Tea & Chopsticks

Chopsticks
I think chopsticks should always be used and shown if you discuss Chinese food at all. They have been in use for about 5,000 years. Food was cut smaller in China to cook faster - and use less fuel. Chopsticks, or kaui-zi, those quick little fellows, were enough at the table. (Of course they had spoons for soup too!)

In China and Japan, children’s chopsticks are shorter than adult/regular chopsticks and children probably start using them at around 3 years old. In 2004, NPR suggested that 6 year olds should have the fine motor control and concentration necessary to use chopsticks. That piece suggested using dry popped popcorn as a first practice food. It has worked well in a few classrooms that I know.

I read a suggestion once for using tongue depressors instead of chopsticks but I can not imagine how one would be able to hold them at all like chopsticks. For more on chopsticks, see also: Asia Education's Chopsticks Lesson Plan. I especially like their student's page on Using Chopsticks. (You may want to review the photos of how to hold them in Wikipedia's Chopsticks or the WikiHow entry on How to Eat With Chopsticks.)

If you have any of the long serving chopsticks in your kitchen, people love to see those too.

There is etiquette to using chopsticks - just as there is with other eating utensils. One eats with the more rounded end, and one can serve with the other end. Never stick them straight up in a bowl of rice - it would look like incense burned at a temple or funeral offerings.

Tea
Tea has been drunk in China since at least 2,000 B.C. There are several different stories about its origin. For more, see Tea Trivia or a Tea Primer.

Brushstrokes from West to East is a 43 page document containing Vermont-standards which includes a clay teapot lesson for grade 5 & 6 on pages 36-41, including a quiz.

What about "Fortune Cookies" and "Chop Suey"?
Perhaps I should add something on those American creations. There is a debate about whether fortune cookies are even a Chinese-American creation or if it is actually of Japanese-American origin. Until the mid-1960s they were made by hand - using a chopstick. There is a "How people make fortune cookies" video and stills from Mr. Rogers at PBSkids.org

For a cute fortune cookie ad, stop by Consumerism at "small fox in a big world".
(Last updated September 2007)