Selects: Chopsticks > Forks

Guaranteed Human

“Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now.”

There's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, How To Copy. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy,

tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Open your free, I Heart Radio App Search. Joy 101, and listen now. Joy 101 with "Hotacopy" is presented by CVS. [MUSIC PLAYING]

My first guest is Harry Colton.

Shakita, Luke, and Yiddin. Have surprise. I see you. Many surprises. Welcome to the sweet "305" podcast where the new check comes to life.

What the [bleep] You're the only person I know that loves to y'all as diverse. I'm a maid. This is sweet "305." Here, oversharing, is encouraged.

Listen to Sweet "305" with "Leader Ponds" on the "I Heart Radio App" App or podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. My husband is at a spa resort with his mistress right now, and I'm calling the hotel to confront them both. Wait a minute, Dakota.

She's calling the hotel while they're checked in together. Yeah, that's right, Sophia. And it gets worse. It's "Fake Hate The Vacation Week" on the okay story-time podcast, where she caught him buying gifts on Amazon,

and then taped the 10-page letter inside his luggage

before he flew out. So she planted evidence before he even took off. And spoiler, Sophia, two years later, karma hits so hard, he's calling his ex-wife in tears. Saying about his mistress, "Where did the stick that was?"

To find out what happened, listen to the okay story-time podcast on the "I Heart Radio App" App or podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Chuck here.

We are moving forward through time in the year 2020, the Europe COVID. And I think we're at sort of ground zero here, everybody, 'cause the date for this episode is March 17th. And I know that that was right around the time

that things shut down, because my birthday is March 15th. And one of my very good friends birthday is March 12th. And every year we go out on a birthday dinner with our wives and family. And I remember being out,

might have been like the 16th or 17th of that year

to dinner and us being like, should we be out here, guys? Like, they're starting to say things are getting weird and we're all washing our hands and saying the ABCs and stuff, but this feels like maybe the last dinner

we're gonna have for a while. And it was, that was the last dinner out I had for a very long time. But this episode from March 17th, 2020, right when it all shut down is pretty great.

It's all about chopsticks and it's called chopsticks greater than forks.

“- Well, welcome to Stuff You Should Know,”

a production of I Heart Radio. - Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know,

all about the song Chopsticks. I wonder if you're gonna make a joke about that. Jerry beat me to it. I mean, she was like, where do we recording today and I told her she's like the song?

Tint, tint, tint, tint, tint, tint. - No, it's, tint, tint, tint, tint, tint. - Oh, is that chopsticks? Are there two chopsticks? - No, I'm just teasing, that's heart and soul.

- Oh, okay. So what I said from big, that was chopsticks, right? - Totally, yeah. - Robert, Robert Lose you? - Yeah, man.

- I should have continued trolling and said James Khan. - Oh, wow, that is a very James Khan like roll though, isn't it? - Totally. I think he played that roll in block.

- I like it. - In, well, he's a crime boss in Balorock. - Yeah, sort of. - Well, not to give movie. - Truly.

- We watched Missory the other day, it's still hold up.

“- Oh, man, I remember seeing that for the first time”

in Athens when I was in college. - Mm-hmm. - So great, Kathy Bates can do no wrong. - She did great, but if you watch James Khan, he did really well too, like, sure.

His whole kind of trepidacious manner toward her was really well done and not overdone at all. And like, he did a great job as well. - And he had to lay there in a bed for weeks and weeks. - Mm-hmm.

- And act. - Yeah? - Sounds like a dream. - Yeah. And if he, if he bocked at it, they would attach

to Catherine or two of it, make him pee in his own mouth as punishment, like, a little known fact about that movie. - Oh, so chopsticks. - Right. We should point out here that in researching this,

chopsticks and customs and etiquette, if we covered all the countries and all that stuff that used chopsticks, we'd be here all day. - Yeah. - So there's kind of a focus here on Japan.

- Well, it's just hand. They seem to be a little, the most sensitive

of the Asian cultures, I think.

- Perhaps.

“- They have the most rules against them at the very least.”

- Yeah, but when you read them, they could all be some depth is just don't be a dumb American. - Yeah, or don't have any fun whatsoever with your chopsticks as another way to point it. - You're like, what's wrong with making them

antennas in a restaurant and going, "Right, mark me." - Right. I'm a walvers now, why can't I be a walvers? - Right. But we are talking chopsticks, not the song,

sorry to disappoint you, everybody. But I saw that that song is actually called chopsticks because it was originally called the celebrated chop waltz. - Okay. - Right by a 16 year old school girl from England.

- It seems about right. - Sure. - So, but we're talking about the utensils.

And like, when you think chop sticks, obviously,

you think like Asia and you don't think that there was ever anything but chop sticks in the history of Asia. And while chop sticks are actually surprisingly old, I think they go back about 7,000 years. I'll still saw 5,000 years.

“I'm going with seven, I think they're actually”

about as ancient as that. They weren't like the go-to utensil for Asia until this millennium. - Yeah, the spoon was kind of the go-to. - Yeah, who knew?

- The word chop stick. They think maybe pigeon English, Chinese pigeon English, meaning chop chop or quickly. - Right. - But this one of these etymologies,

it's sort of tough to pin down, it looks like. - But that's the English word for it. - And all of the chop stick using cultures, they have their own word, like in Japan, it's Hashi. It's Kuah-e-Z in China.

- Nice. - I'm not sure if I said that right at all. Geo Garak in Korean. - All right, not as nice. - And doi-doi-doa in Vietnamese.

- All right, I'm sorry, half of the world's population. - I love that you started strong in Japan, though, 'cause you feel pretty confident in your Japanese pronunciation, so it's a good way to go.

“- Yes, I have a great tutor, that's right.”

So five to seven thousand years ago, they were used initially for cooking, and we'll get more into the ends and outs of the history, but they were made from twigs probably. And it was much, much later, like you said,

that they were table utensils. - Right. - And it was all very much like practicality based. - Yeah, because initially, they figured out pretty early on these Chinese from 5,000 to 7,000 years ago.

