转自：兔梦网。
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In the far east Asia in ancient ages, the centre of civilisation was the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, where wheat and rice were first cultivated as early as 12000 years ago. Blessed with monsoon, that land, which was called 'Huaxia',ancient name of 'China', was a land of milk and honey. Agricultural culture was highly developed there, and people's staple food was steamed bread and rice, and together with '羮(geng)'(a kind of thick soup in which meat and vegetables were ingredients) as their subsidiary food. Our ancestors ate that food quite early, and their tableware developed following their food. They ate with hands when they were in primitive society, and spoons and chopsticks in Neolithic. But using spoon was also not convenient while chopsticks suit them well when trying to get the meet and vegetable. (There is another version of the origin of chopsticks. Some of our ancestors ate roasted meats or vegetables, but to turn the food over to make it more tasty with bare hands was too dangerous as hands would get burnt. So they used two thin sticks from branches to turn over the food. And that turned out to be very ingenious as that invention could also be used as tableware in addition to cooker, so the primitive 'chopsticks' were applied.)So chopsticks prospered in ancient China, and have more than 3000 years of history recorded. That was the reason why chopsticks prevaled in ancient China, and even now we Chinese use chopsticks more than spoons.
And things are much easier if we know the origin of chopsticks. Far east shares similar climate, so agricultural civilisation was common there. Ancient countries like Japan, Korea and Vietnam were also agricultural countries like ancient China because they were neighbours and had many connections and shared many resemblences. Similar civilisation led to similar food ingredients, and thereby led to similar tablewares. And that is the reason why chopsticks become so popular in the far east.
在远古时代的远东，文明的中心是黄河和长江，早在12000年前，这里就开始种植小麦和水稻。受季风影响，这片土地被称为“华夏”，古称“中国”，是一片产奶和蜂蜜的土地。农业文化高度发达，人民的主食是馒头和米饭，辅食是“耿”（一种以肉和蔬菜为原料的浓汤）。我们的祖先很早就吃了这种食物，他们的餐具也随着食物而发展。他们在原始社会用手吃饭，在新石器时代用汤匙和筷子吃饭。但是使用勺子也不方便，因为筷子很适合他们在试图得到满足和蔬菜。（筷子的起源还有另一个版本。我们的一些祖先吃烤的肉或蔬菜，但是徒手把食物翻过来使它更可口太危险了，因为手会被烧伤。所以他们用树枝上的两根细棍把食物翻过来。这是一项非常巧妙的发明，因为这项发明除了用作炊具外，还可以用作餐具，所以使用的是原始的“筷子”。所以筷子在中国古代很发达，有3000多年的历史记录。这就是为什么筷子在中国古代盛行的原因，即使现在，我们中国人使用筷子的次数也超过了使用汤匙的次数。
如果我们知道筷子的起源，事情就容易多了。远东地区气候相似，所以农业文明在那里很普遍。像日本、韩国和越南这样的古代国家也是像中国这样的农业国家，因为它们是邻居，有许多联系，有许多相似之处。相似的文明导致了相似的食物成分，从而导致了相似的餐具。这就是为什么筷子在远东如此流行的原因。
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The “history as such” isn’t known as chopsticks appeared in late pre-history.
Based on archeological evidence, these ancient Chinese probably have started using proto chopsticks to eat with the invention of pots in which they began to cook hot stews, to be eaten communally. This required longer reach, and protection from the heat, so the twigs used in cooking the stew probably became used to eat as well. Twigs then became chopsticks. Chopsticks (like tongs) are basically an extension of the fingers with which you’d grab the food. As civilization progressed, utensils (chopsticks, spoons, eventually knives) became the proper way to eat all the time at table. The big distinction between Asia and Europe is that with the fall of the Roman Empire, there was more or less a “reboot” of table manners, and the richer Europeans were back to using their hands and a knife/dagger at table, while the peasants used hands and spoons mostly (they didn’t have much cut on the table.
In Asia the table manners became refined much earlier, in part because of the stability of the “chopstick culture” and the cuisine that evolved out of that. The culinary culture in Asia evolved around that, the dishes designed to be eaten with chopsticks etc.
The same archaeological evidence was found in Japan, where the culture of chopsticks was brought from the continent. The earliest evidence of (table) chopsticks there also relate to their use with big cooking vessels with traces indicating they were used over a fire, the ancestor of the donabe still used for Japanese hot pots. It is believed that the choice to cultivate short grain rice instead of long grain rice (both existed then in China, but the Japanese chose one over the other) is directly linked to the way the Japanese were using chopsticks and bowls.
In a later period (no longer pre-historic but in antiquity), the ancient Japanese were now using multiple individual bowls and plates to eat, and they were already designed to be lifted with one hand, to eat with chopsticks (and there’s evidence that the tableware was unique to each family member, something again linked to shinto beliefs). Unlike ancient China, spoons were apparently virtually non-existent except in the kitchen, as the Japanese adopted very early the practice of eating hot liquids using small bowls as cups, soups included. The usage of delicate chopsticks later made allowance for the invention and use of more and more refined wooden bowls, lacquerware etc. Following the Chinese example, knives eventually (and pretty early) totally disappeared from the table. In Japan this not only gave birth to a cuisine all designed to be eaten with chopsticks (as it did in China), but also to a culture where the highest regarded skill of a chef became his knife skills and cutting techniques (it’s the complete opposite of the western kitchen, where the apprentices were the ones cutting and prepping, while in Japan the “guy with the knives” and the expertise to use the refined cutting techniques is the head chef. Chopsticks very directly influenced the aesthetics of Japanese cuisine as unlike forks or fingers they allowed chefs to arrange food precisely, and diners to lift the delicately arranged morsels with elegance.)
In the West it’s only during the Renaissance that forks gradually replaced the tip of knives as eating utensil at table, and it’s only with Versailles that table manners evolved into a complete etiquette and something like modern table manners.
这种“历史”在史前晚期并不被称为筷子。
根据考古证据，这些古代中国人可能已经开始使用原筷子吃饭，发明了锅，他们开始煮热炖菜，共同食用。这就需要更长的距离，以及对热量的保护，所以用来做炖菜的树枝可能也被用来吃了。然后树枝变成了筷子。筷子（像钳子）基本上是指的延伸，你可以用它来抓食物。随着文明的进步，餐具（筷子、汤匙、最后是刀子）成了餐桌上最合适的用餐方式。亚洲和欧洲之间的最大区别是，随着罗马帝国的衰落，餐桌礼仪或多或少会“重新启动”，富有的欧洲人又开始用手和刀子/匕首对着餐桌，而农民大多用手和勺子（他们没有太多的食物）。
在亚洲，餐桌礼仪变得更为优雅，部分原因是“筷子文化”的稳定以及由此演变而来的菜肴。亚洲的烹饪文化就是围绕着这一点而发展起来的，比如用筷子吃的菜肴等等。
同样的考古证据也在日本发现，那里的筷子文化是从大陆带来的。那里最早的筷子（桌上筷子）证据也与它们与大型烹饪器皿的使用有关，其痕迹表明它们是在火上使用的。人们认为，日本人选择种植短粒米而不是长粒米（两者在当时中国都存在，但日本人选择了一种而不是另一种）与日本人使用筷子和碗的方式直接相关。
在后来的时期（不再是史前时期，但在古代），古代日本人和现在的日本一样，使用多个单独的碗和盘子来吃饭，并且他们已经被设计成用一只手举起来，用筷子吃饭（而且有证据表明餐具是每个家庭成员独有的也与神道教信仰有关）。与古代中国不同，汤匙除了在厨房外几乎不存在，因为日本人很早就采用了用小碗当杯子吃热液体的做法，包括汤。后来，精美的筷子的使用，为发明和使用越来越精致的木碗、漆器等提供了条件。按照中国的例子，刀最终（而且很早）从桌子上消失了。在日本，所有的烹饪法都是用筷子（就像在中国一样），这不仅催生了一种烹饪法，而且也催生了一种文化，在这种文化中，厨师最受重视的技能变成了他的刀法和切割技术（这与西方厨房完全相反，在西方厨房里，学徒们在成为厨师之前，都在做切割的工作，在日本，“拿着刀的家伙”和使用精细切割技术的专家是主厨。筷子非常直接地影响了日本料理的美学，因为它们不像叉子或手指，它们允许厨师精确地安排食物，用餐者优雅地举起精心安排的食物。）
在西方，只有在文艺复兴时期，叉子才逐渐取代刀尖，成为餐桌上的餐具；凡尔赛宫的餐桌礼仪演变成了一种完整的礼仪，类似于现代的餐桌礼仪。

