Chopsticks and Chinese Culture

By Rui Chen
After hearing about the cross talker performer Degang Guo, I have been attracted to the history of Chopsticks and its behind idea. When performing On Eating, he did come up with some interesting ideas connecting the Chinese eating culture with the oldest book I Ching(aka. Book of Changes). What he said, I quote and translate here:

The chopsticks consists of two. When held in hand, one is yang, the other is yin, which means one is proactive, the other one is reactive. The two ends of chopstick are round and square, respectively. This is equivalent to the two divinatory trigrams in the eight trigrams. And the round end is for the earth, while the other end is for the heaven. If including the fingers in the middle, that's also called Three Forces in the world. Also there is a famous idiom for it, People regard food as their heaven.

If we goes further, yin and yang, which are the Chinese general terms for female and male, are illustrated a lot in   another famous book, Tao Te Ching by Laozi. Actually, in ancient China, the relationship between the earth and the heaven, along with the genesis of the world, is discussed a lot, just like what happened in the western history. The great thinkers always have their unique opinions, so does Laozi.

Know masculinity, Maintain femininity, and be a ravine for all under heaven." (chap. 28, tr. Mair) 

All things have their backs to the female
and stand facing the male.
When male and female combine,
all things achieve harmony. (chap. 42)

This statement can be another viewpoint for what happened in using chopsticks. Another statement, which I like very much is,

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.(chap. 40)

 There is also a good statement regarding food is Food and Sex are part of human nature by Confucius, who lived at the same time as Laozi.

Reference
I Ching http://www.akirarabelais.com/i/i.html
Tao Te Ching http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html
Analects http://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/analects.html