Culture insider: 18 Chinese gifts for family and friends

Chinese Chopsticks

Chinese chopsticks, or kuaizi in Chinese, are a pair of sticks, usually made of wood, used for eating Asian food. It is believed the first chopsticks were developed over 5,000 years ago in China.

Chinese chopsticks are round on the eating end which symbolizes heaven, and the other end is square which symbolizes earth. It is because maintaining an adequate food supply is the greatest concern between heaven and earth.

There is an old Chinese custom that chopsticks were a part of a girl’s dowry, since the pronunciation of “kuai zi” emblems “quick” and “son.”

[Photo by Gui Hong/asianewsphoto.com]

Foreign celebrities try their hands at calligraphy	Culture insider: 7 types of Chinese tea you must know	Culture insider: Top 10 Chinese cultural symbols