spoon or chopsticks

How do you eat rice? Do you use chopsticks or a spoon?  Your answer depends on the type of rice, its preparation, and your culture.

Short grain rice is common in China and Japan. It is sticky and clumpy and easy to eat with chopsticks.  Etiquette requires that you elegantly lift your bowl of steaming, sticky, rice near your mouth with chopsticks in hand.  They are the only utensils used for the rice and the entire meal.

In Korea,  short grain rice is usually eaten with spoon and the rice bowl never leaves the table.  As food is eaten quickly, and portions are small, little time is spent in putting  utensils down.  When finished eating, the spoon is placed on the rice bowl, or soup bowl.  Then, chopsticks are used for eating the other dishes. At the end of the meal, the  chopsticks can never be left sticking out of the rice bowl, as this resembles the way rice is offered to the dead and would bring bad luck.

South East Asian or Middle Eastern cultures eat Basmati; a slender, long grain rice, which is light and fluffy. It is easier and more commonly eaten with a spoon.