Selects: Chopsticks > Forks

In this classic episode, Chuck and Josh sit and converse on the simple, elegant chopstick.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, chuck here, we are moving forward through time
in the year twenty twenty, the year of COVID, and
I think we're at sort of ground zero here, everybody,
because the date for this episode is March seventeenth, and
I know that that was right around the time that
things shut down because my birthday is March fifteenth, and
one of my very good friends birthday is March twelfth,
and every year we go out on a birthday dinner

(00:23):
with our wives and family, and I remember being out
might have been like the sixteenth or seventeenth of that year,
to dinner and us being.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Like should we be out?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
You guys like they're starting to say things are getting weird,
and we're all washing our hands and saying the.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
ABC's and stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
But this feels like maybe the last dinner we're going
to have for a while, And it was that was
the last dinner out I had for a very long time.
But this episode from March seventeen, twenty twenty, right when
it all shut down, is pretty great. It's all about chopsticks,
and it's called Chopsticks Greater than Forks.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Hey and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and this
is stuff you should know. All about the song Chopsticks.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I wondered if you're going to make a joke about that.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Jerry beat me to it when she was like, what
are we recording today? And I told her she's like
the song d D D D. No, it's d D D.
Didn't Oh is that chopsticks? Aren't there two chopsticks? No,
I'm just teasing. That's heart and soul.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh okay, so what I said from big that was chopsticks?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Right? Totally? Yekay, Robert uh, Robert Losia. Yeah, man, I
should have continued rolling and said James Kahn.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Oh wow, that is a very James conn like roll,
wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Totally? I think he played that role in locket in.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Well, he's a crime boss in Bottle Rocket Way.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, sort of.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well, I'm not a good movie truly. We watched Misery
the other day. It still holds up.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh man, I remember seeing that for the first time
in Athens when I was in college.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
M hm, so great. Kathy Bates can do no wrong.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
She did great. But if you watch James Kahn, he
did really well too, Like sure, his whole kind of
trepidacious manner toward her was really well done and not
overdone at all, And like he did a great job
as well.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
And he had to lay there in a bed for
weeks and weeks and act. Yeah, sounds like a dream.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah. And if he balked at it, they would attach
a catheter to him and make him pee in his
own mouth as punishment, like a little known fact about
that movie.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Oh so chopsticks, Right, we should point out here that
in researching this chopsticks and customs and etiquette, if we
covered all the countries and all that stuff that use chopsticks,
we'd be here all day. Yeah, so there's kind of
a focus here on Japan.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, they seem to be a little uh, the most
sensitive to transgressions with chopsticks out of all of the
Asian cultures. I think perhaps they have the most rules
against them at the very least.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, but when you read them, it's they could all
be summed up as just don't be a dumb American.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, or don't have any fun whatsoever with your chopsticks.
Is another way to buy.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
You're like, what's wrong with making them antenna's in a
restaurant and going mart meat?

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Right, I'm a Walrus, now, why can't I be a Walrus?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Right?

Speaker 3 (03:45):
But we are talking chopsticks, not the song. Sorry to
disappoint you everybody, but I saw that that song is
actually called chopsticks because it was originally called the Celebrated
chop Waltz. Okay, written by a sixteen year old schoolgirl
from England. It seems about right, sure, so, but we're
talking about the utensils, and like, when you think chopsticks,

(04:06):
obviously you think like Asia, sure, and you don't think
that there was ever anything but chopsticks in the history
of Asia. And while chopsticks are actually surprisingly old, I
think they go back about seven thousand years. I also
saw five thousand years. I'm going with seven. I think
they're actually about as ancient as that. They weren't like

(04:27):
the go to utensil for Asia until this millennium.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, the spoon was kind of the go to. Yeah,
who knew the word chopstick? They think maybe pigeon English
Chinese pigeon English meaning chop chop or quickly right, But
you know this is one of these etymologies.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's sort of tough to pin down.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
It looks like, but that's the English word for it.
In all of the chopstick using cultures, they have their
own word, like in Japan it's hashi, it's kuwa easy,
in China nice. I'm not sure if I said that
right at all. Geo garok in Korean, all.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Right, not not as nice?

Speaker 3 (05:11):
And deui dei dua in Vietnamese. All right, I'm sorry
half of the world's population.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
I love that you started strong in Japan though, because
you feel pretty confident in your Japanese pronunciations.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's a good way to go.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yes, I have a great tutor, that's right.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
So five to seven thousand years ago they were used
initially for cooking, and we'll get more into the ins
and outs of the history, but they were made from
twigs probably, and it was much much later, Like you
said that, they were table utensils, right, and it was

(05:47):
all very much like practicality based.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah, because initially they figured out pretty early on these,
the Chinese from five thousand to seven thousand years ago,
that's a really bad idea to stick your hand into
a pot of boiling water to get something out of it,
say like a bone or a piece of meat or
something like that. It's way better to use a twig,
and it's even better to use two twigs, as if

