When eating a Japanese meal, you should first pick up the bowl or vessel you will eat from and then pick up your chopsticks. When changing bowls, first put down your chopsticks, then change bowls. Only after you have picked up the second bowl should you pick up your chopsticks again.

Not sure which food to eat first? Hovering your chopsticks back and forth over the side dishes before finally choosing is a breach of etiquette. It’s such bad manners that the practice has an official name, mayoibashi, or “hesitating chopsticks.” Touching a food with your own chopsticks and then pulling them away without taking anything is called sorabashi, or “empty chopsticks,” and should also be avoided. You'd better pause to eat some rice between those side dishes. If you don’t, you're committing utsuribashi, literally “transition chopsticks.”

You’ve probably seen this done so many times it seems like the correct thing to do, but using your bowl as a chopstick rest is a breach of etiquette. If you want to put down your chopsticks, you should do so on a chopstick rest, or hashioki. If none are available, use the wrapper the chopsticks came in to make your own. If a wrapper isn’t available, you should rest your chopsticks on the side of a tray or other similar item on the table.

Since the back-end of the chopstick is where your hands rest, it’s actually not a very clean area and shouldn’t be used to pick up food. Asking the waitstaff for an extra pair of chopsticks, or politely saying, "Jika bashi de shitsurei shimasu" ("Excuse me for using my own chopsticks"), and taking food using your chopsticks is actually the proper thing to do.

Some people raise their food to about eye level while saying, itadakimasu before eating. However, proper etiquette states that you should never raise your food above your mouth—the highest point your chopsticks should ever reach.

Many people already know this, but you should never raise chopsticks that are dripping with soup or liquid to your mouth and never stab food with your chopsticks. You should also never leave your chopsticks standing straight out of your rice or pass food between chopsticks as these are reminiscent of funeral customs and seen as a bad omen if performed anywhere else.

Some of these etiquette rules are unknown to many people in Japan, so don’t feel bad if you’ve accidentally committed any of the preceding sins. But keep them in mind and maybe you’ll impress your friends with your knowledge of the proper way to eat in Japan!

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