People in China are used to using chopsticks, while people in Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia and the Indian subcontinent grasp them with their fingers. At present, the earliest chopsticks found in China are copper chopsticks unearthed from Yin Ruins in Anyang City, Henan Province. Yu Lao, the son of Han Fei, said, "The former is like a bamboo pole, but Ji Zi is terrible." Zhou Wang was the monarch at the end of Shang Dynasty, which shows that ivory chopsticks appeared in China more than 3000 years ago.
A slender stick, held in the fingers, is used to hold food or other things. It can be made of bamboo, wood, bone, porcelain, ivory, metal, plastic and other materials, with different shapes or squares or circles, and is often used as tableware.
Tableware has been used in China for a long time. The history of using spoons is about 8000 years, and that of using forks is about 4000 years. The upper limit of using chopsticks is uncertain, but it has a history of at least 3000 years. Forks were still used until the Warring States Period. A bundle of 5 1 forks was unearthed from the Warring States tombs in Luoyang, Henan Province. After the Warring States period, the fork may be destroyed, and records and objects rarely appear. The division of labor between spoons and chopsticks in the pre-Qin period was very clear. Spoons are used to eat, and chopsticks are used to eat dishes in soup.
Chopsticks were called Zi in the pre-Qin period, Min in the Han dynasty and Chopsticks in the Ming dynasty. In the Book of Rites Quli Shang, it is mentioned that "those who have vegetables in the soup must use them", and in the first aid article, it is said that "there is no food in the food", while in the Book of Rites, Zheng Xuan notes that "there is no shortage of food". "Miscellanies of Yunxian" contains: "Xiangfan is waiting for him, with painted flower plates, wooden chopsticks and fishtail spoons." In Chapter 22 of The Scholars, the waiter took a pair of chopsticks, two side dishes and a plate of bacon. Shen Congwen's autobiography, I read both small books and big books. There is a big bamboo tube in front of a small restaurant in a small street, which contains chopsticks cut from bamboo. There are also many folk legends about chopsticks, such as Jiang Ziya's invention of silk and bamboo chopsticks inspired by the divine bird, da ji's invention of chopsticks with a Hosta, which won the favor of Zhou Wang, and the legend that Dayu invented chopsticks in order to save time in taking hot food from branches during water control. The length of ordinary chopsticks is about 22-24 cm. Chopsticks have many handicrafts, and more traditional crafts are integrated into the design, which has become the choice of people's collection and is also deeply loved by foreigners.
In Lu Rong's Garden Miscellaneous Notes in the Ming Dynasty, it was said that the people of Wu vulgar boat dared not say that "living" was homophonic with "chopsticks", so they changed "chopsticks to be quick". Because the boat people and fishermen in Wuzhong are particularly afraid of "chopsticks" and "living" boats. If the ship stops, the boatman will have no business. They are even more afraid that the boat will "eat" and the wooden boat will "eat", so how can they fish? Under the guidance of this superstitious homophonic thought, the antonym of "fast" is called "chopsticks" for good luck. Li Yuheng, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, said more clearly in "The Words of Pushing Peng": "Those who are afraid of bad words and say good words, if they are lazy, are called fast men." It has been a long time now, even those who are called "fast" by scholars have forgotten its origin. Although some people called chopsticks "chopsticks" in the Ming Dynasty, Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty did not admit that people would soon prefix the word "chopsticks" with bamboo. Kangxi Dictionary only accepts "chopsticks" and does not accept "chopsticks", which can prove this point. However, it is difficult for the emperor to resist the trend that people are afraid of taboos and like to draw lots orally. In the forty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions, Cao Xueqin called it "chopsticks" in three places, "embarrassment" in two times and "chopsticks" directly in four times.
In today's society, the names of chopsticks have become commonplace. However, in calligraphy, poetry and articles, experts and scholars still refer to chopsticks as chopsticks or embarrassment, rather than "forgetting the beginning" as mentioned in Peng Yu.