I was like, huh, that's interesting.

我心想，哈，真奇妙。

There are people out there who live without chopsticks.

世界上竟然有人不需要筷子。

Chopsticks are a pair of two long sticks used to eat things with one hand.

筷子是兩根長長的棍子，用一隻手操作吃東西。

Holding chopsticks is a little bit like holding a pencil except that you have two of them, and you kinda move them together in a 'pincher' movement.

拿筷子有點像拿鉛筆，只是有兩枝，而且你要讓它們像鉗子一樣一起動。

Most of them are made out of wood.

它們大部分是木製的。

They are also made out of plastic, bamboo, jade, gold, silver, and even ivory, though I think that's not so cool these days anymore.

也有用塑膠、竹子、玉、黃金、銀甚至象牙做的，不過我想現在象牙已經不太流行了。

Chopsticks are really well designed for eating small bits of food.

筷子設計得非常適合吃小塊的食物。

They're good for picking up noodles.

它們很適合用來夾麵。

If you're really skilled, you can eat rice, you can pick up dumplings, little pieces of meat.

如果你非常熟練，你可以吃米飯，可以夾水餃或是小塊的肉。

There're definitely some no-nos with chopsticks.

在使用筷子的時候當然有些禁忌。

You should not use chopsticks like drumsticks which I know is very, very tempting.

你不能把筷子當鼓棒使用，雖然我知道這聽起來非常、非常誘人。

You definitely don't wanna stick chopsticks into a bowl of rice face-up.

你絕對不能把筷子朝上插入一碗飯裡。

And the reason for that is it actually looks like a bowl of incense, so it sort of echo's death.

原因是，那樣看起來像一個香爐，所以會聯想到死亡。

Chopsticks are used in a huge portion of the world across much of Asia.

筷子在全世界許多地方都有使用，遍佈大部分的亞洲。

About 1.5 billion people are covered in the chopsticks sphere.

大約有 15 億人被涵蓋在「筷子半球」裡。

Different cultures have slightly different variations of chopsticks.

不同文化的筷子會有些微的變化。

Chinese chopsticks will tend to be long and round, Korean chopsticks, which are flatter, and often made of metal.

中式筷子比較傾向長而圓、韓式筷子則比較扁平，且通常是金屬製的。

And Japanese chopsticks tend to be round, and very, very pointy.

日式筷子則偏圓，而且尖端非常、非常尖。

While chopsticks are actually really commonplace in American society today.

儘管筷子在當今的美國社會相當普遍。

There was definitely a time in the late 1800s where this idea that Asian men, because they ate rice with sticks, were of a different quality than American men who ate proper meat with knife and fork.

在 1800 年代晚期確實有一段時間，因為亞洲人用棍子吃飯這件事，與美國人用刀叉吃肉對比，顯得水準不同。

But, when China and the United States began their diplomatic engagement in the 1970s, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger had to practice eating with chopsticks.

不過，當中國與美國在 1970 年代開始進行外交交流，尼克森和季辛吉不得不練習用筷子吃東西。

What's been really interesting to see is that as Asian cuisine has moved from the east into the west, chopsticks have become part of the experience.

很有趣的是，隨著亞洲飲食從東方傳入西方，筷子逐漸成為體驗的一部分。

There's evidence of chopsticks as long ago as the Shang dynasty, which was about 3,000 years ago, and they loved tripods during the Shang dynasty.

有證據指出筷子的歷史可追溯至大約 3,000 年前的商朝，當時的人非常喜愛三足鼎。

So, when you cook with these big tripods, chopsticks were actually really useful.

所以，當你用這些大三足鼎煮東西時，筷子其實非常實用。

Because it was a way for you to stir and to reach without getting burned as the water was boiling in these really big pots.

因為這樣你就可以伸手攪拌，不用擔心被這些大鍋子內沸騰的水燙到。

Chinese culture has knives and has forks, that uses them in many cases for cooking, but in terms of what moved into the dining room, it was the chopsticks.

中華文化也有刀、有叉子，在許多場合都是用來烹調，但是要講到上餐桌的東西，就是筷子了。

One of the things about Asian cooking is that it often comes in very small pieces.

關於亞洲烹飪的一件事就是，食物通常會很小塊。

And I think part of that has to do with the fact that it's actually a lot more energy-efficient to cook little pieces quickly, but also then, you don't have to cut them.

而我想部分原因是，快速地烹煮小塊的東西實際上更節省精力，而且你不需要再切它們。

So, you kind of have the circular influence where the type of food that is cooked allows people to use chopsticks, and then the fact that you have chopsticks sort of influences the kind of food that you can cook.

所以，這裡就出現某種循環影響，被烹煮的食物種類使人們能用筷子，然後使用筷子這件事影響到可以烹煮的食物種類。

At the same time, chopsticks reflect the communal nature of eating food.

同時，筷子也反映出了飲食的集體特性。

You will have these dishes that you put in the middle, it's very family style.

你會看到這些菜餚擺放在中間，非常家庭式。

You kinda go in with your chopsticks, and then you put it on your rice, and then you eat individually.

你會直接用筷子夾、放到你的飯上，接著單獨食用。

There's actually a famous, sort of, legend where everyone has these really, really, really long chopsticks, like, way too long for them to feed themselves.

其實有一個挺有名傳說，說到每個人都有一雙很長、很長的筷子，長到人們沒有辦法自己進食。

And so, in hell, everyone starves because they can't pick up food and put it in their mouths.

因此，在地獄每個人都飢腸轆轆，因為他們沒辦法夾起食物、放進自己嘴裡。

But in heaven, people take the same chopsticks, and then feed each other.

但是在天堂，人們使用相同的筷子，互相餵食。