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese food is usually eaten with chopsticks; but it was the Chinese who were the earliest culture some five thousand years ago. Their food cooked in pots required twigs to remove it. Over time, as the population grew - people began chopping food into smaller pieces so it would cook more quickly thus minimizing the use of wood for cooking - twigs gradually turned into chopsticks
Some people think that the great scholar Confucius, who lived from roughly 551 to 479 B.C., influenced the development of chopsticks. A vegetarian, Confucius believed knives would remind people of slaughterhouses and were too violent for use at the table.
The use of chopsticks reflected Chinese pragmatism and frugality in overcoming the difficulties of life. Famine, drought were common in ancient China; therefore food needed to be shared between family members; picking only small morsels with chopsticks to accompany bowls of rice. (Fork-&-spoon would have enabled a user to take large portions - inconsiderate and selfish when food is scarce.)
中国人、日本人、韩国人和越南人的食物通常用筷子吃，但大约5000年前，中国人是最早使用筷子的人。他们用锅煮的食物需要细枝才能吃到。随着时间的推移，随着人口的增长，人们开始把食物切成小块，这样它就能更快地烹饪，从而最大限度地减少了烹饪用木材的使用，树枝逐渐变成了筷子。
有人认为，大约公元前551年到479年的大学者孔子影响了筷子的发展。作为一个素食主义者，孔子认为刀子会让人想起屠宰场，而且在餐桌上使用过于暴力。
筷子的使用反映了中国克服生活困难的实用主义和节俭。饥荒、旱灾在中国古代很常见，因此家庭成员之间需要分享食物，只需用筷子挑一小块食物来搭配米饭。（叉子和勺子可以让使用者吃大量的食物——当食物稀缺时，是不体贴和自私的。）

