[Eli]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he price hike has sent Japanese restaurants scrambling to find alternative sources for chopsticks, called "waribashi" in Japanese.

[Dukat_Reloaded]

From 1 yen to 1.5, how the hell can people afford that type of price hike.

[Eli]

I know, I know that is like going from less than one cent to a whole cent. How the hell can people be expected to afford that?


This article is really depressing it just makes me think that the worst is yet to come with PO.

Chop sticks costing a whole cent, what do they think money grows on trees?

Well, I guess it does in away since tree pulp is made into paper money along with other fibers like cotton but that is beside the point.... a whole cent for a pair of chop sticks!

[SoothSayer]

Hmmm - a 60% price hike for a small item.

How many small items do you buy - or manufacters buy - every day?

A car or plane is simply a moving cloud of small items.

I'm not sure if I would like 60% price rises on small items to be passed on to me in any quantity.

[Faustus]

To understand the reason waribashi importers would be freaking out about this, it's important to know just how frequently they're used here in Japan. They sell them in ¥100 stores, you use them in almost any restaurant you visit, they give them to kids for school lunches... waribashi are absolutely everywhere. So if you're buying one or ten or fifty sets of the things, no, paying an extra half a yen isn't so bad, but if you're a restaurant going through thousands of pairs in a day, it could be problematic for your profit margin.

Personally, I'd say it's about time. Japan is every bit as wasteful as the US (worse, in some ways), and there's no need to be using disposable chopsticks in a nice, sit-down restaurant. Either people can get used to bringing their own chopsticks in a case (which some do anyway) or restaurants can do what Chinese, Thai and Indonesian places in Japan do and provide chopsticks for their customers that are taken away with the dishes, washed, and reused. The only reason this hasn't been done is because Japan is absurdly resistant to change, however sensible, and waribashi are seen as somehow being uniquely "Japanese." It's silly- start using reusable chopsticks and have done with it.

[Dukat_Reloaded]

At home I was toying with the idea of using everything at home disposable. ie, disposable knifes, plates, forks, bowls, cups etc etc. It's actually still quite cheap to do this, Only perhaps $5 aweek per person saving time in cheaning and washing, and if you have a fire place, all the disposable items can be used to start the fire and plastics are much easier to use to create fires. So in away your using not wasting anything.

[oilluber]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he price hike has sent Japanese restaurants scrambling to find alternative sources for chopsticks, called "waribashi" in Japanese.

[waegari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Faustus', ' ')Either people can get used to bringing their own chopsticks in a case (which some do anyway) or restaurants can do what Chinese, Thai and Indonesian places in Japan do and provide chopsticks for their customers that are taken away with the dishes, washed, and reused.

[Windmills]

This thread at first made me laugh, but it quickly became a sober pause for thought. I think this topic illustrates the thousands of different ways that our lives will change. There are myriad small effects that will come with the large, obvious changes, and these small effects will add up to plenty of pain. It's easy to see big events and big ramifications, but I believe there will also be plenty of devils in the little details of life.

[Faustus]

Yes, but if you're worrying about which chopsticks to use, that means you have food on the table to eat, so things aren't likely to be all that bad. And honestly, there is no "pain" involved in using plastic chopsticks and washing them between diners. I don't go to any restaurants here and get served on paper plates with plastic cups, so why are waribashi necessary in any but the most fast-food-type establishments, like take-out and convenience stores? In a word, they're not. But like so many things here, they're kept around because, "We are Japanese" and not for any particular reason. Other countries do this as well, of course, but you run up against this kind of thing in Japan every single day- in case you can't tell from my tone, it tends to get a bit frustrating.

And my point about Korean and other ethnic restaurants (these are within Japan, BTW) was less what they're making the chopsticks out of than the fact that they're washed and reused, just like any other silverware. I don't see Japan switching to metal chopsticks any time in the near future, because in Japan metal chopsticks are associated with death (they're used to remove the deceased's bones following cremation). Well, that and Japan doesn't often like admitting that the Koreans are right about much of anything. Long, bad history there.

The most logical thing would be to switch to bamboo chopsticks that are reused for everything but places like convenience stores. Japan has plenty of bamboo, it grows very fast and is easily renewable, and they won't have to import anything, only build a factory or two to produce the new style of chopsticks. Cheap enough to buy in bulk, durable to last through more than one use. Waribashi are outdated and wasteful, and I've been meaning to start carrying around a pair of reusable chopsticks of my own for ages- will make a mental note to start the next time I go out to eat.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', 'T')his thread at first made me laugh, but it quickly became a sober pause for thought. I think this topic illustrates the thousands of different ways that our lives will change. There are myriad small effects that will come with the large, obvious changes, and these small effects will add up to plenty of pain. It's easy to see big events and big ramifications, but I believe there will also be plenty of devils in the little details of life.

[SoothSayer]

>> ... myriad small changes combined with bigger changes happen.

Conversely, the interactions could ACCELERATE problems.

For example, a ripple of factory closures due to high fuel prices could inadvertently put a small niche company out of business ... but where that niche company in fact indirectly produced something vital for the maintenance of industrial plant at a much bigger key company.

For example: a special sort of dedicated microchip sensor built by 3rd parties into equipment used, say, in natural gas pipeline compressors. The loss of supply might not be noticed for say 12 months ... but then .. sheesh ...

[highfructose]

Why don't the Japanese use plastic chopsticks? Then they can reuse them. They don't throw away their plates, bowls, forks and spoons do they?

[Faustus]

Because they are Japanese. As a foreigner without a "Japanese heart," you just can't understand.

Ahem. I'm sort of joking, but only sort of- that's the kind of answer you tend to get to most questions like that in Japan. The slightly more serious version is that by and large, the Japanese refuse to change anything, however silly, however inefficient, however detrimental to their quality of life unless they're absolutely forced to. You're talking about a country where schools are unheated in the dead of winter and hardly any residential buildings are properly insulated. Why? No idea. When you mention the concept of insulation to Japanese people, you get either stunned blinking or answers like, "Oh, but Japan is very hot in the summer," totally missing the point of insulation.

They use waribashi for the same reason they don't insulate homes- this is the way it's always been done, more importantly, it's the Japanese way, so why stop now, even if it doesn't make any sense to carry on in this fashion?

[jupiters_release]

Woah, we jappies don't use disposable chopsticks at home !

[Faustus]

No, only everywhere else.

Including: with convenience store meals, at ramen joints, in sit-down, "family style" restaurants, at gyoza places, at kaitenzushi, eating kyuushoku (school lunch), while eating at a picnic for hanami... the list is really quite long. Whereas in pretty much every other country I've visited, almost everyplace on that list with the exception of take-away meals from a conbini would use plastic chopsticks that can be washed. I've never been to a Chinese place in the States, for instance, where I was given disposible chopsticks if I was sitting down and eating in the restaurant. Ditto Thai, Korean, Indonesian... the Japanese seem to have this obsession with waribashi, despite knowing that they're usually unnecessary and incredibly wasteful.

Why would you need to use disposible chopsticks in a sit-down restaurant? Everything else on that table is going to get washed and reused, so why not the chopsticks? Yet I don't think I've ever eaten in a Japanese restaurant in Japan that didn't use waribashi as opposed to reusable chopsticks, and I've been living here for two years.