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At present, the tools for human eating in the world are mainly divided into three categories: knives, forks and spoons in Europe and North America, and three tools for one meal; Chopsticks are used in China, Japan, Viet Nam, South Korea and North Korea; Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia and the Indian subcontinent grasp food with their fingers. China, the birthplace of chopsticks, has a history of 3, years, and is the mother country of eating chopsticks in the world. Chopsticks seem to be just two very simple thin sticks, but they have the functions of picking, poking, clamping, mixing and scraping, and are convenient to use and cheap. Chopsticks are also a unique tableware in the world today. Anyone who has used chopsticks, whether Chinese or foreigners, all admire the inventor of chopsticks. But who invented it? When was creation born? No one can answer this question now. In the ancient China, we can't find any written materials to record this great contribution to human civilization. Maybe our ancestors lacked words at that time, or the books to record chopsticks were lost? In short, the only answer to this unsolved case is "no record in history". Of course, the study of chopsticks culture is not without any circumstantial evidence.
Related Legends
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1. Jiang Ziya and Chopsticks
This legend is spread in Sichuan and other places, saying that Jiang Ziya can only fish with a straight hook and can't do anything else, so he is very poor. His wife really can't live a hard life with him, so she wants to kill him and marry someone else.
Jiang Ziya came home empty-handed after fishing that day. His wife said, "Are you hungry? I've cooked the meat for you, so eat it quickly! " Jiang Ziya was really hungry, so he reached for the meat. Suddenly a bird flew out of the window and pecked him. He groaned in pain and didn't eat the meat, so he hurried to catch the birds. When he went to get the meat for the second time, the bird pecked the back of his hand again. Jiang Ziya was suspicious. Why did the bird peck me twice? Can't I eat this meat? In order to try the bird, he went to catch meat for the third time, and then the bird came to peck him again. Jiang Ziya knew that it was a divine bird, so he pretended to drive the bird and chased it out the door until it reached an uninhabited hillside. The bird perched on a silk bamboo, and whispered and sang, "Jiang Ziya and Jiang Ziya, don't eat meat with your hands, the meat is under my feet ..." Jiang Ziya listened to the bird's advice, busy picked two thin bamboo and returned home. At this time, his wife urged him to eat meat again, so Jiang Ziya put two silk bamboos into the bowl and put meat in it. Suddenly, he saw thick smoke coming out of the silk bamboos. Jiang Ziya pretended not to know about poisoning and said to his wife, "How can meat smoke? Is it poisonous?" Jiang Ziya said, and picked up the meat and sent it to his wife's mouth. My wife's face turned white with fear, and she hurried out of the door.
Jiang Ziya understands that this bamboo is a divine bamboo sent by the divine bird, and any poison can be detected. From then on, he eats with two bamboo sticks for every meal. After the news came out, his wife not only dared not poison again, but also the neighbors learned to eat with bamboo branches. Later, more and more people followed suit, and the custom of eating with chopsticks was handed down from generation to generation.
This legend is obviously the product of worshipping Jiang Ziya, which is also inconsistent with historical records. Ivory chopsticks appeared in the Yin Zhou Wang era, and Jiang Ziya and Yin Zhou Wang were contemporaries. Now that Zhou Wang has used ivory chopsticks, Jiang Ziya's silk and bamboo chopsticks are far from being invented. But one thing is true, that is, bamboo was used as chopsticks in the south of Shang Dynasty.
2. The legend of da ji and chopsticks
is spread in Jiangsu. It's about Shang Zhouwang's moodiness. It's not that the fish is not fresh when eating, that is, the chicken soup is too hot, and sometimes it's said that the dishes are too cold to eat. As a result, many chefs became the ghosts of his sword. Favourite da ji also knows that he is difficult to serve, so every time she holds a wine banquet, she must taste it in advance, so as not to get angry when Zhou Wang is salty and tasteless. On one occasion, da ji tasted that some bowls of delicacies were too hot, but it was too late to change them, because Zhou Wang had come to the table. In order to win the favor of Zhou Wang, da ji used his quick wits, so he took off the long Hosta on his head, picked up the food, blew it again and again, and then sent it to Zhou Wang's mouth when it cooled down. Zhou Wang is a dissolute and shameless person. He thinks it is a pleasure to feed da ji with food, so he wants da ji to do so every day. Da ji asked the craftsman to make two long Hosta dishes specially for her, which is the embryonic form of jade chopsticks. Later, this way of picking vegetables spread to the people, and chopsticks were produced.
This legend, unlike the first legend, is close to life and has some practical significance, but it is still full of legend and does not accord with historical facts. The steel chopsticks unearthed by archaeologists in No.15 tomb of Shang Dynasty in Houjiazhuang, Anyang, were earlier than the Zhou Wang era at the end of Yin Dynasty. Obviously, chopsticks were not invented by Zhou Wang or da ji, but should be an earlier product.
