
- Right, interesting.
- I have quite an interesting story about these.
So, I don't know if people have seen this, but,
disposable chopsticks, they usually come, you know,
stuck together, right, and you've got to snap them apart.
(soft background music)
Now, some people will start to do this.
- Oh, yeah! Yes. Now, why do they do that?
- What they're doing is, there's usually, you know,
when they're manufactured, they're mass produced,
there's maybe a little bit of things stuck on the end.
That might be sharp, you know, that might hurt your mouth.
So what you do is, you just kind of, you know,
rub them against each other to shave off-
- They're not trying to make fire, okay.
- All the extra stuff that might still be
attached to the chopsticks, now they're nice and smooth.
- Yes. And even, I'll share one last story,
it's with the chopsticks, if you take the four chopsticks,
and you combine them together,
it actually created, made up a word in Chinese character,
called "Tián", it means, farmland in Chinese.
So that it symbolized a lot of, if you think about,
where the crops come from, the farmers, our rice, right,
So, it has a little bit of that wisdom in it,
it's pretty interesting, so.
Those are the different typed of chopsticks,
share with us, what type of chopstick that you use,
comment below, also, maybe share with us,
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