(06:14):
they were kind of a pair of detached tweezers. That's
apparently where they initially started to come into use was
during cooking and food preparation, not the actual eating process.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
There was a big population boom in China at one point,
some might say, there continues to be said, and the
resources became a little more scarce. They started cutting their
food up into little tiny pieces for reasons of like it.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Helps it to cook faster. I wonder I didn't.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
See anything about this, but I wonder if that also
just made it.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
More shareable among a larger family.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
I could see that. That's a great point too. And
isn't it fascinating though, the idea that a population boom
led to widespread use of the chopstick.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, it's interesting. And then Confucius also was a vegetarian
and noted knife hater. He has a quote about knives.
The honorable and upright man keeps well away from both
the slaughterhouse and the kitchen, and he allows no knives
on his table. And I think that was a little
more because a knive was equated with eating meat, right,

(07:22):
less than like it's a garbage tool.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
You don't You don't need a knife to eat a plant. Basically.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, some might argue you might want to cut a
piece of broccoli.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Maybe, but you don't have to. I just summed up Confucius.
That's the level of arrogance that I'm operating at now.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And I think some of the early and you know,
it started in China, and then you know, pretty soon Korea, Vietnam, Japan,
we're all using them. But I think that Chinese chopsticks
were joined at what they are now?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
What are they called now?

Speaker 1 (07:57):
If they're joined and you got to split them apart?

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Oh warabashi that's Japanese. This is the term for disposable chopsticks.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Okay, But I thought the Chinese chopsticks were originally joined
like that.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yes, No, it was Japanese. Okay. There was a single
piece of bamboo that was like split, kind of like
giant tweezers.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Okay, yeah, I'm reading this now. I had a sometimes
I just now reading this, Well, no, I get sometimes
and it's the dumbest thing. But I get confused between
former and ladder. Oh yeah, it's not that I get confused.
I just have to go back and sort of picture
it in my brain.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
It just takes an extra second, I think for everybody
that's right. It's definitely not intuitive, so I don't feel bad.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
I also thought this thing about food poisoning was interesting
was that in dynastic times in China, they would use
and I guess people that are a little more well
healed would use silver chopsticks because they thought that if
it came into contact with something that was poisonous, then
the chopsticks would turn black and they would know not

(09:00):
to eat it.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
I mean, it just makes sense. When you're rich and wealthy,
more people want to kill you, so it's better to
have something that shows if somebody's trying to poison you,
like your chopstick's turning a color if you're being poisonous
cyanide or something like that. The problem is that doesn't
actually work, and I don't know why they didn't just
think that through from the get go, like, oh well,
let's get ourselves some cyanide and stick a silver chopstick

(09:25):
in it and see what happens and see that it
doesn't work. But apparently it does work in the presence
of garlic or rotten eggs because they put out hydrogen
sulfide so it will turn silver a different color. So
I don't know how garlic ever made itself into a
staple of Chinese cooking, but there we have it.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, And the other thing I thought was interesting and
we should mention too. This came from a variety of places.
Teagan Jones at Gizmoto, Lisa Brahman from Smithsonian mag Q.
Edward Wang from Cambridge blog huff Po Believe it or Not,
got in the works, yeah, and some other places. But
I thought that Q. Edward Wang's history was really interesting

(10:08):
because he mentions that wheat is kind of the first
reason before rice, which really surprised me.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
It was very surprising. I think he knew all along
that that was a big reveal, you know. Yeah, but
that's what gave chopsticks a shot in the arm. So
first we have cutting food into smaller pieces to have
it cook faster, so you use less firewood because there's
a population boom. And then as wheat becomes kind of

(10:41):
fashionable and widespread, you start to use chopsticks because you're
making things like noodles and dumplings. And prior to this,
millet was the go to grain. And millet's really small,
it's much smaller than rice, and you certainly aren't going
to turn it into like a noodle or a dumpling
make a gruel out of it. And so for thousands

(11:03):
of years, the go to utensil that people use to
eat with in China was a spoon because they were
eating gruel or porridge or whatever by hated life. But
when wheat came along and they started turning into noodles
and dumplings, they said, oh, yeah, I remember those things
that we use those twigs to cook with. What if
we made a smaller version of those to eat with too,

(11:25):
And that's where the chopstick got its first like real
boost in usage around Asia.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah. I mean, try to eat a big spoonful of
noodles and just watch as they flop off and sling
delicious sauce all over you, all over the place.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
There is literally nothing more frustrating than trying to eat
noodles with a spoon in the entire world.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, and I mean, sure you could chop them up
into tiny little pieces, so they rest in your spoon.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
With some broth. Sure, but who wants to do.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
That that cuts up their buskehetti at the table into
tiny bits?

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Is a six year old? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Or just thoroughly un American? True? One of the two,
maybe both, depending on how sophisticated the six year old is.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
The other thing I thought was interesting too from mister
Wang's article was he talked about stew, which is gang
and Chinese. They ate a lot of stew back then,
and chopsticks would be very useful for picking up things
like the more solid objects in the stew, like the vegetables.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
Right, so you've got wheat coming into vogue, you've got
smaller pieces vegetables stew being eaten. Chopsticks are like, come on,
we're gonna do what we gotta do this. We just
need one more thing to get us over the hump,
and people are gonna know us everywhere around the world.
And that one thing was a particular kind of Vietnamese
rice that ripens early apparently, and it's a shorter grain

