According to historical evidence, the Chinese have used
chopsticks since the time of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1766 - 1066
BCE). The first sticks used as eating utensils were twigs that
the hungriest eaters used to scoop food into their mouths. This
invention obviously brought added convenience to eating as the
sticks made it easier to handle steaming hot food. The same
ingenious idea was undoubtedly conceived in other parts of the
world as well, but evidence shows that elsewhere spoon-like
utensils eventually achieved greater popularity at the expense
of chopsticks. The reason why chopsticks became a fixture of the
Chinese table setting may be the fact that local food is often
chopped up into small pieces and only rapidly heated, which
makes it especially suitable for chopsticks. Another more
philosophical explanation for the development is that the
revered philosopher and vegetarian Kong Zi, or Confucius, would
have had antipathies towards handling knives at the dinner
table. He considered using knives to tear