It's rude if it's a nice establishment, as it conveys your belief that the chopsticks are of low quality. So that's what you're signaling with that. If everyone already knows they are cheap (e.g. disposable), then have at it.
replyIf a nice establishment has splintery chopsticks maybe they should look in the mirror.
replyI go to your house to have food. You give me a fork and knife. I go to your kitchen to wash the fork and knife for good measure.
replyProbably it's rude to do it automatically with every pair of disposable chopsticks and not just the crappy ones.
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replyI once witnessed a local admonish another (younger) local for exactly that at a bar. He replied with a bratty "Not my fault they're using crappy chopsticks..."
replyI ate at a very nice restaurant (think The Menu) in Kagaonsen last week and the main course was served with lacquered chopsticks but another course was served with disposable chopsticks and the waiter actually broke them and rubbed them together for me. I think the social faux pas is making a show of doing it.
replyYou know you're at a fancy restaurant when the waiters have an entire dish emulating what the poors are eating. Reminds me of a restaurant I used to really like in NYC called 'Peasant' :-/
replyPerhaps they did that because they knew some people would be too polite to?
replyI agree. I always have to do it, except at the rare restaurants. Not just splinters, but rough edges too.
replyright? What's the right way? I don't want splinters on the most sensitive surface in my body..
replyThe splinters come from where they break apart and there's not really any reason to have that part of the chopsticks touching your skin.
replyBut you move away from break apart disposable chopsticks in Japan long before you get to high etiquette dining. In my experience, basically every restaurant in Japan that isn't of, like, fast food tier, provides actual chopsticks instead of disposable ones.
I had mostly disposables but they were actually lathed wood. The crude rectangular cut chopsticks are terrible -- usually not for splinters, but they often break imperfectly, leaving you with two sticks with different lengths.
replyFor those cheap chopsticks, I've found the best way to break them is to grasp them at the very tips, then move your two hands away from each other briskly without twisting, just straight apart. I haven't had many break badly since I started doing this.
reply(Mode I) So fracture mechanics does have its uses, eh?
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