That's a really bad idea to stick your hand into a pot of boiling water to get something out of it, say like a bone or a piece of meat or something like that. It's way better to use a twig, and it's even better to use two twigs

as if they were kind of a pair of detached tweezers. - Sure. - That's apparently where they initially started to come into use was during cooking and food preparation, not the actual eating process.

- That's right. There was a big population boom in China at one point. Some might say they're continues to be. (laughs) - Some might say.

- And the resources became a little more scarce. They started cutting their food up into little tiny pieces for reasons of like, helps it to cook faster. - Right.

- I wonder, I didn't see anything about this, but I wonder if that also just made it more shareable among a larger family. - I could see that, that's a great point too. - And isn't it fascinating though,

the idea that a population boom led to widespread use of the chopstick? - Yeah, it's interesting. And then Confucius also was a vegetarian and noted knife-hater.

He has a quote about knives, the honorable and upright man keeps well away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen, and he allows no knives on his table. And I think that was a little more

because a knife was equated with eating meat. - Right. - Less than like it's a garbage tool.

- You don't need a knife to eat a plant, basically.

- Yeah, some might argue you might want to cut it piece of broccoli. - Maybe, but you don't have to. - I just summed up Confucius. That's the level of arrogance that I'm operating in now.

- And I think some of the early, and you know, it started in China and then pretty soon, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, we're all using them. But I think that Chinese chopsticks

were joined at what they are now. What are they called now with their joined? And you got to split them apart? - Oh, Warabashi, that's Japanese. That's the term for disposable chopsticks.

- Okay, but I thought the Chinese chopsticks were originally joined like that. - Yes. - No, it was Japanese. - Okay. - There was this single piece of bamboo that was like split.

Kind of like giant tweezers. - Okay, yeah, I'm reading this now. I had it.

- Well, no, I get sometimes in it's the dumbest thing,

but I get confused between former and latter. (laughing) Oh yeah, it's not that I get confused. I just have to go back and sort of picture it in my brain.

“- It just takes an extra second, I think, for everybody.”

- That's right, it's definitely not intuitive, so I feel bad. - I also thought this thing about food poisoning was interesting. It was that in denastic times in China, they would use, and I guess people that are a little more

well healed would use silver chopsticks, because they thought that if it came into contact with something that was poisonous, then the chopsticks would turn black and they would know not to eat it.

- I mean, it just makes sense when you're rich in wealthy, more people want to kill you, so it's better to have something that shows if somebody's trying to poison you, like your chopsticks turning a color,

if you're being poisoned with cyanide or something like that. - Right, problem is that it doesn't actually work. And I don't know why they didn't just think that through from the get-go like, oh well let's get ourselves some cyanide and stick a silver chopstick in it

and see what happens and see that it doesn't work. But apparently it does work in the presence of garlic or rotten eggs, because they put out hydrogen sulfide, so it will turn silver a different color. So I don't know how garlic ever made itself

into a staple of Chinese cooking, but there we have it. - Yeah, and the other thing I thought was in, and we should mention to this came from a variety of places. Tegan Jones at Gizmoto, Lisa Brahman from Smithsonian Mag, Q Edward Wang from Cambridge blog, Huff Poe,

believe it or not, got in the works. - Yeah. - And some other places, but I thought that Q Edward Wang's history was really interesting because he mentions

that wheat is kind of the first reason before rice,

which really surprised me. - It was very surprising. I think he knew all along that that was the big reveal. (laughing) You know?

- Yeah.

“- But that's what gave chopsticks a shot in the arm.”

So first we have cutting food into smaller pieces to have it cook faster, so you use less firewood, 'cause there's a population boom. And then as wheat becomes kind of fashionable and widespread, you start to use chopsticks

because you're making things like noodles and dumpling. - Yeah. - And prior to this, millet was the go-to grain. And millet's really small, it's much smaller than rice, and you certainly aren't gonna turn it into like a noodle

or a dumpling, you make a grill out of it. And so for thousands of years, the go-to utensil that people used to eat with in China was a spoon, 'cause they were eating gruel or porridge or whatever, and by hated life.

But when wheat came along and they started turning in in the noodles and dumplings, they said, oh yeah, remember those things that we use those twigs to cook with? What if we made a smaller version of those to eat with too?

And that's where the chopsticks got,

it's first like real boost in usage around Asia.

- Yeah, I mean, try to eat a big spoonful of noodles and just watch as they flop off and sling delicious sauce all over the place. - There is literally nothing more frustrating than trying to eat noodles with a spoon in the entire world.

- Yeah, and I mean, sure, you could chop them up into tiny little pieces so they rest in your spoon with some broth, sure. But who wants to do that? Like the person that cuts up their bosquetti at the table

and the tiny bits is a six-year-old. - Yeah, or just thoroughly un-American. - True, one of the two. - Maybe both.

“- Meaning on how sophisticated the six-year-old is, you know?”

- The other thing I thought was interesting too from Mr. Wang's article was, he talked about stew, which is gang and Chinese. They ate a lot of stew back then, and chopsticks would be very useful

for picking up things like the more solid objects in the stew like the vegetables. - Right, so you've got wheat coming into Vogue. You've got smaller pieces, vegetables, stew being eaten, chopsticks are like, come on.

We're gonna do it. We gotta do this. We just need one more thing to get us over the hump and people are gonna know us everywhere around the world. And that one thing was a particular kind

of Vietnamese rice that ripens early apparently. And it's a shorter grain or a medium grain, which means that it's easier to, it clumps more easily. - Yeah.

- It also has a lot of like starches to it. So it's just kind of clumpy sticky rice. And here in the west, we're not really used to that kind of rice. So we're like, how are you gonna use chopsticks that eat this stuff?

- Like, try eating some Uncle Ben's with chopsticks. - You can't do it. It's like trying to eat noodles with the spoon.

