Chopsticks 箸

For a long time, whenever I ate lunch with the students I couldn’t help noticing that they held their chopsticks differently from me. At first I thought that it might be just a lack of table manners on their part, particularly as a lot of them seemed to be employing a crude-looking, clenched-fist technique.

Then one day a third-year homeroom teacher – having given me the standard ‘Oh, you can use chopsticks!’ compliment that most foreigners in Japan have heard a thousand times over – finally explained what I had been doing wrong (in other words, what he had really meant was, ‘Oh, you can’t use chopsticks properly!’).

The basic principle of the chopsticks grip is to keep the lower stick stable and move the upper one, thus creating a pincer-like action, and on this point I was at least partially correct. My mistake, though, was in resting the lower chopstick on my middle finger and gripping the upper one with my index finger and thumb.

As the homeroom teacher demonstrated, what I should have been doing was resting the lower chopstick on my ring finger, and gripping the upper one with my middle finger, index finger and thumb.

This allows the user to spread the two chopsticks apart at a wider angle and to grasp larger food items, as well as being able to perfect a greater range of other, subsidiary skills, such as slicing and filleting.

The secret to this technique lies in the thumb: as you can see from the above photos, I had been keeping mine at too acute an angle in relation to my fingers, and once the homeroom teacher had pointed out that my thumb should be at least perpendicular, if not at an even more obtuse angle, the rest came relatively easily.

Those previously impenetrable grips used by my students suddenly made sense, and not only that, but over the coming days, I noticed that many of them are in the habit of holding their pens and pencils in the same fashion.

Ever since I was a child, I have had a bump on the first joint of my middle finger (in Japanese, this is called a pen-dako / ぺん胼胝) from resting pens and pencils there.

A significant minority – in fact, possibly even a majority – of the children I teach instead rest a pen or pencil on the first joint of their ring finger, in exactly the same way as they do the lower prong of the chopsticks pincer.

This seems odd if you’re trying it for the first time, but entirely logical if you happen to eat that way as well, and to do both from a young age.

Even with this new grip, however, I still find it hard to pick up those smaller or slipperier food items – beans, individual grains of rice, noodles and so on – so while Mrs M uses slender, laquered chopsticks like this:

I am less likely to send fragments of food flying across the dinner table if my chopsticks have indentations at their tips, like this:

A recent article in the Tokyo Newspaper, though, suggests that a solution to this problem may be at hand:

‘Non-slip chopsticks’
Born out of cooperation between industry and academia – Concave structure ‘hugs’ the food

Enjoy your meal with non-slip chopsticks… Working alongside the laboratories of Tohoku University post-graduate professor Kazuo Hokkirigawa, moulded plastics manufacturing company Union Industries of Nakahara District, Kawasaki City has developed a new kind of chopstick called ‘Takétori‘, which can cope with even the most hard-to-grasp foods. Union Industries’ 65-year-old president Masahiko Morikawa says that ‘Takétori are perfect for anyone who has trouble using chopsticks.’

The invention was sparked by an email that Professor Hokkirigawa received three years ago, which read, ‘We’ve been looking for chopsticks that make food easier to eat for the residents at our old people’s home, but we can’t find any. Please can you develop something like this!’ Having pondered the various theoretical requirements, Professor Hokkirigawa and his fellow researchers eventually came up with the ‘hugging’ structure.

In order to increase the area coming into contact with the food, the chopsticks were made with four concave surfaces at their tips, which in combination ‘hugged’ the food. Because the raised edges of each concave surface of the Takétori ‘bite’ into the food, bigger particles are easier to pick up.

The cooperative enterprise between Sendai City and Kawasaki City was born in August last year, when Hokkirigawa was searching for the materials to bring this structure to life. During a visit to Union Industries, Hokkirigawa had his first encounter with ‘Unipéré‘, a combination of powdered bamboo and tree resin for which Union had acquired the patent.

Once Hokkirigawa had taken a sample back to his laboritories for testing, it was confirmed that Unipéré is between 30 and 70% more non-slip compared to plastics used for a similar purpose. Not only that, but the added value of its inherent antibacterial properties and environmental friendliness meant that Hokkirigawa’s academics could embark on full-scale development of the product in cooperation with industry.

Professor Hokkirigawa says proudly, ‘The special characteristic of the Takétori is that when you use them, it isn’t the primary surface of the chopstick that supports the food, but its edges. This “hugging” construction is a world-first.’

From 1st May, Takétori will go on sale via the Union Industries’ homepage, and at their Hamazoku shop at the Silk Centre in Naka District, Yokohama City. One set of Takétori costs 680 yen, excluding tax. Enquiries to Union Industries on 044-755-1107.

In case you’re having trouble visualising the Takétori, seen end-on, rather than being round like a normal pair of chopsticks, they look like this.

680 yen is, it has to be said, extremely expensive for a pair of chopsticks, so for old folks and relatively old folks like me, here’s hoping that Union Industries licences out the patent for general use.

The key test of the Takétori, though, will surely be their ability – or otherwise – to cope with natto, those sticky, slimy, slippery fermented soya beans so beloved of Ibaraki-ites…

(For the original article from the Tokyo Newspaper, Wednesday 1st May 2013, see below.)

「滑りにくい箸」
産学連携で誕生

凹面構造で「抱きかかえ」
「抱きかかえ構造」

きょう発売
川崎の「ユニオン産業」

滑 りにくい箸で楽しく食事をー。川崎市中原区のプラスチック成形加工会社「ユニオン産業」と、摩擦を専門にする東北大大学院の堀切川（ほっきりがわ）一男 （いちお？）教授（五六）の研究室が連携し、つかみにくい形のものも簡単につかめる箸「竹取」を開発した。ユニオン産業の森川真彦社長（六五）は「お箸の 苦手な人たちに使ってほしい」とアピールする。

きっかけは三年ほど前、堀切川教授の元に届いた一通のメールだった。「箸を使うのが不自由な高齢者施設の人たちのため、簡単につかめる箸を探しているが見つからない。ぜひ開発してほしい」。さまざまな理論的な条件を考え続け、「抱きかかえ構造」を編み出した。

食べ物との接触面積を増やすため、箸の先に四つの凹面を作り、二本で食べ物を抱きかかえる構造。凹面両端の凸面が食い込むため、大きいものでも簡単につかめる。

この構造を生かす素材を模索していた時、仙台市と川崎市の連携事業で、昨年八月に川崎市へ。ユニオン産業を訪れ、同社が特許を取得している竹粉配合樹脂「ユニペレ」と出合った。

サンプルを持ち帰って研究室で調べたところ、プラスチック素材に比べ、３０～７０％滑りにくいことを確認。しかも抗菌作用があり、環境に優しいという付加価値もあり、産学連携による本格的な開発に乗り出した。

堀切川教授は「つかむ時、面でなく、点で支えるのが特徴。抱きかかえ構造の箸は世界初」と胸を張る。

一日から、ユニオン産業の通販サイト、横浜市中区のシルクセンター内の同社直営店「濱族」で販売される。税別一膳六百八十円。問い合わせは、ユニオン産業＝電０４４（７５５）１１０７＝へ。