(12:58):
or a medium grain, which means that it's easier to
it clumps more easily. It also has a lot of
like starches to it, so it's just kind of clumpy,
sticky rice. And here in the West, we're not really
used to that kind of rice, so we're like, how
are you going to use chopsticks to eat this stuff?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Like, try eating some uncle bens with chopsticks.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
You can't do it. It's like trying to eat noodles
with a spoon.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah, or you would just do that move.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
And this is what I didn't understand when I was
growing up, because I was a little naive when I
saw chopsticks, I would just think about scooping up the
rice on top of them very awkwardly. And it wasn't
until I was a little bit older and had good
clumpy Chinese rice right and Japanese rice, I was like, oh,
it's very easy to eat with chopsticks.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah. And you're just like, oh, okay, I've got it
because it sticks together. It's like a nice little morsel
of food and it sticks together just about the right size,
and it's totally different. So when you eat Chinese rice
or Japanese rice, or even Vietnamese rice, the stickier, then
you understand, Okay, you can use this as a as

(14:03):
you can use chopsticks for this, and the Chinese figured
this out as well, when rice became much more of
a staple of the Asian diet, and all of a sudden,
now you didn't need a spoon anymore because everybody's like
to heck with millet. Who wants gruel? Nobody? Yeah, So
they threw their spoons out the window, and then they
started just eating chopsticks for everything that you could use

(14:25):
it for everything. Now it's all you needed for your meal.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, And that all in one solution, I think was
that happened in China and Japan and Vietnam for sure,
and Korea I think was the one standout because I
believe in Korea the spoon and the chopstick still go
hand in hand.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah. And this I believe it was Key Edward Wang
who maybe wrote this, but he basically said it. It
seems to be a conscious decision right in Korea, almost
as if they were being contrary or something like that.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Maybe they just wanted to their own thing.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Well, they eat a lot of very very hot stews
and soups. Have you ever had boot at Jigga?

Speaker 2 (15:07):
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
I'm not even sure I'm saying it correctly. Have you
ever been to eat like an h mart or like
an Asian food cord or something like that. Sure, if
you go to a cream place, they usually have I
think it's called bout a jig a. It's like hot
dog soup basically, Oh my lord, and it's like this
kind of I'm not even sure. I guess it's it's
like a chili paste broth with lots of great processed

(15:33):
meat in it, and like ramen and like holapanos. It's
just so good. But that thing comes to you boiling,
and you're supposed to like eat the chunky parts out
with a chopstick. But I guess it always comes with
a spoon too, so I think you're supposed to actually
eat the broth with the spoon rather than sip.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
I tell you, one thing I do love is the
design of the and I'm calling it the Chinese spoon.
I don't know if it originated in China, but you
know the soup spoon I'm talking.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
About, Yeah, like the one you use for miso souper man.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
They're just the best.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, they do. They because you can get a really
big spoonful on there.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know, it's ergonomic.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
It just it's the it's the way to do it
unless you're just going to pick up the bowl and
drink it, which is great too.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, up with the miso soup spoon.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
All right, let's take a break because I'm so hungry
after you said hot dog stew, wh stomachs growling, And
we'll come back and we'll talk more about chopsticks.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Copine shot.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Shot.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
I don't remember what episode it was, Chuck, but do
you remember when our stomachs growled in sync with one another?

Speaker 2 (17:06):
That was very recently?

Speaker 3 (17:08):
It was? Yeah, you can still reminisce about recent Okay,
I say.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I'm nostalgic for that thing that happened last week.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Pretty much so apparently, and this I'm not sure how
accurate this is, but the four main kinds of chopsticks.
Apparently in China the chopsticks are a little bit longer
and a little more blunt on the ends.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, and they think that might be a nod to Confucius,
basically saying like, don't have knives at your table, don't
even have vaguely sharpened chopsticks.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Even like nothing stabby nothing.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Don't you don't want to be stabbed at your table?

Speaker 1 (17:49):
I think in Japan they're a little sharper and a
little shorter, but you're still not supposed to be stabbing stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
No, don't stab that piece of tuna.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
No, it's you can just tell if you've ever done
that while you're doing it, that you're violating some unnatural
law or something like that.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Feels wrong, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, let me see here in Korea, apparently they're are
shorter as well, and they are also blunt, but they
can be metallic.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, that's one thing that we'll see because we're going
to talk about. As with everything in existence, there's some
horrid environmental impact with chopsticks as well. But the Japanese
are like, give us cheap, disposable wooden or bamboo chopsticks
and basically nothing else. Yeah, they're just crazy for it,
where some of the other Asian cultures are like, no,

(18:38):
we can use reusable ones, but the Japanese are like, no,
we want nothing but disposable, cheap chopsticks. That warebashi.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I assume that you and U Mei have your own
chopsticks at home. Oh yeah, and do you bring those
to restaurants?

