India Etiquette Lesson: Don’t eat with the hand that wipes your butt
I’m in Bangalore, India. Today I was eating lunch with my hands, since that is how most people eat here. I like to do what the natives do, when I can. Silverware is hardly used at all. Fine with me.
So, I grab some bread with both hands and tear it apart. You use bread to scoop up food and sauces. When I do this, one of my Indian colleagues looks over and says to me, “John, when I was a young child, it took me nearly two years to learn how to tear apart bread with just one hand, and then to use the bread to eat the food. It can be tricky.”
I didn’t think it was too hard to pull apart bread with one hand, but then I tried it and realized it isn’t super easy. Then I thought about it some more and realized that my colleague was providing me with a subtle cue: Only use one hand to eat (your right hand). I looked around the table and all the people were only using their right hands to eat. Then I remembered that in this part of the world, the left hand is generally used for toiled related activities and it is considered poor etiquette to use it for eating activities.
Lesson learned. And, bravo to my colleague for deflecting the issue, while still giving me enough information to correct my behavior. If only user interfaces were so gentle, right?
August 6th, 2004 at 3:22 pm
Great, next time I’m out to lunch with my East Indian co-workers I’ll have to watch what their left hands do. I wonder if they’re true to their culture or if they’ve “assimilated” to our culture of the trusted use of toilet paper and hand soap on the “poop hand.”
John
August 6th, 2004 at 3:24 pm
that reminds me of a story… that long ago, knights/fighters/etc would only shake hands with their RIGHT hand, because its their sword drawing hand. thereby eliminating any chance of a cheap shot. i guess those southpaws back then, probably ruled the kingdom!
July 28th, 2006 at 1:26 am
John, you should do an article on how Blog spam has changed over the years. I don’t get this “windows utitlity” or “mac fonts” stuff ever. It’s all drug-related spam for me.
July 28th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Jason, I didn\’t see those two blog spam postings from March 2005. I\’ll nuke them. (Poof! Gone.)
April 1st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR LEFT HANDED? DOES THAT MEAN THAT YOU ARE WRITING WITH YOUR POOP HAND?
April 12th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I’ve been dating an Indian girl for 8 months, and it wasn’t until we ate at an Indian restaurant just last week that she only used her right hand to eat. So I guess her culture is context sensitive.
BTW, I asked her why she only used her right hand and she had no idea. I asked her if it was so she could wipe with her left hand, and well, . . . she got mad at me.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
[…] I wrote a posting about India etiquette 2-3 years ago that prompted this response: […]
September 14th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Eating with your right hand while you eat is fine and dandy if you are right handed and wipe your ass with your left hand, BUT…I am LEFT-HANDED and wipe my ass with my RIGHT hand…hypothetically, shouldn’t I eat LEFT handed then? It’s very hard for me NOT to. Also, I jerk off right handed, too…another thing you shouldn’t do with the same hand that you eat with. And no, I am NOT Indian, either.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:03 am
I sat all day long all day looking at the south gate of lax attention gray blue sky. So until that time, I almost have no ragnarok zeny,so I have no equipment.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:44 am
In order to play the Requiem, I bought much Requiem Lant, it spend me much money.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:27 am
As usual, there are games to task; of course, this is no exception, because this can be upgraded! Thus the results and get more money! Of course, you can also buy LOTRO Gold!