And this is what I didn't understand

“when I was growing up, because I was a little naive,”

when I saw chopsticks, I would just think about scooping up the rice on top of them very awkwardly. And it wasn't until I was a little bit older and had good clumpy Chinese rice. - Right.

- And Japanese rice, oh, it's very easy to eat with chopsticks. - Yeah, and you just like, oh, okay, I've got it. 'Cause it sticks together. It's like a nice little morsel of food. And it sticks together just about the right size

and it's totally different. So when you eat Chinese rice, or Japanese rice, or even Vietnamese rice, the sticky rice, then you understand, okay, you can use this as a, you can use chopsticks for this.

And the Chinese figured this out as well, when rice became much more of a staple of the Asian diet. And all of a sudden, now, you didn't need a spoon anymore 'cause everybody's like, to heck with millet, who wants a grewl, nobody.

- So they threw their spoons out the window, and then they started just eating chopsticks for everything. You could use it for everything now. It's all you needed for your meal.

- Yeah, and that all in one solution,

“I think, was that happened in China and Japan”

and Vietnam for sure. And Korea, I think, was the one standout because I believe in Korea, the spoon in the chopsticks still go hand in hand. - Yeah, and this, I believe it was Kiw Edward Blang,

who maybe wrote this, but he basically said it,

it seems to be a conscious decision. - Right. - And Korea. - Almost as if they were being contrary, or something like that.

- Maybe they just wanna do their own thing. - Well, they eat a lot of very, very hot stews and soups. If you ever had Boudet Gigi, I don't think so. - I'm not even sure I'm saying it correctly. Have you ever been to eat it like,

"Hmard" or like an Asian food court or something like that? - Sure. - If you go to a Korean place, they usually have, I think it's called Boudet Gigi. It's like hot dog soup, basically.

- Yeah, my Lord. - And it's like this kind of, I'm not even sure, I guess it's like a chili paste broth with lots of great process meat in it, and like ramen and like jalapenos, it's just so good.

But that thing comes to you boiling. And you're supposed to eat the chunky parts out

with a chopstick, but I guess it always comes

“with a spoon too, so I think you're supposed”

to actually eat the broth with the spoon rather than sip. - Man, I tell you one thing I do love is the design of the, and I'm calling it the Chinese spoon. I don't know if it originated in China,

but you know the soup spoon I'm talking about. - Yeah, like the one you use for miso soup? - Oh man, they're just the best. - Yeah, they do, 'cause you can get a really big, spoonful on there. - Yeah, and it's ergonomic,

it's the way to, it's the way to do it, unless you're just gonna pick up the bowl and drink it, which is great too. - Yeah. - Up with the miso soup spoon.

- All right, let's take a break 'cause I'm so hungry after he said hot dogs too, (laughs) why is it that I'm exgrowing? And we'll come back and we'll talk more about chopsticks. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) - Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this.

I'm always searching for inspiration, for support,

and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when Actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame

fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. - I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. Here's a lot of people who understand post-partner

question. I was not prepared for post-partner anxiety. Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice, but to be a gymnast. - There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me.

It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. - Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the I-Hart Radio App, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. (crowd cheering) - American soccer is exploded. The knockout rounds are here. - The US won their group, and now every match

is winner-go-home. (crowd cheering) - You wanna see? - I'm Tat Bramos. And I'm Tom Boger.

On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines. - I'm not worried about Policic, I'm not worried about ballagin, I'm not worried about McKinney,

my only concern is what happens in the back. - And give you the truth about the US National Team

- It wouldn't be a huge surprise

“if our team ends up in the quarterfinals”

or potentially a great run into the semi-finals. Whether you're a lifelong fan,

or this is your first World Cup.

- We've got you up. - Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Boger and Tabernamos. And I heart, radio app, Apple Podcast, or whatever, you get your podcast.

- My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress, and I'm confronting them. - Tell me Sophia, how did she even catch them? - One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo

of the kid's Christmas gifts with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. - He exposed himself? That's a rookie move. Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes,

and lingerie, he met motor four. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. - In his luggage, she came to play.

- And the second he landed, he blocked her. - So she called the hotel room directly and got the mistress on the phone.

“- Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone.”

That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. - Then it gets worse. He took the mistress on the Bahamas Honeymoon trip. He had planned with his wife.

And then the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the fair to her entire family. - That's like a whole public confession. - And spoiler two years later, Karma hit some solo hardies calling his ex wife

in tears saying about the mistress, what a mistake that was. To find out what happened, listen to the okay story-time podcast on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I don't remember what episode it was. Chuck, but do you remember when our stomach's

growled in sync with one another? - That was very recently. - It was. - Yeah. - You can still reminisce about reasons.

(laughing) - I say, I'm nostalgic for that thing that happened last week. Pretty much. So apparently, I'm not sure I'll accurate this is,

but the four main kinds of chopsticks. Apparently, in China, the chopsticks are a little bit longer and a little more blunt on the ends. - Yeah, and they think that might be a nod

to Confucius basically saying like,

don't have knives at your table. Don't even have vaguely sharpen chopsticks even. Like nothing stabby. - Nothing. Don't you don't want to be stabbed at your table.

“- I think Japan, they're a little sharper”

and a little shorter. But you're still not supposed to be stabbing stuff. - No. - Don't stab that piece of tuna. - No, you can just tell if you've ever done that

while you're doing it, that you're violating some unnatural bars, but that feels wrong, doesn't it? - Yeah. - Let me see here in Korea, apparently, they are shorter as well.

And they are also blunt, but they can be metallic. - Yeah, that's one thing that we'll see because we're gonna talk about as with everything in existence, there's some horrid environmental impact with chopsticks as well.

But the Japanese are like, give us cheap disposable wooden or bamboo chopsticks and basically nothing else. - Yeah. - They're just crazy for it. Whereas some of the other Asian cultures are like,

no, we can use reusable ones. But the Japanese are like, no, we want nothing but disposable cheap chopsticks that are obashi. - I assume that you and Yumi have your own chopsticks at home.

