Eating in Japan
Eating in Japan is something every Gai-jin (foreigner) may look forward to; on the other hand, people with weak stomachs may want to consider eating certain foods before diving right into the Meso soup bowl of Japanese cuisine. There are many different types of Japanese food and all of the dishes are unique in their own way; however, Japan is a melting pot of culinary delight and one can find any and all kinds of Asian cuisine as well as foods from all parts of the world.
First of all, the Japanese hardly ever eat with the traditional western style utensils, your common fork, knife and spoon. It is commonplace for the Japanese to use those annoying little sticks commonly known as chopsticks or "hashi." Eating with chopsticks may be the hardest thing one will have to learn while in Japan, besides learning to read, write and speak Japanese, but eating with chopsticks is a lot like writing with a pencil, except you have two pencils instead of one. The trick is that only one stick is actually doing all the work while the other is stationary and serves as the base. Place both of the sticks in the curve between your pointer finger and your thumb. Now, one stick will rest on the middle finger and not move. This is the base I mentioned earlier. The other stick, which does the moving, will rest along the pointer and is held in place by the tip of the thumb. This may sound extremely difficult but give it a try and see how it goes. With some practice you should be able to pick up anything with chopsticks, but be careful of what's picked up and where you place the chopsticks during the meal. It is bad table manners to use chopsticks to take something from another person's chopsticks and it is certainly bad to leave chopsticks standing up in your "gohan" (boiled rice bowl). It is believed that chopsticks standing up in food signify that this is food for the dead. This is done during funeral ceremonies. Therefore keeping this in mind while using these utensils will help keep the priest from coming to bless the restaurant because of a simple mistake. If after trying for a while, you have only succeeded in eating a grain of rice or if your hunger starts to amplify, it will be okay to ask the waiter or waitress for a fork or spoon.
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