finger bowl

Stories used for many years in Japanese moral textbooks

• The queen invites guests from abroad to a banquet.
• Finger balls are served.
  • Finger bowl is a vessel filled with water and used to wash dirty fingers
• The guest didn’t know what a finger ball was, so he drinks that water.
• Banquet attendees stare at their guests in amazement
• The queen drank herself out of Fingervall’s water.
  • The banquet attendees saw this, understood the Queen’s intentions, and drank from the Finger Bowl in the same manner.

There is a knowledge of manners that “finger bowls are for washing fingers, not for drinking.” If someone does not have this knowledge, pointing it out on the spot causes that person distress. The queen did not follow superficial knowledge of manners, but gave priority to the consideration that her guests should not feel pain.

Notation shaking finger bowl.

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