- Oh yeah. - And do you bring those to restaurants? - Oh yeah. - No.

- No, never do, we should.

- No, I never really should, but I usually think when I'm there, I'm like, oh man, I should have brought my chopsticks. - Well, you know, I mean, if you go to any Asian store, they have cute little, it looks almost like a pencil case,

but it's, you know, chopsticks inside and it's meant for you to carry them around with you. But no one does that, you just don't. Even though, hopefully in 10 years when we're all like, okay, this is out of control and this is really bad,

everyone will be doing that, you just don't do it. And yeah, we have some that, like I could just put in my jeans pocket and walk around with if I wanted to, but I don't do it.

- Yeah, I don't do it. - I take my straw now and I use it because I now keep it in my purse. - Your purse? - My purse, which goes everywhere with me.

- Yeah, so I need to throw some chopsticks in there. - Sure. And it's a good feeling when you say no straw. I've got my own and I would love to be able to say, no, no, you keep those wooden chopsticks.

- Yeah, take that straw and shove it with a sundown shine. - Wow, I'm not that aggressive about it. - It's so funny depending on where you are in the country though, like if they bring you a straw and you say no straw, please,

they look at you like you're just a straight up democratic, socialist. - Right, you know, like you're trying to undermine

- Yeah, sure, but other places now are, there's a couple of places in my neighborhood who have postings on the wall when you walk in, talking about the impact of straws and that straws are upon request only.

- Right, and if you got a problem with that, you can take a straw and shove it where the sundown shines. - Right, or you take that problem to the voting booth this fall. - Right, exactly.

- So are you prepared? 'Cause I have a feeling you do a better job than me at this because you, you so often have a great, convoluted ways of describing visual things. - I'm gonna do a great job describing it to you

'cause you can watch my hands, but I think for everybody listening, it's going to be very problematic. - All right, how do you use chopsticks? (laughs)

- All right, I'm gonna get you back for this one, Chuck. - So I did it intuitively, by the way, which is what I suggest.

- Yeah, I never write a thing.

- Watch some, I think reading it and having an explain makes it way harder. - I agree. - I think it's just one of those things

“you have to watch somebody do in practice.”

I mean, it's just all practice. But essentially, there's a couple things to remember is that both chopsticks are laying, do you want, do you wanna go step by step through it? - No, I think, I want the Josh method.

- Okay, well, it's the same method or the Josh description. - Okay, so in the valley between your thumb and your fourth finger, yeah. Okay, the webbing right there?

- That's where the chopsticks rest, the thumb taint. - The thumb taint, the jode, the your hand showed. - Oh my God, and jode, great band name. - It really is, wow, the two chopsticks lay right there. Okay, one of them, the bottom one,

is basically meant to be immobile in stationary.

It's just basically stays there. And it's the top one that you're moving, you're kind of holding with your fourth finger, your index finger, and your middle finger. That's what you're using to move this top one.

And so it's really the bottom one that stays basically stationary. And the top one is the one that's moving. And you're just using it to kind of pick up and twist food or rice or whatever with it.

If you get really good, you can pick your friend up with it. - Right, or catch a fly. If you're just sense a level, that's right with chopsticks, for sure. But that's essentially it.

And you don't want to hold it too tightly. If you're gripping it too tightly, your muscles are too tense. - Yeah. - You're not going to be able to make that tweezer motion

very easily, or you're certainly not going to have much control. It's kind of paradoxical that the looser you have your hand to a certain degree. The more control you have over the chopsticks

and the tension that you're directing toward the end of the chopstick. So keep your hand loose, but in control.

“And just make sure you remember that the bottom one”

that's kind of resting all the way along your thumb that's basically stationary. And the top one is the one you're directing with your index finger and middle finger. - Yeah, I recommend halfway through your meal.

Switch those two out because that bottom one is just along for the ride. - Sure, yeah. - And then needs to do a little work, you know what I mean? - Yeah.

- So just switch them out and make that one the top. And give it, you know, make it do a little sweat, sweating. - I think that's a pretty good shot. - Do a little sweat? - I think we deserve a Peabody award

for describing how to use chopsticks, no visuals. - You did talk about the environmental impact a little bit, but it is a real problem. I mean, you see these tiny little things. And you think what's the big warp, like a tree

can probably make a gazillion chopsticks. So they need like true, maybe 10 trees in China to make all the chopsticks they need. So do you remember that, what just one thing? Do you remember that cartoon,

might have been a Simpsons or something that were they chopped down a tree and they show on processing one single tree into just an individual toothpick? (laughing)

“That's pretty sure, it had to be the Simpsons, you know?”

But imagine if they're like, no, we make one chopstick out of just a single tree. - I didn't think about toothpicks, man. How many toothpicks can you get out of a tree? - I don't even know.

- They're problem, they're on the horizon. - Right, but when you think about the fact

that China alone produces 80 billion disposable chopsticks

every year, then you get a little bit more of a sense of exactly how many of these trees. And it says here, I'm trying to find out what year this is. It was fairly recently, but they've had like parliamentary meetings and stuff about this in China

and they estimated that it takes about 20 million 20 year old trees to cover their annual rate of production. - Yeah, a guy named Bai Wajin, pretty sure I said it's last name correctly. He's like a representative from the G-Lean Forestry

industry group and he really like rocked everybody

hey, do you remember that old figure

“that everybody has been touting for years”

that we actually use 57 billion chopsticks a year?

- Produce 57 billion chopsticks a year. He said, that's way off, it's actually 80 billion. And like you just said, we need 20 million, 20 year old trees to meet that a year. - Yeah.

- And people said, wow, that's kind of a problem. And so around the world, like China, so of that 80 billion, I think China, half of them stays in China, of the other half. - Yeah, I wondered about that.

- 77% goes to Japan, okay. And Japan was actually the one that started all this. They came up with disposable chopsticks, Wari Bashi, all the way back in 1878. And it's just been crazy for him ever since.

