Mouthing Off | Your elderly relatives won’t use communal chopsticks for shared plates even after Covid-19 pandemic? You have my sympathy

Chinese people have been venting on social media about elderly relatives who still don’t use communal chopsticks to handle food on shared plates

It’s never easy getting older people to change their ways, but there are worse food hygiene issues: think of the people who dip their chopsticks in hotpot

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Older relatives often still use their own chopsticks to offer food from shared plates to other family members rather than using communal ones, even after two global pandemics in two decades. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:45am, 2 Aug 2023

In a recent Facebook food group chat, an exasperated Chinese person lamented how difficult it was dealing with his elderly parents and their refusal to adapt to new hygiene norms.

They vented that even after three years of coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, face masks and hand sanitisers, older members of the family still eschew communal chopsticks when going out for dinner. Instead, they insist on repeatedly jamming their own used chopsticks into plates of shared food.

They do it not just to take food for themselves, but just as often to offer and share choice pieces with youngsters and other family members. It might be a loving and touching gesture but, in the process, their utensils come into wide contact with food across all shared plates.

“I’ve explained many times why [they should] not do this but it falls on deaf ears,” the person wrote.

They truly have my sympathy. It’s never easy trying to convince your older relatives, set in their ways, to change habits.

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Mouthing Off | Your elderly relatives won’t use communal chopsticks for shared plates even after Covid-19 pandemic? You have my sympathy

Mouthing Off | Your elderly relatives won’t use communal chopsticks for shared plates even after Covid-19 pandemic? You have my sympathy