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Oh no, no, no never do we should? I everybody should, but.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
I usually think when I'm there, I'm like, oh, man,
I should have brought my chopsticks.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Well, you know, I mean like, if you go to
any Asian store, they have like cute little it looks
almost like a pencil case, but it's you know, chopsticks inside,
and it's meant for you to carry them around with you.
But no one does that. You just don't. Even though
hopefully in ten years when we're all like, Okay, this
is out of control and this is really bad, everyone
will be doing that. You just don't do it. And yeah,

(19:26):
we have some that like I could just put in
my jeans pocket and walk around with if I wanted to,
but I don't do it.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, one does.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
I take my straw now and I use it because
I now keep it in my purse. Your merse, my merse,
which goes everywhere with me. Yeah, so I need to
throw some chopsticks in there. Sure, And it's a good
feeling when you say no straw. I've got my own,
And I would love to be able to say no, no,
you keep those wooden chopsticks.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, take that straw and shove it where the sun
don't shine.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Wow. Yeah, I'm not that aggressive about.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's so funny depending on where you are in the
country though, Like if they bring you a straw and
you say no straw please, they look at you like
you're just a straight up democratic socialist hippie, you know,
like you're trying to undermine the government or something like that.
It's kind of hilarious.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Sure, But other places now are there's a couple of
places in my neighborhood who have postings on the wall
when you walk in talking about an impact of straws,
and that straws are upon request only.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Right, And if you've got a problem with that, you
can take a straw and shove it where the sun
notes shines.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Right, or you take that problem to the voting booth.
This fall right exactly. So are you prepared? Because I
have a feeling you do a better job than me
at this because you so often have great, convoluted ways
of describing visual things.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
I'm going to do a great job describing it to
you because you can watch my hands. But I think
for everybody listening it's going to be very problematic.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
All right, how do you use chopsticks?

Speaker 3 (21:05):
All right, I'm gonna get you back for this one.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Chuck, So I did it intuitively, by the way, which
is what I suggest.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, I never read watch some I think reading it
and having to explain makes it way harder. I think
it's just one of those things you have to watch
somebody do in practice. I mean, it's just all practice.
But essentially, there's a couple of things to remember. Is
that both chopsticks are laying. Do you want do you
want to go step by step through it?

Speaker 2 (21:32):
No? I think I want the Josh method.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
Okay, well it's the same. It's the same method.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Or the Josh description.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Okay. So in the valley between your thumb and your forefinger, yeah, okay,
the webbing right there, that's where the chopsticks rest, the
thumb taint, the thumb tait that Jode your hand showed.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Oh my god, it really is.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
So the two chopsticks lay right there, Okay, one of them,
the bottom one is basically meant to be immobile and stationary.
It just basically stays there. And it's the top one
that you're you're you're moving. You're kind of holding with
your forefinger, your index finger and your middle finger. That's

(22:19):
that's what you're using to move this this top one
and so it's really the bottom one that stays basically stationary,
and the top one is the one that's moving and
you're just using it to kind of pick up and
tweeze food or rice or whatever with it. If you
get really good, you can like pick your friend up
with it, right, or catch a fly if you're just
sense a level that's right with chopsticks, for sure, But

(22:40):
that's essentially it. And the the you don't want to
hold it too tightly. If you're if you're gripping it
too tightly or your muscles are too tense, yeah, you're
not going to be able to to to to kind
of make that tweezer motion very easily, or you're certainly
not going to have much control. It's kind of paradoxical
that the looser you have your in to a certain degree,

(23:01):
the more control you have over the chopsticks and the
tension that you're directing toward the end of the chopstick.
So keep your hand loose but in control, and just
make sure you remember that the bottom one that's kind
of resting all the way along your thumb the free zone.
It's basically stationary, and the top one is the one
you're directing with your index finger and middle finger.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, I recommend halfway through your meal, switch those two
out because that bottom one is just along for the ride. Yeah,
and it needs to do a little work, you know
what I mean. Yeah, So just switch them out and
make that one the topper and give it, you know,
make it do a little sweat sweating.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
I think that's pretty good. Chunk do a little sweat.
I think we deserve a Peabody Award for describing how
to use chopsticks. No visuals.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
You did talk about the environmental impact a little bit,
but it is a real problem. I mean you see
these tiny little things and you think, what's the big whoop?
Like a tree can probably make a gazillion chopsticks, so
they need, like true, maybe ten trees in China to
make all the chopsticks they need.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Do you remember that just one thing? Do you remember
that cartoon It might have been a Simpsons or something
like that, where they chop down a tree and they
show them processing one single tree into just an individual toothpick. No,
that's pretty sure it had to be the Simpsons, you know,
But imagine if they're like, no, we make one chopstick
out of just a single tree.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
I didn't think about toothpicks. Man, How many toothpicks can
you get out of a tree?

Speaker 3 (24:29):
I don't even know they're problem. They're on the horizon, right.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
But when you think about the fact that China alone
produces eighty billion disposable chopsticks every year, then you get
a little bit more of a sense of exactly how
many of these trees? And it says here there was
I'm trying to find out what year this is. It
was fairly recently, but they've had like parliamentary meetings and

(24:54):
stuff about this in China and they estimated that it
takes about twenty million million twenty year old trees to
cover their annual rate of production.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah. A guy named by Waxen pretty sure I said
his last name correct. Yeah, he's like a representative from
the ji Lean Forestry Industry group and he really like
rocked everybody at a parliamentary meeting where he basically said, hey,
do you remember that old figure that everybody has been
touting for years that we actually use fifty seven billion

(25:27):
chopsticks a year produce fifty seven billion chopsticks a year.
He said, that's way off. It's actually eighty billion, and
like you just said, we need twenty million twenty year
old trees to meet that a year. Yeah, and people said, wow,
that's kind of a problem. And so around the world, Like,
so of that eighty billion, I think China, half of