Like you can go to like a pretty high-end restaurant in Japan and they're going to have wooden chopsticks that you throw through chopsticks. Yeah, that you would pull apart. There are also plenty of restaurants in Japan

that have reusable ones and they're a much more elegant or whatever.

“But it's not like you wouldn't just walk in”

and be like, what is this? It's disposable chopsticks are you kidding? 'Cause they're just such a part of Japanese culture. So they use 77% of the other half. Korea uses 21% and then 2% comes to the United States.

- Is that all? - I have to catch that that was 2011 figures, which is the latest I could find. - Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that I would think China and Japan,

it would just seem like they would, like everyone would have their own and it would be a very like prideful thing to take care of your chopsticks and to have something cool looking.

- Yeah. - It just kind of surprises me that they're so down with the disposable. - It surprises a lot of people, especially Japan is like really well known

for being meticulous with recycling and reducing waste and stuff like that. - It doesn't fit. - Yeah, it's just this one thing. They really love their disposable chopsticks.

And they just throw them away. They're not being recycled or composted or anything. - Oh, okay, they're just being thrown in the trash. - So, what I read is that some restaurants will offer tea for free if you bring your own chopsticks

or maybe like a tea for free anyway. But yeah, basically. But there's not a huge amount of movement in Japan.

“Where China, and this is, I think I read this”

in like a New York Times green blog or something like that. China's made some moves like taxing, disposable, adding in extra tax, to disposable chopsticks, I think.

- More regulation, basically, overall, I think.

- Which is really saying something, you know? I mean, there's like apparently a whole sub industry to the disposable chopsticks industry that is small enough that it escapes a lot of oversight. And they can be really problematic.

Like there can be a lot of chemicals in these chopsticks. They're just like an all-around basic nightmare. And it's just such low-hanging fruit. All in everybody has to do is just have their own chopsticks. But just people just won't do it.

And I'm guilty too, like I said. I mean, we have reusable ones at home, but we don't take them out of the house ever. - Yeah, plus the paper used to, in case, the said chopsticks, that's a lot of paper, too.

- Yeah, it is. - And what do you do with that stuff? You just rip it open and burn it at the table. - Though, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. - Should we take another break?

- Yeah, all right. We'll take another break and talk a little bit about etiquette right after this 'cause we're all doing it wrong to a certain degree. (upbeat music)

- Hey, I'm out of cotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda cotby. Okay, if you know me, you know this.

I'm always searching for inspiration, for support,

and useful tools to help maximize joy. So, this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're gonna have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Mann shared how she

overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and it helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand post-partner depression.

I was not prepared for post-partner anxiety. - Olympic champ Sean Johnson revealed why she had no choice, but to be a gymnast. - There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me.

Let's give it me a believe that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. - Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda cotby on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. - American soccer is exploding.

- The U.S. won their group, and now every match is winter, go home. (cheering and applause) - You are safe! - I'm Tat Bramos.

- And I'm Tom Boger. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, we'll talk about the real storylines. - I'm not worried about ballistic, I'm not worried about ballagin,

I'm not worried about McKinney,

“my only concern is what happens in the back.”

- And give you the truth about the U.S. national team from Inside the program. - It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals, or potentially a great run into the semi-finals.

Whether you're a lifelong fan,

or this is your first world cup.

- We've got you cup. - Listen, Inside American Soccer, with Tom Boger and Tabran Belson, the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or whoever you get to podcast.

- My husband is currently on a vacation with his mistress, and I'm confronting them. - Tell me Sophia, how did she even catch them? - One Amazon shopping receipt. He accidentally sent her a photo of the kid's Christmas gifts

with a delivery to another woman at the bottom. - He exposed himself. That's a rookie move. - Couples massages, monogrammed bath robes,

and lingerie, he met motor four. So she spent four weeks gathering evidence, and taped a 10-page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. - In his luggage, she came to play.

- And the second he landed, he blocked her.

- So she called the hotel room directly

and got the mistress on the phone. - Ooh, she got the mistress live on the phone. That is a bold move. Let's see if it pays off. - Then it gets worse.

He took the mistress on the Bahamas honeymoon trip. He had planned with his wife, and that and the mistress tagged him on Facebook, outing the fair to her entire family. - That's like a whole public confession.

- And spoiler two years later, Karma hit some solo hardies calling his ex-wife in tears, saying about the mistress, what a mistake that was. To find out what happened,

listen to the okay story-time podcast on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music) ♪ We have this kind of trash and shark ♪

♪ We have this kind of trash ♪

- Okay, Ms. Manor's lay it on.

(laughs) - That's Dr. Mrs. Manor's. - It's a PhD S. Quire. - So this is mainly a Japan that we're concentrating on with the etiquette.

And like you said,

“I think they take it a little more seriously”

than some other Asian countries because it turns out that chopsticks can and have had an important part in burial rights. Yeah, in funeral rights, Buddhist funeral rights.

- Like a lot of the taboos, I guess you'd call 'em over chopsticks in Japan and in other Asian countries too, are kind of based on like, well, that's kind of something we do with funeral rights.

So that reminds us of that. Japan is not crazy about being reminded of death or mortality or pain. Same here. - All that stuff is very unlucky.

Like the number four is unlucky because the word for four, I think she also sounds very much like the word for death. - Right, I think I remember that. So they don't have four elevator floors?

Is that right? - I don't remember if they do or not. But let's just go with it, they don't. (laughs) 'Cause it sounds pretty great.

- So etiquette level one is how this is presented. There's a couple of levels here, as far as like you really shouldn't do these things. But if you really want to ramp it up, you shouldn't do these things as well.

“- I felt these were kind of willy-nilly, didn't you?”

