Chopstick Making 101

With my uncarved purpleheart 

When Andrea suggested we take a chopstick making class during our trip to Japan, I was all in. I imagined us sitting at a table with paint -- maybe goldleaf -- and decorating pre-made chopsticks. Not exactly in my wheelhouse, but it sounded like fun. Instead, we actually made chopsticks from rectangular pieces of wood. Sure, we didn't have to chop down the trees, but it was more of a thing than I had expected. It was great fun. 

We started by picking the wood from which we would make our chopsticks. We both chose purpleheart because of its unusual color. We learned all too soon that it is the hardest of the woods to carve. Note: They did tell us this in advance -- multiple times -- but we figured how hard could it be? The answer: Pretty darn hard.

Our equipment for the task ahead was a kanna, a Japanese wood plane. You lock the piece of wood into it and then push the blade back and forth to shave the wood down. Trust me when I say that this was not easy. Sure, the first few shaves were a piece of cake. After all, there was a lot of wood protruding from its locked position at the beginning. But pretty quickly you get to a point where some real work is involved. At times I actually broke a sweat trying to get slivers of the wood to come off. (I'm not exaggerating.) I had to  position myself in a lunge-like stance in order to get the blade to move. It was crazy! 

It was also quite humbling when one of the helpers would come over and say, "Can I take over for a little bit?" "Yes!" I enthusiastically replied several times, thinking that we might otherwise spend the rest of our vacation there. Then she would easily plane the wood down a bit before turning it back over to the true amateur. (Keep in mind that you have to plane all four sides of the nascent chopstick, so it really is a process.)

Andrea sanding -- and a portion of her shavings 
 

Once you get the wood planed down to a manageable point, you use sandpaper to refine the shape and to get rid of any little notches created during the planing process. (I know, hard to believe that would happen with me at the controls, but it did.) Our chopsticks have squared off corners. Not exactly traditional, but it does make them unique. 

Finally, our chopsticks were almost done. Then came the really challenging part -- the personalization. We were presented with choices of symbols for each sound in our name. For the "Na" in my name, I had to select from the symbol for "Guidance/Fruit" (associated with abundance and guiding people to peace), "Calm/Stillness" (the serene moment when the sea is calm, representing peace) and "Greens/Nature" (representing natural vitality, growth and a fresh personality). It seemd like a bigger decision than I was prepared to make, especially in my jetlagged state. Obviously, Calm/Stillness could be immediately eliminated, but it was a toss up between the other two. (I ended up going with Greens/Nature -- I love The Bay!)  Three more decisions later, the inscription was done. It was a special touch that I hadn't expected. 

All in all, our trip was off to a great start. I decided to go on this adventure because of the experiences we'll be having. Over the course of our travels, we'll meet with former geishas, ride a bullet train (twice), visit a gold leaf factory and more. In fact, today we met some former sumo wrestlers and watched a demonstration. I even got to participate! Stay tuned for more on that experience.