(25:50):
them stays in China. Of the other half, yeah, I
wondered about that, seventy seven percent goes to Japan. And
Japan was actually the one that started all this. They
can't I'm up with disposable chopsticks ware Bashi all the
way back in eighteen seventy eight and have just been
crazy for him ever since. Yeah, Like you can go
to like a pretty high end restaurant in Japan and

(26:10):
they're going to have wooden chopsticks that you pull are chopsticks, yeah,
that you would pull apart. There are also plenty of
restaurants in Japan that have reusable ones, and they're much
more elegant or whatever. But it's not like you wouldn't
just walk in and be like, what is this disposable chopsticks?
Are you kidding? Because they're just such a part of
Japanese culture. So they use seventy seven percent of the

(26:31):
other half. Korea uses twenty one percent, and then two
percent comes to the United States. Yeah, is that all
I have to catch that? That was twenty eleven figures,
which is the latest I could find.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
I would think China and Japan, it would just seem
like they would like everyone would have their own and
it would be a very like prideful thing to take
care of your chopsticks and to have something cool looking. Yeah,
it just kind of surprises me that they're so down
with the disposable.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
It surprises a lot of people. Especially Japan is like
really well known for being meticulous with recycling and reducing
waste and stuff like that. Yeah, it's just this one thing.
They really love their disposable chopsticks, and they just throw
them away. They're not being recycled or composted or anything
like that. They're just being thrown in the trash. So

(27:20):
some what I read is that some restaurants will offer,
you know, tea for free if you bring your own chopsticks,
or maybe like a disc tea anyway. That. But yeah, basically,
but there's not like a lot of there's not a
huge amount of movement in Japan where China and this is.
I think I read this in like a like a

(27:41):
New York Times green blog or something like that. China's
made some some moves like like taxing disposable adding an
extra tax to disposable chopsticks. I think.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
More regulation basically overall, I think.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Which is really saying something, you know. I mean, there's
like apparently a whole sub industry to the disposable chopsticks
industry that is small enough that it escapes a lot
of oversight, and they can be really problematically. There can
be a lot of chemicals in these chopsticks. They're just
like an all around basic nightmare and it's just such

(28:19):
low hanging through all and everybody has to do is
just have their own chopsticks. But just people just won't
do it. And I'm guilty too, like I said, I mean,
we have reusable ones at home, but we don't take
them out of the house ever.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah. Plus the paper used to encase the said chopsticks.
That's a lot of paper.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Too, Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
And what do you do with that stuff? You just
rip it open and burn it at the table.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Should we take another break? Yeah, all right, We'll take
another break.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
And talk a little bit about etiquette right after this,
because we're all doing it wrong to a certain degree.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Scott shot.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Shot Okay, miss Manners, lay it on.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
That's doctor, Missus Manners.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
That's right, PhD esquire.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
So this is mainly Japan that we're concentrating on with
the etiquette, and like you said, I think they take
it a little more seriously than some other Asian countries
because it turns out that chopsticks can and have had
an important part in burial rights yea and funeral rights.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Funeral rights, like a lot of the taboos I guess
you'd call them over chopsticks in Japan and in other
Asian countries too, are kind of based on like well,
that's that's kind of something we do with funeral rights.
And so that reminds us of that Japan is not
crazy about being reminded of death or mortality or pain.

(30:21):
All that stuff is very unlucky, Like the number four
is unlucky because the word for four I think she
also sounds very much like the word for death right.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
I think I remember that that. So they don't have
four elevator floors, is that right?

Speaker 3 (30:37):
I don't better if they do or not, but let's
just go with that they don't because it sounds pretty great.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
So etiquette level one is how is how this is presented.
There's a couple of levels here as far as like,
you really shouldn't do these things, but if you really
want to ramp it up, you shouldn't do these things
as well. I felt these were kind of willy nilly,
didn't you. Well, I mean, this is one person to
pay right. But the things that you really shouldn't do

(31:03):
are the following. Do not if you like, get up
to go to the bathroom, don't stick your chopsticks sitting
upright in your bowl of rice. No, And that has
to do with the household Buddhist altar, because it is
a bowl of rice is offered as to a dead
person's spirit. And this apparently is from a Budhist Buddhist

(31:30):
Buddhist funeral rights as well, because there's a photograph of
a bowl of rice and to stick chopsticks in the
middle of that would be for boten.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
I think it's they'll have like a photograph of the
deceased and they give them a bowl of uncooked rice,
so they and they stick the chopsticks up in that oh, okay,
I rather, so it's reminiscent of that that okay, So
so it's got that death thing going on, the death angle. Yeah.
And then the other thing I saw about that too
is that they it also is reminiscent of like a

(32:04):
bowl of sand with incense sticking out of it that
you would also put on a Buddhist shrine to the deceased.
So they're like way too reminiscent of death for that
to be Okay, Okay, that makes sense. Now there's another
one that's very similar. Don't leave your chopsticks crossed, like
resting on your bowl or on your plate. Just don't
cross your chopsticks. It's impolite, basically for the exact same

(32:26):
reason as sticking them out of the bowl.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Right.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
And I think that one is when you see, like
on food Instagram food posts a lot from Whitey saying,
you know, like across the chopsticks because it looks.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Cool or whatever.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Look at how cool this looks?