- Well, I mean, this is one person's opinion, right? - Right. - But the things that you really shouldn't do are the following. Do not, if you like, get up to go to the bathroom,

don't stick your chopsticks sitting upright in your bowl of rice. - No. - And that has to do with the household Buddhist altar, because it is a bowl of rice is offered

as to a dead person's spirit. And this apparently is from a Buddhist Buddhist, (laughs) Buddhist funeral rites as well, because there's a photograph of a bowl of rice

and to stick chopsticks in the middle of that would be for Bowton. - I think it's still have like a photograph of the deceased, and they give them a bowl of uncooked rice so they stick the chopsticks up in there.

- Oh, okay, I read that. - So it's reminiscent of that, so it's got that death thing going on. - The death angle. - Yeah.

And then the other thing I saw about that too is that it also was reminiscent of like a bowl of sand with incense sticking out of it that you would also put on a Buddhist shrine to the deceased.

- They're like way too reminiscent of death for that to be okay.

- There's another one that's very similar. Don't leave your chopsticks crossed, right? Like resting on your bowl or on your plate just don't cross your chopsticks,

it's in place basically for the exact same reason

is sticking them out of the bowl.

“- Right, and I think that one is when you see”

like on food, Instagram, food posts a lot from whitey saying, you know, like cross the chopsticks 'cause it looks school or whatever. - Look at how cool this look. - Yeah, it's not cool apparently.

- You're right. - We talked about spearing. The advice here is to treat them as if they are actually connected, even though they're not. It's a good way to remember it.

- Like pretend connected. - That's right. - Yeah, and remember this is like, I think that goes back to like Confucius where it's like, don't have a knife at your table.

Don't use your chopsticks to spear food. - That's right. Apparently it's bad luck or not bad luck. Well, maybe bad luck to use two different chopsticks. - Yeah.

- They should have the same mommy and daddy. - This person says it's just unsightly and that it's also reminiscent of funeral rights that one I couldn't figure that one out. - Yeah.

- There's another funeral one too. A lot of funeral rights involved chopsticks. Passing food from chopsticks to chopsticks. Like if you like, hey, you got to try a bite of this. - That's just hard to do.

- You hold it up. But it's kind of, it's a little bit showy. - Yeah. - If you can do it, look at us. - But when you, you know, it's somebody grabs it

with their chopsticks.

“That's how they pass bones from cremations”

during funeral rights too. And they're like, now that reminds us of that as well. - Yeah, and there are some of these that are just like, I can't believe people do this. Do not wash your chopsticks off in your beverage.

- Yeah, that's gross. - Someone do that? - I don't know. Apparently somebody has the other thing about this is, so the fact that they have restrictions on this,

social restrictions means that people have done it before. But they also go so far as like, most of these things all have like individual words. That's how like aggro, the Japanese are about this, this kind of etiquette.

- Yeah. - They have words for that. Like washing your chopsticks off in your drink is not just called washing your chopsticks off in your drink. - Yeah, there's a name for it.

Let me see here, do not treat them as toys. And we talked earlier about putting them in your mouth like their fangs or walrus tusks or antennas or drumsticks. Just not a good look. - Right.

- Here's another one that is, this is sort of one that I think happens a lot, is you might see women, American women, maybe do their hair and put chopsticks in them. When you see that in Japan, those are not chopsticks.

- Right. - It might look like chopsticks, but they're actually called kanzashi. - Yeah, it'd be kind of like sticking a fork in your hair. If you're walking around Japan looking like that,

they'd be like, "Why do you, why do you have that fork in your hair?" - Yeah. - It looks a little off, but yeah. They look just like those things,

but there's a separate thing. - That's right. - What did you call them? - Kanzashi? - Yeah, nice.

- It's a beautiful word. - I mean, I didn't make that up. - Right, I know. - Okay, no. Another one is, you'll very frequently see people do this

and I've done it too and it's apparently acceptable under certain circumstances, but when you break your warabashi, you're disposable cheap chopsticks apart at the end. If there's splinters or there's like a piece of wood sticking out,

you can rub them together. - I was kind of softened the wood or get the splinters off. But you're not supposed to do that it's just like a matter of course.

Because you're basically insulting the restaurant.

You're saying like, these are so cheap, these chopsticks that you're providing your gas. - Yeah. - Like I've got a rub them together. And you definitely don't want to make eye contact

with the owner while you're rubbing it together.

“Like this is what I think of your establishment.”

And people do that all the time. - I do it. - It's almost like habitual. - It's habitual for me and I started doing it when I first started using chopsticks

because I saw the person I was with did it and I was like, I guess that's what you do. You get those little splinters off. And now it's a total habit and my whole thing there, I don't think that one's a really big one.

Like, especially in America, it happens so much. I don't think anyone in restaurant owners like super insulted by seeing this. - Sure, yeah, especially in America. - But they are super cheap and they do splinter.

- Right, well in that case, yes. Like that that proprietor is brought it on himself for herself for providing everybody with such cheap chopsticks that they're splintering.

- I will always remember this now, I'll tell you that.

- Yeah, so I agree with you. I think that this is probably not that big of an intellectual, especially in America. It's probably falls in line with how you're not supposed to put your wasabi in the soy sauce or something like that.

- Well, if you want to do it, you know. If you want to be remarkably polite then you wouldn't do any of these things. Some are way worse than others.

- Yeah.

“- Even though it's under this advancing.”

This is why I was saying this seems willy-nilly. - Yeah, and we also covered some of this in our sushi episode because if I'm not mistaken, don't you eat sushi with your fingers or my wrong? - Don't you eat with your fingers or do you not?

- No, I love showing off how great I am at chopsticks. - I use them every turn. - You've got some skills? - Every time I can't. - Yeah, I eat millet gruel with chopsticks.

That's how good I am. - Yeah, or you have seen you just flip up a shrimp and catch it in the other one. What a show off. - It's pretty great because you have chopsticks

you have four, you have two in each hand.

- Yeah, but yes, basically.

- And you do a little side show there. It's really impressive. - Edward, Cisder, hands. - Josh, chopstick, finger. - But no, you're supposed to eat sushi,

it's specifically nigiri. - Right.

