I do know how to use chopsticks correctly but will reluctantly admit that I have never practised sufficiently enough to master them. I am caught in a vicious cycle of always being too hungry to practice the correct method and resorting to the 'scissor style' most gauche westerners use, which of course only reinforces the predicament. I am going to to endeavor to be stricter with myself about this.
Regardless, just as there is a multitude of etiquette 'dos' and 'don'ts' for western eating utensils, so there are for chopsticks. Keep them in mind, so that you keep the offenses you unwittingly commit restricted to some 'chopstick scissor action'.
NB: Etiquette tips are from Wikipedia
Chopstick Etiquette
It is important to note that the chopsticks are used in a large geographic area. While principles of etiquette are similar, the finer points may differ from region to region, and there is no single standard for the use of chopsticks. Generally, chopsticks etiquette is similar to general Western etiquette regarding eating utensils.
Universal
In cultures that make use of chopsticks, the following practices are followed:
* Chopsticks are not used to make noise, to draw attention, or to gesticulate. Playing with chopsticks is considered bad mannered and vulgar (just as playing with cutlery in a Western environment would be deemed crass).
* Chopsticks are not used to move bowls or plates.
* Chopsticks are not used to toy with one's food or with dishes in common.
* Chopsticks are not used to pierce food, save in rare instances. Exceptions include tearing larger items apart such as vegetables and kimchi. In informal use, small, difficult-to-pick-up items such as cherry tomatoes or fishballs may be stabbed, but this use is frowned upon by traditionalists.
* Chopsticks can be rested horizontally (except in Korea where they should be rested vertically) on one's plate or bowl to keep them off the table entirely. A chopstick rest can be used to keep the points off the table.
* Chopsticks should not be left standing vertically in a bowl of rice or other food. Any stick-like object pointed upward resembles the incense sticks that some Asians use as offerings to deceased family members; certain funerary rites designate offerings of food to the dead using standing chopsticks.
Chinese etiquette
* In Chinese culture, it is normal to hold the rice bowl up to one's mouth and use chopsticks to push rice directly into the mouth.
* Chinese traditionally eat rice from a small bowl held in the left hand. The rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the rice pushed into the mouth using the chopsticks. Some Chinese find it offensive to scoop rice from the bowl using a spoon. If rice is served on a plate, as is more common in the West, it is acceptable and more practical to eat it with a fork or spoon.
* The blunt end is sometimes used to transfer food from a common dish to a diner's plate or bowl.
* It is acceptable to transfer food to closely related people (e.g. grandparents, parents, spouse, children, or significant others) if they are having difficulty picking up the food. Also it is a sign of respect to pass food to the elderly first before the dinner starts (part of the Confucian tradition of respecting seniors).
* When communal chopsticks are supplied with shared plates of food, it is considered impolite and unhygienic to use eating chopsticks to pick up the food from the shared plate or eat using the communal chopsticks.
Japanese etiquette
* Food should not be transferred from one's own chopsticks to someone else's chopsticks. Japanese people will always offer their plate to transfer it directly, or pass a person's plate along if the distance is great. Transferring directly is how bones are passed as part of Japanese funeral rites.
* The chopsticks should never be stuck into the rice, as this custom is part of Japanese funeral rites.
* The pointed ends of the chopsticks should be placed on a chopstick rest when the chopsticks are not being used.
* Reversing chopsticks to use the opposite clean end is commonly used to move food from a communal plate, although it is not considered to be proper manners. Rather, the group should ask for extra chopsticks to transfer food from a communal plate.
* Chopsticks should not be crossed on a table, as this symbolizes death.
Korean etiquette
* Koreans consider it rude to pick up the rice bowl from the table to eat from it.
* Unlike other chopstick cultures, Koreans use a spoon for their rice and soup, and chopsticks for most other things at the table. (Traditionally, Korean spoons have a relatively flat, circular head with a straight handle, unlike Chinese or Japanese soup spoons.)
* Unlike the rice eaten in many parts of China, Korean steamed rice can be easily picked up with chopsticks, although eating rice with a spoon is more acceptable.
* The blunt handle ends of chopsticks are not used to transfer food from common dishes.
* When laying chopsticks down on the table next to a spoon, one must never put the chopsticks to the left of the spoon. Chopsticks are only laid to the left for deceased family members.
* It is perfectly acceptable to pick up banchan and eat it without putting it down on one's bowl first.
Vietnamese etiquette
* As with Chinese etiquette, the rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the rice is pushed into the mouth using the chopsticks.
* Unlike with Chinese dishes, it is also practical to use chopsticks to pick up rice in plates, such as fried rice, because Vietnamese rice is typically sticky.
* It is proper to always use two chopsticks at once, even when using them for stirring.
* One should not pick up food from the table and place it directly in the mouth. Food must be placed in your own bowl first.
* Chopsticks should not be placed in the mouth while choosing food.
* Chopsticks should never be placed in a "V" shape when done eating; it is interpreted as a bad omen.
