Japan's Chopsticks & Hashi Culture

About this book

You already own chopsticks. What you may not own is the map of what they mean. Japan's Chopsticks & Hashi Culture is the complete guide to 200 chopsticks — the forms and materials, the regions that make them, the hands that carve and lacquer them, the manners that govern them, and the gifts, rites and language that surround them — in one uniform format, every entry giving History & Setting, Form, Material & Making, Use, Manners & Meaning, and Visiting, Choosing & Care, each entry written in full at 200+ words.

The tweezers of Hōryū-ji and the first pair of a baby's okuizome. Wakasa lacquer from Obama, said to supply most of Japan's coated chopsticks, and the nanako grain of Tsugaru. Bamboo bent in the Hita style, ironwood from Okinawa, the waribashi split with a wish, the forbidden moves with names of their own — tatebashi, hashivatashi, the chopsticks never to cross. Then into the workshop for shaving, bending and forty coats of lacquer, and out again to hashiyokan shops, chopstick rests, wedding gifts and the bridge-pun that makes hashi a wish for safe crossing.

A front chapter teaches you to choose and use a pair in four checks — fit, material, manners and care. There are no photographs: the craft is taught in words, for the hand and the eye. Fees, hours, schedules, stock and prices are never asserted; every entry asks you to confirm them on the official channel.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.