Hold both chopsticks together.  Place one chopstick between the thumb and index finger. Have the other chopstick between the middle finger and the thumb. Steady the bottom chopstick while moving the upper chopstick with the index and middle finger to pick things up. Use tips of thumbs to keep the chopstick in place.

It is not known when chopsticks first began to be used, although it is fairly certain that they were invented in China, where they have been traced back at least as far as the 3rd century BCE. There are those who say that the philosopher Confucius, who lived over 200 years earlier, influenced the development of chopsticks with his nonviolent teachings. Thus, knives, with all their associations with war and death, were not brought to the dinner table, as they were in the West. Today, chopsticks are used in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, as well as China, making them the world's second-most popular method of conveying food to mouth, the most popular being the fingers.

Chopsticks are most often made of utilitarian bamboo or other wood, but they can also be treated as decorative objects. Especially in Japan, they are made of laquered wood and are sometimes elaborately painted and personalized for their owners.

In China, chopsticks are usually made of bamboo or other wood. They are called k'uai-tzu, meaning "something fast." This phrase is said to have originated among boatmen, who renamed the utensils, originally called chu ("help"), because the word sounded so much like their word for a slow or becalmed ship, and this struck them as particularly inappropriate for such an efficient eating tool. The word with which we are all familiar came into being during the 19th century, when the Chinese was translated by traders into Pidgin English. The word "chop" means fast--as in the phrase "chop chop!"