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Review focus: Lifestyle, China, social, chopsticks, kuai-zi, inventions, culture, computers
Asian Business Code Words Index NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company Asian Business Strategy & Street Intelligence Ezine
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Despite being forced from ancient times by the social and political values of their culture to frequently defy logic and rationality in their behavior, the Chinese are among the most pragmatic of all people. The number and variety of inventions made by the Chinese over the centuries is a powerful testament to their practicality and ability to think logically. Neither tradition nor laws could completely stifle the inventive bent of every observer and tinkerer. One of the most practical and insightful of all Chinese inventions was the abacus (suanpan), developed some time during the early Ming dynasty. This simple looking device was the world's first mechanical calculator or computer, and is still widely used in China (as well as in Japan, Korea and other Asian countries) alongside of modern electronic calculators. Another Chinese invention that predates recorded history and is still used by virtually all of China's billion-plus people, as well as by he Japanese and Koreans and a growing number of other people around the world, is the kuai zi (kuu-aye tzu). Ages ago the ancestors of modern-day Chinese went from using one stick to poke at fires and the things they were cooking to using two sticks in parallel with each other to grasp, manipulate and pick up pieces of food - a significant advance in the culinary art. In concert with this advance in cooking came the practice of rendering larger chunks of meat or whatever into smaller pieces so they could be picked up more easily with the hand-held sticks. Eventually these two sticks were christened kuai zi which translates as small piece picker-uppers. Over the centuries these small piece picker-uppers came to be used as eating utensils, and were produced in smaller more stream-lined versions made of wood, bamboo and ivory. Eventually, kuai zi were spread around the world, mostly by Chinese immigrants. Somehow, someone, probably and Englishman, or maybe a sailor out of San Francisco, decided that calling the two sticks kuai zi or small piece picker-uppers was just too much, and he began calling them chopsticks. I'm sure it was a man who did this because a woman would have been more imaginative. Today the Chinese still call chopsticks kuai zi, and Westerners call kuai zi chopsticks. Having myself been trained to eat with kuai zi at a tender age, I can fully understand and appreciate why they are so important to the Chinese. Like virtually all Chinese, I feel very strongly that eating Chinese food with knifes and forks is some kind of sacrilege. Not only do knives and forks seem to clash with the character of Chinese food, they also appear to adversely affect its taste. Learning how to eat Chinese food with kuai zi is one of the easiest and most delightful ways that one can begin an introduction to China's culture.
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Boye Lafayette de Mente is one of our regular monthly columnists at the 
| This month's column is excerpted from Dictionary of China's Cultural Code Words, by Boye Lafayette De Mente available from NTC/Contemporary Publishing Company |
© Boye Lafayette De Mente & the Asia Pacific Management Forum 1999
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