The pandemic raises painful questions about cherished cultural traditions
China, a courteous host uses her chopsticks to take the tastiest morsel from a communal dish and put it on the plate of an honoured guest. At a family meal, an elder does so for a child. Friends do it for each other. And all help themselves, taking bite-sized pieces again and again from plates of food in the middle of the table. So it has been for centuries. And then came covid-19.
The aim of this “tongue-defence war”, as state media have dubbed the campaign, is to change the way chopsticks are used. Diners are encouraged to use designated communal ones for divvying up shared food. These extra chopsticks—often longer than usual and specially labelled or coloured—are not to be placed in the mouth. They are common in other chopstick-using societies, such as Japan and Taiwan, but swapping from one set of chopsticks to another is often considered a nuisance in mainland China.
Concerns that infected saliva from a utensil can pass from one person to another via a shared dish are at least a century old, says Q. Edward Wang, author of “Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History”. Among the first in China to campaign for dining-habit reform was a Malaysian-born doctor who saw hope in the “lazy Susan”—a rotating platform placed on a table so diners can spin the food to each other.
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