“- With your hand, that's how it was originally done.”

If I remember correctly from our sushi episode. - I think so. - Yeah, but yeah, we use chopsticks these days. - Here's another no-no, is do not use chopstick as a rake. Like, don't lift up a bowl of rice

and just sort of rake rice into your mouth. - So that's Japan. I saw in China, that's perfectly accepted. - Oh, really? - Normal.

- Okay. - Yeah, gets dicey with, it's not the same at everywhere, you know?

- Yeah, here's the thing, I don't know if we said this before.

So in Thailand, they don't use chopsticks almost as a rule. In Vietnam, Korea, Japan, China, they're totally ubiquitous, almost the only thing you're going to find that you eat with. And so that means that even a bowl of soup, like me so soup, you're supposed to use your chopsticks for that.

Like the little chunks of tofu, yeah, take me a second. You use your chopsticks to eat those out of the bowl and then you slurp the rest or sip the rest of the pending. But with rice, you would hold the bowl up kind of close to your face, but not like up in your face.

Just under your chin and out a little bit. And then you eat the rice with your chopsticks from there, lifting the rice up to your mouth, not shoveling it into your mouth from the bowl. - Right, and I saw with soups and things also

is if you really want to ramp up the etiquette, you should try and drip into the bowl. - Oh, right, when you're picking up the tofu, you want to kind of shake the tofu off so it doesn't drip on you or on the table.

- Yes. - If you really want to excel at a kit, you would just not eat anything. You'd just sit there quietly with your chopsticks, side by side, still in their wrapper,

just smiling politely at everyone. - It's like, didn't break any rules and I'm really hungry. - That's right. - There's a couple of more here.

Don't point with your chopsticks. - That's tough not to do. - Do you point? - I don't point at people, you know, or anything like that.

- I'll be like, okay, can you pass me something right there? - Yeah, you just sort of give a little nod like, hey, that pot sticker over there. - Yeah, because they're fun to hold and point with and do stuff with.

I just, I don't know, maybe I'm still, it's still novel enough to me that I have to remind myself not to point, or you may have to remind me not to point with the chopsticks. - Or when you're talking and you're expressing things

with your hands and you're using your chopsticks.

“Or if you want to just do a little mystra routine.”

- Right, you know. - Let's look down upon. Or if you're using your hands for something else, you don't stick your chopsticks in your mouth and just hold them in there while you're like,

moving plates around or something like that, you set them down. And here's the other thing too. If you go to a very nice restaurant in Japan, or in the States, and it just happens to be a Japanese restaurant,

about that, really prolong this thought, they're gonna give you a chopstick rest. - Oh, sure. - Your chopsticks on, so they're kind of lifted off of the table at the end that you put in your mouth.

If you don't have that, you can take that paper wrap and roll it up and make your own chopstick rest. - That's right, 'cause you're setting your chopsticks down on a table that could be, you know, have germs. - Right, and speaking of germs also Chuck,

you never ever use the chopsticks that you're eating with

to serve yourself from a communal plate or bowl. That's for sure. - They should give you like a spoon or something like that to spoon it onto your plate. And then you use your chopsticks because that's just

germine and disease. And apparently, there's a supplement to that, where if they don't give you a serving spoon, people flip their chopsticks over and use the thicker and shovel the food onto the plate,

which is not necessarily any more hygienic, 'cause that's where your hands have been, rather than your mouth. - Well. - But that's the more socially acceptable thing to do, then just using the business

into your chopsticks. (laughing) - I don't know why that's so funny to me, but the ends, though,

you're choked up a little bit,

“so they're not really being touched by your hands, you know?”

- True, like you don't stick the ends in your palm. - That's right, that's true. - You choke up on it like a baseball bat. - Yeah, they say in Korea, apparently, that the further down, though, you hold the chopsticks,

the longer it's going to be before you get married. - Well, yeah, I mean, we could talk about some of these kind of fun facts. - Fine. - Let me see here.

One is, if you're given an uneven pair, you will miss a boat or a plane, and this is, came from Malaysia, I'm not sure if that's ubiquitous, all over Asia. - I think it's Chinese.

- Okay. - I think what else here, this is kind of fun. If you use chopsticks, it involves over 50 muscles in the fingers and 30 joints, and the, well, overall in the fingers, arms, shoulders, and wrists.

- Yeah, pretty cool. - It is, I mean, how many you use for a fork, like two? - Maybe. - Give me a break. I saw a couple of things.

One is that there was a study that found the eating popcorn with chopsticks, and makes eating popcorn much more enjoyable than eating it without chopsticks with your fingers instead. And they even controlled for the amount of extra time

it takes to eat popcorn with chopsticks. It's not just that you're eating slower, so you're relishing it more, 'cause they had a control group using their fingers, eat at a very slow pace too.

And apparently they think it's just the fact that you're doing something differently, makes you appreciate the thing that you're doing or that you're eating that much more. Like, if you pour water out of like a separate water bottle

like at a restaurant, how they have like the little chilled water bottle still bring over. - Look at what it takes to taste better than water that you just poured out of the tap, even if it was the exact same water

because it's being conveyed differently. - Yeah, and that's also how you would get popcorn to last through the opening previews of a movie. - It's right, 'cause you're not just shoveling it in your mouth like I do.

- It's so bizarre, man, I do the same thing. - I've tried to do the like a couple of kernels at a time and you know, I do that for the first few and then before you know it, I've just got handfuls that I'm pushing into my mouth.

“- Right, right, that's how you have to do it.”

You have to use the palm of your hand to really shove the entire fistful in there. You can't just use your little fingertips that doesn't work. - You'll choke on them.

- And I don't know if it's sort of a subliminal desire for me not to be distracted during the movie. But the ideal world, I would just sit there in a bunch of a couple of pieces at a time for two hours.

- Like just two or a million times?

- No, no, just eat a couple of kernels at a time and just really elongate the whole experience. - Take, put those chops six in your mercy and take those to the theater. - People would be like, look at that guy.

