Don't grasp them too tightly or your hand will cramp. Snapping them in two is considered poor etiquette.

If serving spoons are not provided for shared dishes, you may serve yourself by turning your chopsticks around and placing food on your plate with the bottom ends of your chopsticks instead of the tips. Turn them back around before you begin eating. Note, however, that when dining in familiar company (friends or family), it is considered a breach of etiquette to serve yourself this way, since it shows an unseemly lack of desire for intimacy.

Don't place your chopsticks across your plate or directly on the table when they're at rest. Lean the tips against the side of the plate, letting the bottoms rest on the table. Some restaurants often provide chopstick rests, which are made of wood, glass, or ceramic, and can add a decorative touch to the dinner table. Crossed chopsticks are, however, permissible in a "dim sum" restaurant. Your waiter will cross them to show that your bill has been settled, or you can do the same to show the waiter that you have finished and are ready to pay the bill.

Never stick your chopsticks upright in your rice bowl. This is based on the fact that upright sticks look like the incense sticks used to honor the dead.

Never take food from someone else's chopsticks. In Japanese funerary custom, bone fragments from the dead are picked from a pyre and family members pass them to one another using ceremonial chopsticks. Afterwards, the chopsticks are thrust into the ashes, points down.

Never reach across a neighbor's chopsticks. "Chopstick fencing" will, at best, cause a mess and, at worst, result in the loss of an eye.

Never lick or bite your sticks, since this is considered barbaric. So is fishing around for the best pieces in a serving dish.

In the case of soups, eat solid pieces with chopsticks, then sip or spoon the liquid from the bowl.

One chopstick craft which a visitor is not advised to try is the deboning of a fish when its top half has been eaten, without turning it over. The host or a waiter will usually perform the careful separation of the fish skeleton from the lower half of the flesh.

The reason why a fish will never be turned over is a traditional superstition, and a tribute to South China's fishing families - bad luck would ensue and a fishing boat would capsize if the fish were up-ended.

There are superstitions associated with chopsticks too. If you find an uneven pair at your table setting, it means you are going to miss a boat, plane or train. Dropping chopsticks will inevitably bring bad luck, as will laying them across each other.

According to Miss Manners, the definitive rule about using chopsticks as hair ornaments is: "Do not put chopsticks in your hair. Especially after lunch." The hair sticks you see sticking out of hairdos in woodblock prints of Chinese women are actually called ZanZi.

If you really want to impress the waiters in a Chinese restaurant, eat rice from a bowl the way the Chinese do: Raise the rice bowl with one hand and perch the edge of the bowl on your lower lip. Hold the chopsticks together with the other hand, and shovel the rice into your mouth, being careful not to spill grains on the floor. In Chinese custom, rice symbolizes life's blessings, so it is important to suck them in with gusto rather than pick away at them.