Chinese 'must swap chopsticks for knife and fork'

splinter

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Indian's ban on export of iron ore is very interesting, why should they do that? That makes Aussies feel much elated.
 

PredictablyMalicious

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Using this mentality, Indians should start using toilet paper too.
Different culture, different choices.
I find it funny how in person, 99.99% of racist people will probably get along with their so-hated enemies from different countries.
Racism is really funny on the internet
 

amoy

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frankly I felt nauseated when seeing people rolled with fingers quickly rice and something green (beans?) and yellow (curry?) together of Dal Bhat and fed into mouth directly. occasionally they dipped their fingers into a bowl of water for cooling or cleaning?! fm time to time someone poured cold water to mouth directly from a shared kettle. despite all that we hav to appreciate the beauty in diversity.

Sent from my 5910 using Tapatalk 2
 

Ray

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Frankly, I find it nauseating and disgusting that people hawk (a noisy effort to clear the throat and bringing up phlegm) that is so prevalent in some part of Asia.

Even using personal chopsticks that they have put in their mouth while eating and picking up food from a central dish, thereby mixing each others saliva in a most unhygienic manner, even though the same is not realised.
 
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sgarg

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India is far more Westernized than China is, though both are obviously Westernized to a certain degree.

Only countries like the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan are/were totally free of Westernization, and most people would not want to live in such places.
Which % of India is Westernized? Also what is your definition of Westernization.
If you take an English education as Westernization, then may be 5% of Indians are Westernized.
 

Little Fish

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Metal chopsticks are too heavy, it won't be comfortable eating with such things. Plastic chopsticks are an alternative and alrealy applied in many Chinese canteens
 

Ray

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Which % of India is Westernized? Also what is your definition of Westernization.
If you take an English education as Westernization, then may be 5% of Indians are Westernized.
Actually, 'westernised' has many forms.

Some are like Nirad C Chaudhuri and on the other end of the spectrum are those who wear pant and shirt. There is a whole lot, even in the rural area who use just the spoon and eat, except the chappattis and the use of English word (even in the rural areas) like 'dath' (death), 'fathar' (father), 'problam' (problem) and so on, when there are very apt words in Hindi or the vernacular.

Note this from today's paper.
English rush spurs PPP school plan

- Well-off villagers shun free Hindi medium, send children to private academies


The Right to Education Act has entitled every parent to demand free schooling for their children up to Class VIII. But Naveen Sarvang of Sarangpur village, on Delhi's outskirts, is not interested.

The Grade IV civic employee sends his two young sons to St Charles Secondary School, a private English-medium school in Samaspur, 3km from the village, even though the civic body has been running a Hindi-medium school at his doorstep for decades.

"I can't compromise on my children's future," said Sarvang, 40. He isn't the only parent thinking this way.
English rush spurs PPP school plan
Metal chopsticks are too heavy, it won't be comfortable eating with such things. Plastic chopsticks are an alternative and alrealy applied in many Chinese canteens
I use chopsticks.

I find the plastic one, slippery to pick up morsels.

I prefer wooden ones.

I also have an ivory set too.

When I am at home and we have Indian food, even if there are guests, I use my fingers - the Indian way of eating.

For the love of me, I cannot understand how folks can eat fish (excepting when made boneless) with fork and knife.
 
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pmaitra

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@huaxia rox

History is history..
One can improve upon it but can not deny it...

If Chinese were not conscious of their miserable opium delusional past, they would not have made efforts to improve their lot....

Using spoon and fork will give impetus to Chinese steel Industry and reduce cutting trees for those horrible pricking sticks.

There is no harm in history.

India does not ask China to follow McMahon Line but follow traditional Himalayan Watershed as natural boundry between India, Tibet autonomous region and Xinjian
The Chinese are neither miserable, nor delusional.

The Chinese used chopsticks. Then they invented the spoon. Then they realized that the chopsticks were more efficient. They went back to their chopsticks.

I use chopsticks too. I find them more efficient than using a spoon.
 

danlonnt

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No, they use both the chopsticks and the spoon. In the daily life, the chopsticks is more useful for rice and noodles. but for the soup, a spoon is also necessaire.
 

linda

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"The fork, meanwhile, is said to have been invented by the Romans, but did not become common in northern Europe until the 18th century." invented by the Romans? are you sure? look at this:

This set of knife, fork and spoon, made of bone, was excavated from the Zongri archeological site in Qinghai, and date back about 5000 years. These prehistoric dining utensils are almost exactly the same as those used today in western cuisine, and although they were found in China much earlier than chopsticks, they completely disappeared at certain times in ancient China so that most people are not aware that they were once used by the ancient Chinese. Photo provided by Ge Shanben
 

linda

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The earliest Chinese dining customs were based around a mainly vegetarian diet, with grains as staple foods, fortified with lots of vegetables and small amounts of meat. By the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 B.C.) cooking techniques had become quite advanced, consumption of a wider variety of meats become commonplace, and when royalty dined there would always be a servant present to use chopsticks or a spoon to place the food on the plates of the diners, who would then eat with their own set of knife and fork. But at this time the culinary fork was used only by members of upper-class society, and the common people would likely never see one their entire lives.
Very few discoveries of forks from after the Warring States period (475–221 B.C.) have been made, and not a single one has been unearthed from after the Han (202–220 A.D.) and Jin (265–420 A.D.) dynasties. This shows that in the culinary habits of the Chinese, the knife and fork have been completely absent for the past 2000 years.

http://www.chinascenic.com/magazine/chopsticks-or-knife-and-fork-322.html
 

linda

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I am wondering if forks was invented by Roman and started to use it by 18th. century , then how did the westerners eat without forks before 18th.century ?eat their food by hands?