- Hey, though, you have to be careful though, yes, yes, they would. (laughs) - You have to be careful though, who you brandish those chops around because,

so you put this together, who knows for that. One of the facts you came up with is that there's something called consecutive Laophobia, consecutive Laophobia,

“I think I said, which is literally a fear of chops sticks.”

- Yeah, there's a fear for everything. - But yes, but I was reading a blog post on it on some maybe psych not, I think.

And they were saying, there's basically two categories

of phobias, ones that are semi-rational. - Right. - They use the example of a fear of sharks. - Right. - Well, if you did run into a shark, there's a chance

you could be killed by that shark. So, it's not just totally bonkers to be afraid of sharks, but a phobia of sharks is in a rational fear. Like maybe if you live in Kansas, you've got no reason to have a fear of sharks.

This one, they said, this basically qualifies in the bonkers category. Like there's virtually nothing that chopsticks can do to hurt you. So, to be a rationally afraid of chopsticks

to where you feel like heart pounding anxiety is a genuine die in the Wolfobia. But some people do apparently experience this although it's super rare. - Yeah, that's interesting.

- But you'll like avoid entire types of restaurants because you can't be around chopsticks. And you'll get anxious just thinking about being around chopsticks. - Oh, that's so sad because Asian food makes up a large portion of my diet.

- Well, luckily for you, you don't have consecutive laophobia. - No, I mean, when I think about sushi, I think about far, I think about ramen. I think about good old-fashioned, Sichuan Chinese food. - Oh, yeah.

- Think about Korean, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

- Dude, you've got to get some Bude Jigae.

I'll take you to go get some of it. - All right. - You're gonna love it, so good, I can't wait. You got anything else? - I got nothing else.

- 45 minutes on chopsticks, baby. - Not bad.

“- If you want to know more about chopsticks,”

go get yourself some that you can reuse and eat conscientiously with them and don't forget all the manners, but just go eat some Asian food because no matter where it's firm or what it is,

it's probably pretty good. - It's agreed. - Since I said that, it's time for the listener mail. (bell ringing) - I'm gonna call this two for two.

Hey guys, there were a few years ago about Alan Alde, and thought I'd share a Sammy Davis Junior story. - Oh, wow.

- And this is from Andrew Limberg and Pittsburgh,

and he got his Alan Alde when red, and when I told him this is coming on, he wrote back two for two, baby. - Nice, yeah, there's people out there who are like, "Oh, for 10."

- I know, I'm so sorry. - I assume, it's not like we're keeping track of people like that. - Oh, no, I have a spreadsheet. - Oh, you turn this cruising. - Oh, you do.

- I don't know, that's me.

“He says so, in the 80s, Sammy had been cleaned out by his ex-wife”

and was selling barbecue sauce. He was in Pittsburgh to promote it and my friend Larry who had a local TV show at the time got a chance to interview him. When they arrived at the hotel,

they were told they would get 20 minutes with Sammy, but when they talked to Sammy's manager, he said only 10 minutes. So instead of having time to set up a two-shot interview and for people that don't know the link up,

that means both people are in the same camera frame. - Okay. - They kept the camera on Sammy and Larry would then go back and add his footage later. So he would, I guess, re-ass the questions

with a ghost Sammy, just to edit it together. At the end of the interview, they needed one, just one two-shot of the two of them together so they could edit it realistically. And Sammy's manager said nope,

and Larry looked at Sammy almost begging because they needed the two-shot. Sammy took a long drag of a cigarette and said get your two-shot, babe. The manager then said, oh well, I guess I'm the A-hole

to which Sammy said as a matter of fact, babe, you are an A-hole. So this is how the story goes apparently. And then Andrew says he's been listening since '08 and went to that live show in Pittsburgh,

please come back. - Wow, yeah. - And he says he is a podcast now, called the Pittsburgh Oddcast. Nice. - And he said we average about 1,500 listens in episode

which is pretty darn good Andrew. - Yeah, it is nice work Andrew. - For a self-styled show, that's not bad at all. - Especially a local one, too, Pittsburgh Oddcast. - Yeah, so Pittsburghians, if you're from the Berg,

check out the Pittsburgh Oddcast and Andrew. - Or even if you're interested in it. - Sure, Pittsburgh. - You might live in Philadelphia and just be a Berghead. - Exactly. - Well, that was a pretty great one.

Thank you very much, two for two. That's a pretty impressive Andrew. And if you want to get Chuck to do any Sammy Davis Jr. impressions, write in with your own Sammy Davis Jr. story

and see how it goes. And you can put that in any mail. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom and send it off to [email protected].

“- Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.”

For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

- Joy is essential and it's also elusive, but now.

There's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Copy. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy,

tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on air chats. Open your free I Heart Radio app search, Joy 101, and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Copy is presented by CVS.

- Five for us, guys, is Karen Sultan. - Chuck Eda. - Look and eating. - That's a surprise. - That's a surprise. - Many surprises. Welcome to the sweet 305 podcasts

where the group check comes to life. - What the f***? - You're the only person I know that loves to Yala Starburst. - Oh, I'm a nerd.

- This is sweet 305. Here, oversharing is encouraged. - Listen to sweet 305 with Lele Ponds on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

- I'm husband is a desposer with his mistress right now, and I'm calling the hotel to confront them both. - Wait a minute, Dakota. She's calling the hotel while they're checked in

together. - Yeah, that's right, Sophia. And it gets worse. It's fake hate to vacation week on the Okastery time podcast, where she caught him buying gifts on Amazon,

and then taped the 10 page letter inside his luggage before he flew out. - So she planted evidence before he even took off?

Karma hits so hard, he's calling his ex-wife,

in tears, saying about his mistress,

when it was stick that was.

- To find out what happened,

listen to the Okastery time podcast

on the I Heart Radio app,

“Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.”

- This is an I Heart Podcast. (upbeat music) - Garen's eat human.