Japanese culture: want to join?

Japanese restaurants win more and more admirers every day. Their crowding effect in a lunch break or after work – is a bright acknowledgement to this fact. It is already almost impossible to find a person who would not take a great interest in sushi, as they became accessible almost for all levels of population.

But how a real Japanese restaurant looks? Let’s suppose you were lucky to get there. How you will behave?

Japanese are very polite people, and especially to their clients. “A visitor is like god”, a Japanese proverb says, and it concerns visitors of restaurants to the full. Let’s try to answer owners with same politeness.

Europeans should not necessarily know how to bow correctly at a meeting or farewell, however it is still better to nod somehow in reply to a bow, of course. While bowing you should look in the earth, under feet; in general Japanese try not to look into each other’s eyes under any circumstances.

It is not excluded that in an institution where you have come, it is necessary to remove footwear on an entrance - you should be ready to this, but, of course, do not take off shoes, if other visitors do not do so. At some restaurants it is possible to sit down in a Japanese way, i.e. kneel in front of a low little table. But without a habit a European cannot stay in such pose for a long.

Japanese, as well as everyone in the east, use sticks which are called hashi for eating. They can be made of bone or wood (cypress, pine, maple, plum, black or violet sandal tree), and today they can be also made of plastic. Each Japanese has his own hashi since small years, used not only for meal, but also bringing longevity and good luck to their owner. At a restaurant, most likely, they will bring you disposable varibasi, which should be pulled down lengthways, if they have not made this yet.

Take sticks between fingers of one hand and jam with tips of sticks food you wish to send in a mouth. Besides, if a piece is too big, it is possible to divide a piece with sticks, but only very accurately. There is such legend: they say, through the way a girl holds hashi, it is possible to define, whether she will go far from her house, having married. Than closer to a thick end she holds - the further she will go.

Fifteen main rules you should adhere when you use hashi:

1. It is impossible to stick hashi in food, especially rice. It is a bad form.

2. It is impossible to pin food on sticks.

3. For that time you do not use sticks, put their sharp ends to the left.

4. It is impossible to pass food with sticks to other person directly.

5. It is impossible to bring a cup or a plate too close to a mouth and rake up food in a mouth by means of sticks, it is not only indecent, but also ugly.

6. It is also not accepted to “wander” with sticks round meal aimlessly. Before giving a hand, you need to solve, what exactly you wish to take.

7. Try not to drip sauce neither from sticks, nor from food.

8. Try not to fill mouth with food and especially do not stamp it in a mouth by means of sticks.

9. Do not lick a stick.

10. Never specify sticks in someone or something, and do not swing sticks in air.

11. It is impossible to knock sticks on a cup or a plate to draw someone’s attention to yourself.

12. Do not pull a cup and a plate to yourself by means of sticks. Always take them in hands.

13. It is impossible to put sticks across a cup.

14. It is impossible to “draw” with sticks on a table.

15. It is impossible to clamp two sticks in a fist: Japanese perceive this gesture as menacing.

It is difficult to use sticks without some experience. Do not hesitate to ask a waiter to show, how this should be done correctly, and if it is absolutely difficult for you - ask him to bring you a fork or a spoon.

As for sushi - a slice of fish or other seafood lying on rice or wrapped in sea kale - men can eat it directly with hands, having dipped sideways in a soya sauce poured in a saucer. Women eat sushi only with sticks.

It is accepted to eat soup this way: at first drink broth directly from a flat dish, then use sticks to eat up refuelling or noodles. By the way, as for noodles, if it is long - and usually it is very long - you should cling it with sticks, bring to a mouth, and then suck in.

When they drink sake or beer, cups and glasses standing on a table, should not remain empty at all. Thus adding to yourself is considered a bad form, and to messmates - a very good.

Cups and flat dishes should be lifted with the left hand on a breast level and only after you finished your meal. If you were served a meal in a cup covered with a lid, after you have eaten, cover a cup again, and put sticks on a special support.

They say Japanese dishes are intended not to eat them, but to admire. However, it does not mean you should taste them slowly and in a meditative way: on the contrary, forget everything you were learnt by mum - sip and give a smacking kiss loudly. If you eat slowly and silently, cooks can take offence, as this means you underestimate their skill.

And bon appetite!