The waiter approaches and plops those little plastic cups of tea on the table as you sit down for lunch. You’re thirsty, and although you’d love a Ribena with lemon – and even while you know that the tea is meant to wash the chopsticks pulled from the communal tin – you throw etiquette to the wind and gulp the free drink.

Chopsticks are everywhere in local restaurants…which means you should take good chopstick etiquette with you everywhere as well. You know, for instance, that tempting as it may be to stab that pesky piece of pork that keeps sliding around your plate with the chopstick’s tip, it’s not actually a good idea. And although that huge choi sum stalk that’s been a tad over-boiled doesn’t lend itself to being eaten in clean-cut bites, you know to resist the urge to pull the stringy vegetable from your mouth with your fingers rather than your chopsticks.

I remember the looks of horror from my lunch companions the first time I absentmindedly stuck my chopsticks vertically into the rice bowl while reaching for an errant napkin. That is the ultimate chopstick taboo: never, never stick chopsticks upright in your bowl of rice. It is the way incense is presented in sacrificial and funeral offerings, and it’s understandable that re-casting the form of a sacred offering into that of a meal you’re in the process of ingesting might be considered a bit degenerate. The image of chopsticks poking upright out of a food dish is also reminiscent of the way a tombstone looks, which means you might be inviting death to the table.

There are other taboos the practiced chopstick user knows to avoid… but might not understand why. It’s considered impolite to pass food from one pair of chopsticks to another, but this isn’t purely for hygienic reasons. The passing of food recalls another funeral custom, that of passing the bones of the cremated amongst family members. Again, it’s never a smart idea to turn your dinner table into a metaphoric graveyard.

In fact a good number of etiquette faux pas are rooted in a desire to avoid death-related references. The proper way to lay chopsticks down is to place them parallel to each other and with the ends even. Laying down the chopsticks so one appears longer than the other recalls the Chinese idiom ‘three longs and two shorts’, a reference to traditional Chinese wooden coffins being built with three long woods and two short ones. And so while laying one’s chopsticks down, one doesn’t want to come uncomfortably close to building a coffin. The conviction that dropping chopsticks onto the floor brings bad luck is also death-related: a traditional Chinese belief holds that ancestors ‘sleep’ underground after death, and dropping things like chopsticks onto them could scare them and wake them up. Certainly no one wants to be haunted by a dead – and possibly tetchy – ancestor!

Chinese folklore is full of chopstick-related traditions. One myth holds that a girl who holds her chopsticks high up will marry someone from a far away country, and a girl who holds her chopsticks lower down will marry someone close to home. Chopsticks are a traditional wedding present for couples not only because they come in pairs and etiquette prevents them from being separated, but also because the word for chopsticks in Chinese sounds a lot like the words for ‘quick’ and ‘son’ in both Mandarin and Cantonese – in other words, receiving chopsticks can be considered well-wishes for a baby boy.

Some traditionalists maintain that you should never use chopsticks with the left hand, even if you are left-handed. A few attribute the reasoning behind that to ancient Chinese legend; for some it’s a matter of not inconveniencing the diner at your left who is more than likely using their right hand to eat; for some it is as simple as the fact that because the rice bowl was traditionally held in the left hand, necessity dictated chopsticks be held in the right.

While tapping the side of a glass may be a proper way to announce a toast, tapping the side of a rice bowl with your chopsticks is an etiquette no-no. To do so is to tactlessly simulate the way those in need beg for money: while eating a good meal in a restaurant is probably not the time to assume the role of a beggar.

Correctly, chopsticks should always press together but never cross. To use them properly, place one chopstick in the hollow between your thumb and forefinger, balance it against your third finger, and use your index finger to move the second chopstick up and down. Don’t let your index finger poke into the air while using chopsticks – this comes too close to pointing at someone insultingly. Notice that when you use chopsticks correctly, the back ends stay apart even when you separate the pointed ends from each other. Maximize your dexterity by holding the chopsticks further back, as opposed to closer to the tips. Don’t think of it like holding a pencil; think of it more like holding a calligraphy brush.

Traditional Chinese chopsticks are square at the top and come to a blunt, rounded end. Japanese chopsticks come to more of a point, which makes sense considering that Japanese meals traditionally involve picking apart lots of bony fish, and only small tips can do that effectively. Korean chopsticks have flat, rectangular ends and are often made of steel. Vietnamese chopsticks are long and come to a blunt tip. But many restaurants serve fusion food and get around the chopstick issue by offering those universal, inexpensive wooden chopsticks you pull apart and discard after eating; and here, too, lies a point of etiquette contention. Is it or is it not acceptable to do what is so ingrained in many of us, and rub the wooden ends of chopsticks together to remove splinters? The consensus seems to be it’s acceptable only as long as it does not insult your server – by implying that he/she would willingly allow you to injure yourself by presenting you with splintered utensils.

It is never a good idea to cross the chopsticks in an ‘X’ shape while at the table, as that signals ill wishes to those around you. While many today believe that it is perfectly acceptable to lay chopsticks down parallel on top of your bowl, do so with caution as some still interpret that as a sign of dissatisfaction with the meal. Still others would be wary of building a ‘bridge’ across the bowl with chopsticks, as this too might be a sign of bad luck. At the end of a meal, you can always lay your chopsticks down flat on the table – a custom that makes sense if you consider that it implies a disinterest in keeping the chopstick tips clean enough to eat from.