Following the recent health scare in which McDonalds Japan was found to be using meat that was past its sell-by date that had been purchased from China, other alarmist stories regarding Chinese-made products have surfaced online.
Today, the website Rakuten Woman featured an article from weekly tabloid Shukan Taishu, that claims the disposable chopsticks known in Japanese as “wari-bashi” [break-apart chopsticks] contain enough poison to kill a goldfish if they are inserted into its tank. The article, which features some dubious sources, has dubbed these Chinese-made chopsticks “killer chopsticks”.
This has led to concerns from netizens that the disposable chopsticks they get with their takeout on a daily basis might actually be killing them.
From Rakuten Woman:
My Goldfish Died When I Put Them In The Tank…Fears Over Chinese-Made Chopsticks Containing Deadly Poison
The issues of the use of meat from Chinese businesses that was past its sell-by date has jeopardized McDonalds Japan.
Ingredients from Chinese businesses has previously come to be viewed as dangerous, but now apparently more dangerous than that are Chinese-made wari-bashi [break-apart chopsticks].
“One normal customer, who had been dining at a restaurant in Shanghai, discovered that if you put the chopsticks in a clear soup, the soup will immediately go cloudy. When we put the chopsticks in a fish-tank as part of our investigation after hearing reports of this, a goldfish that had happily been swimming around appears to have floated to the top of the tank”, the China correspondent at a news service told us.
Fearful deadly-poisonous chopsticks, that are so poisonous they kill a goldfish. So by which process are these chopsticks produced in China?
An economics reporter at a national newspaper told us, “In the manufacturing process for Chinese-made chopsticks, strong anti-mould chemicals, as well as bleaches to make the chopsticks look good, are used in large amounts. What’s more, because they are almost always packed without being washed, they are just left covered with chemicals that are harmful to humans”.
In Japan, the annual volume of chopsticks used is 25,000,000,000 pairs. Of these, 97% are made in China, so this is hardly someone else’s business.
The same reporter told us that “There is an examination upon import for foodstuffs like vegetables and meat, but chopsticks, which are a manufactured product, get a free pass. Right now in Japan we have a dangerous situation where “killer chopsticks” are being used on a daily basis”.
Once, Zhū Yǒuzǐ, who worked as a lawyer in China but now works as an interpreter in Japan, warned of the following:
“A lot of manufacturers of chopsticks are small businesses that are individually run, so it’s possible that many of them don’t wash the chemicals off properly. This doesn’t mean that all Chinese-made goods are dangerous, but I’d never use those chopsticks”.
Around the world, 80,000,000,000 pairs of these Chinese-made “poisonous chopsticks” are used annually. It would be no exaggeration to say that this situation already amounts to “terrorism”.
From the August 11 edition of Shukan Taishu.
Comments from 2ch.net:
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Seriously.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Killer…chopsticks, you say!?
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
These are the chopsticks you get from convenience stores.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Huh, you mean now I have to walk about with my own pair of chopsticks?
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
We can’t buy bentos [takeout lunch] anymore either.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
We are in fact being invaded, when there’s supposed to be poison in everything.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
It’s more of a mystery that people aren’t getting cancer from it.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
My assumptions are proven.
I bet toothpicks are the same, too.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
People have been saying this for ages.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
This is scary.
I use these things pretty much every day.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
It’s a bit late saying this now.
There is no one who’s died from using convenience store chopsticks, so who cares.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／: [in response to above]
You don’t die immediately after using them, you die from a disease some time after using them…
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
You can’t even trust the 100 yen shop when it says on the packet that something is 100% Japanese made.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Takes one match to start a fire.
Takes one pair of chopsticks to die from a disease.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Sometimes you do get those disposable chopsticks that really stink of chemicals.
Those ones you get with cheap takeout.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Knew it.
Come on guys, at least use Japanese-made chopsticks.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
We’ve been told this for ages. That they’re all steeped in bleach and anti-mould chemicals.
But anyway, a lot of restaurants don’t use those disposable chopsticks any more.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
I’ve always thought this much was common sense.