And Koreans, and Vietnamese, and Laosians, and Cambodians...
The real question is why everyone else doesn't eat with chopsticks. As long as you have access to a tree or bush you have eating utensils to hand. And it's easier to eat with chopsticks - you only need one hand.
China has always had a large, mostly stable population and small communities rarely went to war or had need for intricate metalwork for making tools and weapons. People used what resources they had to hand - wood, and over the millennia it became a cultural tradition, even influencing how food is prepared and cooked. Even up until the 20th century most building work in China was stone and wood slotted together without the use of metal nails or girders. A strange exception - possibly another question for Quora? - is why the Koreans tend to prefer metal chopsticks.
韩国人，越南人，老挝人，柬埔寨人…
真正的问题是为什么其他人都不用筷子吃饭。只要你能接触到一棵树或灌木，你就有餐具可以拿。用筷子吃饭更容易——你只需要一只手。
中国一直人口众多，社会基本稳定，小社区很少打仗，也不需要复杂的金属制品来制造工具和武器。人们使用他们必须使用的资源——木材，几千年来，木材成为了一种文化传统，甚至影响了食物的制作和烹饪。直到20世纪，中国的大多数建筑工程都是用石头和木头开槽而不用金属钉或梁。一个奇怪的例外——可能是Quora的另一个问题？-这就是韩国人喜欢金属筷子的原因。

China invented forks-probably, and then they changed their dinnerware from knife and fork to chopsticks. Let us look at the history of forks,knives, and chopsticks as dinnerware.
Europe has a short history of using knives and forks - less than 1000 years, although people have been thinking that it is the west who invented the knives and forks. In fact, the Europe began to use forks in Tasca, Italy, in the 11th century, and the forks are not wildly used until 14th century in Europe.
In the site of Zongri, which dates back to 5000 years ago and belongs to Majiayao culture, located in Qinghai Province of Southwest China, archaeologists found a fork, together with knife and spoon, and they are all made of animal bones and quite similar with the knife and fork we are using today in shape. Also archaeologists found dinner forks from 6000 years ago in Heilongjiang Province of Northeast China.
Chinese also began to use spoon about 10000 years ago-also first in the world, and they began to use dinner knife about 7000 years ago.
At about 3000 years ago, Chinese invented chopsticks and and then chopsticks took place of forks and knives as dinnerware.
中国可能发明了叉子，然后他们把餐具从刀叉改成了筷子。让我们看看叉、刀和筷子作为餐具的历史。
欧洲使用刀叉的历史很短——不到1000年，尽管人们一直认为是西方发明了刀叉。事实上，欧洲在11世纪开始在意大利的塔斯卡使用叉子，直到14世纪才在欧洲广泛使用叉子。
在距今5000年的宗日遗址中，考古学家发现了一把叉子，连同刀子和勺子，它们都是由动物骨头做成的，和我们今天使用的刀叉非常相似。考古学家也在中国东北黑龙江省发现了6000年前的餐叉。
中国人也开始使用勺子，大约一万年前也是世界上第一个，大约7000年前他们开始使用餐刀。
大约在3000年前，中国人发明了筷子，然后筷子取代了刀叉作为餐具。