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Not cool? Apparently we talked about spearing.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
The advice here is to treat them as if they
are actually connected, even though they're not.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
It's a good way to remember it, like pretend connected.
That's right, yeah, and remember this is like that. I
think that goes back to like Confucius, where it's like,
don't don't have a knife at your table, don't use
your chopsticks a spear food.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
That's right. Apparently it's bad luck or not bad luck. Well,
maybe bad luck to use two different chopsticks. Yeah, they
should have the same mommy and daddy. This person said
that it's just unsightly and that it's also reminiscent funeral rights.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
That one I couldn't. I couldn't figure that one out. Yeah,
there's there's another funeral one too. A lot of funeral
rights involved chopsticks, passing food from chopstick to chopstick. Like
if you're like, hey, you got to try a bite
of this, that's just hard to hold it up. It's
it's but it's kind of it's a little bit showy. Yeah,
if you can do it, look at us. But but

(33:43):
when you you know, if somebody grabs it with their chopstick,
that's how they pass bones from cremations during funeral rights too,
And they're like, nope, that reminds us of that as well.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, and there are some of these that are just
like I can't believe people do this. Do not wash
your chopsticks off in your beverage. Yeah, that's gross.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
If someone do that, I don't know. Apparently somebody has
the other thing about this is so the fact that
they have restrictions on this social restrictions means that people
have done it before. But they also go so far
as like most of these things all have like individual words.
That's how like agro the Japanese are about this, this
kind of etiquette. Yeah, they have words for that, Like

(34:20):
washing your chopsticks off in your drink is not just
called washing your chopsticks off in.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Your Yeah, there's a name for it. Let me see here.
Do not treat them as toys.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
And we talked earlier about putting them in your mouth
like their fangs or walrus tusks or antennas or drumsticks.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Just not a good look.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Here's another one that is this is a sort of
one that I think happens a lot. Is you might
see women American women maybe do their hair and put
chopsticks in them. Those when you see that in Japan,
those are not chopsticks, right. It might look like chopsticks,
but they're actually called kenza.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, it'd be kind of like sticking a fork in
your hair. If you're walking around Japan looking like that,
they'd be like, why do you why do you have
that fork in your hair? Yeah, it looks a little off,
but yeah, like they look just like those things, but
there's a separate thing, that's right. What did you call them?

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Kanzashi? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Nice, that's a beautiful w mean, I didn't make that up, right,
I know. Another one is you'll very frequently see people
do this, and I've done it too, and it's apparently
acceptable under certain circumstances. But when you break your warabashi,
your disposable cheap chopsticks apart at the end, if there's

(35:39):
splinters or there's like a piece of wood sticking out,
you can rub them together. It's kind of soften the
wood or get the splinters off. But you're not supposed
to do that as just like a matter of course,
because you're basically insulting the restaurant. You're saying, like, these
are so cheap, these chopsticks that you're providing your gas. Yeah,
that like I've got to rub them together, and you

(36:02):
definitely don't want to like make eye contact with the
owner while you're rubbing it together. You're like, this is
what I think of your establishment. And people do that
all the time.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
I do it.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
It's almost like habitual.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
It's habitual for me.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
And I started doing it when I first started using
chopsticks because I saw the person I was with did it,
and I was like, I guess that's what you do.
You get those little splinters off, right, And now it's
a total habit and my whole thing there. I don't
think that one's a really big one, like, especially in America,
it happens so much. I don't think anyone a restaurant
owner is like super insulted by seeing this. Sure, yeah,

(36:36):
especially in America, but they are super cheap and they
do splinter right.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Well. In that case, yes, like that that proprietor has
brought it on himself for herself for providing everybody with
such cheap chopsticks that they're splintering.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I will always remember this now, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, and this is so I agree with you. I
think that this is probably not that big of an
insul especially in America. It's probably falls in line with
like how you're not supposed to like put your with
sabi put in the soy sauce or something like that. Well,
if you want to just do it, you know, if
you want to be remarkably polite, then you wouldn't do
any of these things. Some are way worse than others,

(37:15):
and I think that one probably falls into the lesser category,
even though it's under this advancing. This is why I
was saying this seems willy nilly.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, and that we also covered some of this in
our sushi episode, because if I'm not mistaken, don't you
eat sushi.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
With your fingers? Or am I wrong?

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Don't you?

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Don't you eat with your fingers? Or do you not?