3. The legend of Dayu and Chopsticks
is spread in Northeast China. It's about the Yaoshun era, when floods were rampant, and Shun ordered Yu to control the floods. After Dayu was ordered, he vowed to clear the flood for the people, so he went through the house three times and didn't enter. He struggled with fierce water and waves day and night, not to mention rest, even eating and sleeping, he could not bear to delay a minute.
Once, Dayu came to an island by boat, and he was so hungry that he set up a clay pot cook the meat. After the meat is boiled in water, it can't be eaten by hand because it is hot. Dayu didn't want to waste time waiting for the meat pan to cool down. He wanted to save water before the flood peak, so he cut off two branches and took the meat out of the hot soup and ate it. From then on, in order to save time, Dayu always fished for food from the boiling hot pot with branches and thin bamboo. This will save time to subdue the flood. Over time, Dayu learned the skill of using thin sticks to pick up food skillfully. When people under his command saw him eating like this, it was neither hot nor greasy, so they followed suit and gradually formed the prototype of chopsticks.
although "legend" mainly expresses people's understanding, views and feelings about historical events through some historical materials, rather than strictly reappearing the historical events themselves, Dayu accidentally produced the initial process of using chopsticks in water control, which convinced people today that this was the real situation. It is more simple and realistic than the legend of making chopsticks in Jiang Ziya and da ji, and it also conforms to the development law of things.
Origin
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The origin of the name of chopsticks
When it comes to chopsticks, almost everyone knows it. The names of chopsticks are called differently in different times. It was called "carry" in the pre-Qin period. It was also called "Zhu" in Qin and Han Dynasties. It was called "tendon" in Sui and Tang Dynasties. Li Bai once wrote in a poem: "You can't eat when you stop drinking." It was not until the Song Dynasty that there was the name of "chopsticks".
how did the word "chopsticks" evolve? Why is it called chopsticks? The word chopsticks has three related pronunciations in Chinese, and there are at least six words to say. The common word is chopsticks, a bamboo head with an or "zhe". There is also a variant of this word, that is, a wooden character is added next to living. This word was first recorded in Shuowen Jiezi, which is a tool for eating.
why didn't later people write or call "chopsticks" and have the name "chopsticks"? Interestingly, it has something to do with a taboo custom. In the Ming Dynasty's "Tupeng Yu Yu", it is said: those who are wrong and evil in the world are called beautiful words, such as the stagnation of Li Zhi, and they are called fast players. Today, because of their long circulation, even among scholars, they are also called fast players, and they forget their beginning. There is also a saying that a book in the Ming Dynasty said that Wuzhong is now an indigenous people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and this chopsticks is not called chopsticks. The reason is that there are many people punting in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and boatmen's families are very particular about punting, and there are many taboos. It is very troublesome to say that this "chopsticks" is homophonic with the word "stay" that "stops", and punters always think of smooth sailing and can't stay. Just change this "chopsticks" to "fast" and walk quickly, then the words change, the pronunciation changes, and the characters change. It is still a bamboo head, not a "zhe", but a fast and slow "fast". The chopsticks we have now are actually a dialect word.
the birth and development of chopsticks
the most important opportunity to promote the birth of chopsticks is that cooked food is hot. In ancient times, because there were no metal utensils, and because the animal bones were short, extremely brittle and difficult to process, the ancestors picked fine bamboo and branches to catch cooked food. In the wilderness environment, human beings lived in dense forest and grass caves, and the most convenient materials were trees and bamboo branches. Because of this, sticks and thin bamboos were fiddled with by the ancestors when they baked things, and they were eager to get the clips when they were scalding food. When cooking millet, the rudiment of chopsticks gradually appeared. This is the inevitable development law of human beings in special environment. From the present shape of chopsticks, it also has the characteristics of primitive bamboo sticks. Even after more than 4 years of development, its originality can't be changed.
Of course, any legend is always processed by people of all ages, such as taking advantage of luck, tailoring, fiction, exaggeration, rendering and even fantasy, and Dayu's creation of chopsticks is no exception. It is the process of making chopsticks that people have gradually explored for thousands of years, focusing on Dayu, a typical figure. In fact, the birth of chopsticks should be the collective wisdom of the ancestors, not the credit of one person. However, chopsticks may have originated in the Yu Wang era. After hundreds of years or even years of efforts and popularization, they became tableware used with Bi * * * in the Shang Dynasty.
In modern society, chopsticks are not only used in China, but also brought abroad as a symbol of China's food culture. In some Chinese restaurants abroad, we can see that foreigners are also learning to use chopsticks. How to use chopsticks is printed on the packaging of chopsticks in foreign Chinese restaurants, which is convenient for foreigners to learn. In addition, some new chopsticks have also been developed, which can be mastered and used more easily.