Even the native Japanese do not seem to know about them so well, though using chopsticks is an everyday ritual. Well, not too surprisingly, the relationship between the Japanese and chopsticks dates back to the Yayoi era (300 BCE-300 CE), when they were brought in from China. We can say that Japanese chopstick-using food culture is an artifact of the Chinese food culture. However, at that time, chopsticks were rather primitive. Just one stick of bamboo was bent like tweezers. Then, in the eighth century, a style similar to contemporary sets of chopsticks, consisting of a pair of bamboo sticks, arrived in Japan. After the techniques of lacquerware had became more advanced, those barren, rather impersonal chopsticks started to dress up in beautiful colors
Even with such a long history of chopsticks, violation of taboos and breaching of manners are recurrent events in the Japanese dining scene