Speaker 3 (37:36):
No? I don't. I love showing off how great I
am at chopsticks. I use them at every turn still
every time I can't. Yeah, I eat millet gruel with chopsticks.
That's how good I am.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Or you I've seen you just flip up a shrimp
and catch it in the other one.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
What a show off.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
It's pretty great.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Because you have chopsticks.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
You have four, you have two in each hand, yes, basically,
and you do a little side show there.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's really impressive.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Edward scissorhands, Josh chopstick finger But no you're supposed to
eat sushi. It's specifically nagiri right right with your hand.
That's how it was originally done. If I remember correctly
from our sushi episode, I think so. Yeah, But yeah,
we use chopsticks these days.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Here's another no no is do not use chopstick as
a rake, Like, don't lift up a bowl of rice
and just sort of rake rice into your mouth.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
So that's Japan. I saw in China that's perfectly accepted,
really normal.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Okay, yeah, yeah, it gets dicey with it's not the
samement everywhere, you know.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
Yeah, here's the thing. I don't know if we said
this before. So in Thailand they don't use chopsticks almost
as a rule. In Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and China, they're
they're totally ubiquitous, almost the only thing you're gonna find
that you eat with. And so that means that like
even a bowl of soup like miso soup, you're supposed
to use your chopsticks for that. Like the little chunks

(38:57):
of tofu. Yeah, it took me a second. You use
your your chopsticks to eat those out of the bowl
and then you slurp the rest or sip the rest depending,
but with bryce you would hold the bowl up kind
of close to your face, but not like up in
your face, just under your chin and out a little bit.

(39:19):
And then you, you know, eat the rice with your
chopsticks from there, lifting the rice up to your mouth,
not shoveling it into your mouth from the bowl.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Right, And I saw with soups and things. Also is
if you really want to ramp up the etiquette, you
should try and drip into the bowl.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Oh right, when you like, when you are picking up
the tofu, you want to kind of shake the tofu
off so it doesn't drip on you are on the table. Yes,
if you really want to excel etiquette, you would just
not eat anything. You just sit there quietly with your
chopsticks side by side, still in their wrapper, just smiling
politely at everyone like it didn't.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Break any rules. And I'm really hungry.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
There's a couple more here. Don't point with your chopsticks.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
It's tough not to do, do you point. I don't
point at people you know or anything like that. Can
you pass me that thing right there? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (40:10):
And you just sort of give a little nod like hey,
that that pot sticker over there.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, because they're fun to hold and point with and
like do stuff with. I just I don't know, maybe
I'm still it's still novel enough to me that I
have to remind myself not to point, or you me
has to remind me not to point with the chopsticks.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Or when you're talking and you're expressing things with your
hands and you're using your chopsticks, or if you want
to just do a little Maestro routine, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Let's look down upon or if you're using your hands
for something else, you don't stick your chopsticks in your
mouth and just hold them in there while you're like
moving plates around or something like that. You set them down.
And here's the other thing too. If you go to
a very nice restaurant in Japan or in the States
and it just happens to be a Japanese restaurant, about

(41:00):
that really prolonged this thought. They're going to give you
a chopstick rest Oh, short your chopsticks on, so they're
kind of lifted off of the table the end that
you put in your mouth. If you don't have that,
you can take that paper wrapper and roll it up
and make your own chopstick rest, that's.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Right, because you're setting your chopsticks down on a table
that could be you know, have germs.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Right, and speaking of germs, also, chuck. You never ever
use the chopsticks that you're eating with to serve yourself
from a communal plate or bowl, that's for sure. They
should give you like a spoon or something like that
to spoon it onto your plate, and then you use
your chopsticks because that's just germy and diseasy. And apparently

(41:47):
there's a a like a supplement to that where if
they don't give you a serving spoon, people flip their
chopsticks over and use the thicker end to shovel the
food onto the plate, which is not necessary anymore hygienic
because that's where your hands have been rather than your mouth.
But that's the more socially acceptable thing to do than
just using the business end of your chopsticks.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
I don't know why that's so funny to me.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
But the ends though, I mean, if you're using them right,
you're choked up a little bit, so they're not really
being touched by your hands, you know, true, Like you
don't stick the ends in your palm, that's right, it's
true you choke up on it like a baseball bat.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah. They say in Korea apparently that the further down
though you hold the chopsticks, the longer it's going to
be before you get married.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Well, yeah, I mean we could talk about some of
these kind of fun fun facts.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Fine, let me see here.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
One is, if you are given an uneven pair, you
will miss a boat or a plane.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
And this is came from Malaysia. I'm not sure if
that's ubiquitous all over Asia.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
I think it's Chinese.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Okay, I think what else here? This is kind of fun.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
If you use chopsticks, it involves over fifty muscles in
the fingers and thirty joints in the well overall in
the fingers, arms, shoulders, and wrists.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yeah, pretty cool it is. I mean, how many you
use for a fork? Like two? Maybe give me a break.
I saw a couple of things. One is that there
was a study that found that eating popcorn with chopsticks
makes eating popcorn much more enjoyable than eating it without

(43:37):
chopsticks with your fingers instead. And they even controlled for
the amount of extra time it takes to eat popcorn
with chopsticks. It's not just that you're eating slower so
you're relishing it more. Because they had a control group
using their fingers eat at a very slow pace too,
And apparently they think it's just the fact that you're
doing something differently makes you appreciate the thing that you're

(43:57):
doing or that you're eating that much more. Like if
you pour water out of like a separate, you know,
water bottle, like at a restaurant, how they have like
the little chilled water bottles they'll bring over. Look at
taste with taste better than water that you just pour
it out of the tap, even if it was the
exact same water, because it's being conveyed differently.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, And that's also how you would get popcorn to
last through the opening previews of a movie. That's right,
because you're not just shoveling it in your mouth like
I do. It's so bizarre, man, I do the same thing.
I've tried to do, the like couple of kernels at
a time, and you know, I do that for the
first few and then before you know it, I've just