Cause in the hands of a kungfu master, forks are deadly assassin's weapons. Imagine the emperor's banquet where any one of the guests could be an assassin! And everyone has forks and knives!?
Just kidding.
Chopsticks predate table forks by say...over a millenium. The far east Asians (Chinese weren't the only ones) have been using it for that long.
They remain cheap and good. Last practically forever, and don't rust. So why change?
On the other hand, the table fork was used only in the last 2 to 3 centuries in Europe and America. Before that, they were eating with their hands. (This was before the invention of toilet paper and clean running water. So you can imagine how sanitary their hands were.)
Plus, its quite painful to do this with forks...
因为在功夫大师的手中，叉子是致命的杀手武器。想象一下皇帝的宴会，任何一个客人都可能是杀手！每个人都有刀叉！？
开玩笑吧。
筷子比餐叉早了，大概超过一千年。远东亚洲人（中国人不是唯一一个）用了这么久。
它们仍然价廉物美。几乎永远不会生锈。为什么要改变？
另一方面，餐桌叉仅在过去2到3个世纪在欧洲和美国使用。在那之前，他们用手吃饭。（这是在卫生纸和清洁自来水发明之前。所以你可以想象他们的手有多卫生。）
另外，用叉子做这个很痛苦…

Chopsticks are not only used in East Asia, but also in Vietnam and other South East countries or where there are Chinese/Japanese/Korean residents.
Chopsticks were widely accepted as the feeding tools through cultural and economic communications in the past time, or simply because Chinese immigrants took them there.
Chopsticks in Japan and Korea were given local features compared with its original version in China.
筷子不仅在东亚使用，而且在越南和其他东南亚国家或有中国/日本/韩国居民的地方也使用。
过去，筷子被广泛接受为通过文化和经济交流的喂养工具，或者仅仅是因为中国移民把筷子带到了那里。
日本和韩国的筷子与中国的原版相比，具有地方特色。
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Alex Leigh
Updated Jul 24, 2014
My guess is that Chinese civilization began too early to make metal utensils, earlier than humans learned to produce metals. Once the using of two sticks instead of hands in eating was established as an ettiquette, people tend to adhere to it rather than invent or change to another one.
As a result, Chinese foods are made to be eaten easily with chopsticks. Once chopstick-friendly foods became a tradition of China, it further prevents people from using other tools. Hence, what we see now. Chinese people use only chopsticks and sometimes a spoon, and Chinese foods are always served in small pieces, easy for chopsticks to pick them up. People don't need knives, because foods are already cut into small pieces before serving. Forks and knives are always used together. If knives are gone, what are forks for?
我的猜测是，中国文明开始制造金属器皿的时间太早，早于人类学会生产金属。一旦使用两根棍子而不是手来吃饭被确立为一种礼节，人们倾向于坚持它，而不是发明或改变另一根棍子。
中国的食物很容易用筷子吃。一旦筷子友好型食物成为中国的传统，它进一步阻止人们使用其他工具。因此，我们现在看到的。中国人只用筷子，有时用勺子，中国菜总是分成小块，筷子很容易拿起来。人们不需要刀子，因为食物在食用前已经被切成小块。刀叉总是一起使用。如果刀子不见了，叉子是干什么用的？

Answered Jun 28
The very simple answer to this is that Chinese people created their own fork thousands of years ago. Then they invented the chopsticks which were much more versatile but they were only used for cooking in the beginning. Hundreds of years of using both finally got them to realize that the fork just wasn’t worth keeping around so they finally replaced them with the chopsticks by the middle of the Shang Dynasty.
After that China’s considerable influence on the ancient world spread the use of chopsticks to most of Asia and to all Asian populations worldwide.
答案很简单，中国人几千年前就创造了自己的叉子。后来，他们发明了筷子，这种筷子用途更广，但一开始只是用来做饭的。几百年的使用终于让他们意识到叉子根本不值得留着，所以到了商朝中期，他们终于用筷子代替了叉子。
此后，中国对古代世界的巨大影响，将筷子的使用传播到了亚洲大部分地区和全世界所有亚洲人口。

大面上可以，个别细节荒谬。
作者听谁说的孔子是素食主义者？“割不正不食”是谁说的？收的束脩是干啥用的？