Hopefully, you're eating sushi in a restaurant that gives you real chopsticks. However, there will be circumstances beyond your control and you just might find yourself in a place that gives you *makes the sign of the cross* disposable wooden chopsticks. If so, you already know that trying to get rid of stray splinters by rubbing the chopsticks together like a Boy Scout trying to earn his firestarter badge is a big no-no.
But no one ever said anything about making origami with your wrapper. If the place is giving you disposable chopsticks, then they're probably not giving you a hashi-oki, a small ceramic holder to keep the tips of your chopsticks off the tabletop. The chopstick wrapper just so happens to be the perfect size to make a lovely disposable paper hashi-oki for your disposable chopsticks. I've only ever made the Sarah Gim trademark "double fishtail," but I have been to known to get crazy every once in a while and make a "double helix" (patent pending, so no photo).
You always want to keep your fishy, soy-sauced chopstick tips off the table top, just as you rest your fork on your plate. And as with placement of fork and knife, you can signal that you're finished with your sushi meal by laying your chopsticks across the shoyu sara.














