Chinese Chopsticks (1st part)

keywords: Kuàizi, zhù, Tang Dynasty, changing name

Chopsticks, a simple form of a tool for eating, has a long history that shows the progress of civilization among the Chinese. Back to the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907), Chinese people commonly used the character "zhù" (箸) to refer chopsticks. However, the pronunciation of "zhù" (箸) is exactly the same as another character "zhù" (住) which literally means "to live in one place" (thus "STOP" in one place, not keep moving around in order to settle). In this case, it has a not-so-good meaning, as when people pronouncing "zhù" (箸) to refer chopsticks, it may analogy to "stop eating" .

Furthermore, the intellectual thought how to change the word to have a better meaning. Therefore, they gradually used the sound "kuài" from the character "快" which literally means "fast" to counteract the sense of "stop eating" (into something like "Keep fast eating so you won't stop eating!").

Then to make the adjective "kuài" (快) into a noun, they develop the character into "kuàizi" (筷子). Notice that they put the symbol character of bamboos "竹" above the character "快" (as in that era, chopsticks were maybe mostly made off bamboo). The attachment of the character "zi" (子)" clearly shows that this character refers to a real noun. Then eventually it becomes a complete noun of the word chopsticks, "kuàizi"_筷子 .