Chinese 'must swap chopsticks for knife and fork'

It is a battle that has divided East and West for centuries: Are chopsticks superior to the knife and fork? Now the debate may finally be decided, on environmental grounds.


With 1.4 billion people ploughing through 80 billion pairs of throwaway chopsticks each year, China has admitted its forests can no longer provide enough cutlery for its dinner tables.

"We must change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware," said Bo Guangxin, the chairman of Jilin Forestry Industry Group, to his fellow delegates at the National People's Congress.

Pointing out that only 4,000 chopsticks can be carved from a 20-year-old tree, he even went so far as to suggest that restaurants offered metal knives and forks instead.

If Mr Bo's suggestion is widely adopted, it would be a dark moment in the chopstick's 4,000-year history.

It was Da Yu, the founder of the Xia dynasty, who is said to have first used two sticks to eat his food in roughly 2100 BC.

It was an invention born of urgency. In his rush to reach a flood zone, Da Yu did not want to wait for his meat in his wok to cool, instead seizing a pair of twigs and wolfing down his meal.

Chopsticks quickly became popular around Asia. However Chinese chopsticks are longer than their Korean and Japanese counterparts in order to reach the communal dishes in the centre of the table. Koreans also often use metal chopsticks because of their love of barbecue.

The fork, meanwhile, is said to have been invented by the Romans, but did not become common in northern Europe until the 18th century.
Catherine de Medici is said to have taken the fork with her from Florence to France in the 16th century, when she married Henri II, along with many of her chefs, a moment that many Italians claim as the genesis of French cuisine.

Today, however, China is chopping down 20 million mature trees a year to feed its disposable chopstick habit, according to Mr Bo.

Nor can China find enough wood in its own forests. China is now the world's largest importer of wood and even imports chopsticks from America, where a company in Georgia realised that the state's native gum wood would be perfectly suited to make the utensil.

A previous estimate from China's state forestry administration, based on statistics from 2004 to 2009, put the yearly total at 57 billion disposable chopsticks, a much lower sum.

Then again, as the comedian Jerry Seinfeld once joked, parting the Chinese from their chopsticks is no mean feat.

"They're hanging in there with the chopsticks, aren't they? You know they've seen the fork. They're staying with the sticks.

"I don't know how they missed it. Chinese farmer gets up, works in the field with a shovel all day. Shovel. Spoon. Come on. You're not plowing 40 acres with a couple of pool cues!"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-must-swap-chopsticks-for-knife-and-fork.html

***********************************************

The argument that the Chinese should discard chopsticks for fork and knife is fallacious.

Mr Bo, who has suggested it to save forests is possibly one of China's noveau riche who thinks it is chic to ape the West and make a virtue of the same?

One should not discard ancient culture and traditions to be acceptable to others.

Chopsticks can be made of many other material than merely being based on wood.

I have ivory, bamboo, wooden and plastic chopsticks myself.

Mr Bo may like to explain how many trees and forest are cut to make toilet paper?

If there wasn't the use of toilet paper, would not a lot of trees and forests be saved?

Is God given water to mortifying for Mr Bo?
 

linda

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This pair of Neolithic bone chopsticks dates the use of this utensil back more than 6000 years.


These noodles were unearthed from the Qinghai Lamajia archeological site on November 22, 2002. According to expert appraisal, the noodles were made from millet flour. As the Lamajia site dates back about 4000 years, these are the oldest extant noodles ever discovered.


www.webonchina.com588 × 441Search by image
This terrine with eggs inside was unearthed in an ancient tomb from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771BC), with a history of more than 2,800 years.
 

amoy

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Yeah I heard of newly launched Bamboo Air too. I think VietJet ( dubbed bikini airlines somehow ) is growing rather fast. Hopefully it can extend its networks farther one day. I saw Viet jet flights in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

VN is bound to be the next booming economic powerhouse IMO in Asia Pacific. Lots of manufacturing shifting to VN amid US China trade wars.

HCM city was very impressive during my trip there last Jan..
 
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f3243007008

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The most environmentally friendly way is India's hand grab, but how to eat hot pot is a problem
 

Bleh

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The most environmentally friendly way is India's hand grab, but how to eat hot pot is a problem
How is this topic even an issue?!!
Why not simply use washable chopsticks made from good food-grade plastic? They'd be better than wooden ones.

Spoon, knife & fork sucks.
 

f3243007008

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India's?

I don't think 2-300 years ago except Royal families nobody in the world used spoons or forks or chopsticks to eat.

PS: If u leave hot food 'open', it will come down to room temperature within minutes.

Hot pot will not power off after you finish eating.
 

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