(44:41):
got handfuls that I'm pushing into my.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Mouth, right right, That's how you have to do it.
You have to use the palm of your hand to
really shove the entire fistful in there. You can't just
use your little fingertips. It doesn't work. You'll choke on them.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
And I don't know if it's an sort of a
subliminal desire for mean not to be distracted during the movie,
But the ideal, in the ideal world, I would just
sit there and bunch a couple of pieces at a
time for two hours.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
Like just chew them a million times.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
No, no, no, just.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Eat a couple of kernels at a time and just
really elongate the whole experience.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Take put those chopsticks in your merse and take those
to the theater.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
People would be like, look at that guy.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Hey, though you have to be careful though, yes, they yes,
they would. You have to be careful though who you
brandish those chopsticks around, because so you put this together.
Kudos for that. One of the facts you came up
with is that there's something called consecutive layophobia consecutive lay
a phobia, I think I said, which is literally a

(45:47):
fear of chopsticks.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, there's a fear for everything.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
But but yes, but I was reading a blog post
on it and some maybe psych net i think, and
they were saying, like, there's basically two categories of phobias,
ones that are semi rational. They use the example of
a fear of sharks. Well, if you did run into
a shark, there's a chance you could be killed by
that shark. So it's not just totally bonkers to be

(46:13):
afraid of sharks, but the a phobia of sharks is
an irrational fear, Like maybe if you live in Kansas,
you got no reason to have a fear of sharks.
This one, they said, this basically qualifies in the bonkers category,
Like there's virtually nothing that chopsticks can do to hurt you,
So to be irrationally afraid of chopsticks where you feel

(46:35):
like heart pounding anxiety is a genuine died in the
whole phobia. But some people do apparently experience this, although
it's super rare. Yeah, that's interesting, But you'll like avoid
entire types of restaurants because you can't be around chopsticks
and you'll get anxious just thinking about being around chopsticks.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Oh, that's so sad because Asian food makes up a
large portion of my diet.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Well, luckily for you, you don't have consecutiaophobia. No.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
I mean when I think about sushi, I think about
fa right, I think about ramen. I think about good
old fashioned Sechuan Chinese food. Oh yeah, think about Korean.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could
eat that. I could eat that all the time.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Dude, you've got to get some boot at jig. I'll
take you to go get some. All right, you're gonna
you're gonna love it so good.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I can't wait.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
You got anything else?

Speaker 2 (47:32):
I got nothing else.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Forty five minutes on chopsticks, baby, not bad. If you
want to know more about chopsticks, go get yourself some
that you can reuse and eat conscientiously with them. And
don't forget all of the manners. But just go eat
some Asian food because no matter where it's farm or
what it is, it's probably pretty good.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Agreed.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Since I said that it's time for listener mayl.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
I'm gonna call this two for two. Hey, guys, I
read a few years ago about Alan. Thought i'd share
a Sammy Davis junior story. Oh wow, And this is
from Andrew Limberg in Pittsburgh, and he got his Alan
aldowin red and when I told him this was coming on,
he wrote back, two for two baby, nice.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, there's people out there who are like, oh for ten.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
I know. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
I assume it's not like we're keeping track of people
like that.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Oh no, I have a screadsheet. Oh you do, Yeah,
that's me, he says.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
So in the eighties, Sammy would had been cleaned out
by his ex wife and was selling barbecue sauce. He
was in Pittsburgh to promote it, and my friend Larry,
who had a local TV show at the time, got
a chance to interview him. When they arrived at the hotel,
they were told they would get twenty minutes with Sammy,
but when they talked to Sammy's manager, he said only
ten minutes. So, instead of having time to set up

(48:47):
a two shot interview, and for people that don't know
the lingo, that means both people are in the same
camera frame. Okay, they kept the camera on Sammy and
Larry would then go back in at his footage later
so he would, I guess, re ask the questions with
a ghost Sammy just to edit it together. At the
end of the interview, they needed one, just one two

(49:09):
shot of the two of them together so they could
edits it realistically, and Sammy's manager said nope, and Larry
looked at Sammy almost begging because they needed the two shot.
Sammy took a long drag of a cigarette and said,
get your two shot, babe. The manager then said, oh, well,
I guess I'm the a hole, to which Sammy said,

(49:30):
as a matter of fact, Babe, you are an a hole.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
So this is how the story goes, apparently.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
And Then Andrew says he's been listening since eight and
went to that live show on Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Please come back, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
And he says he is a podcast now called the
Pittsburgh Oddcast.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Nice and he said, we.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Average about fifteen hundred listens an episode, which is pretty
darn good.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Andrew, Yeah, it is nice work.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
And for a self styled show, that's not bad at all.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Especially a local one too. Pittsburgh podcast.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, so Pittsburgh ins.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
If you're from the Burgh, yeah, check out the Pittsburgh Podcast,
and Andrew.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Or even if you're interested in it, sure, Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
You might live in Philadelphia and just be a burghead exactly.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
Well, that was a pretty great one, Thank you very
much too. For two, that's pretty impressive, Andrew. And if
you want to get Chuck to do any Sammy Davis
Junior impressions, write in with your own Sammy Davis Junior
story and see how it goes. And you can put
that in an email, wrap it up, spank it on
the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
You Know, Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.