Using hands to eat in Terengganu

Fork and spoons or chop sticks are generally used while eating in most parts of the world. But if you come to Terengganu, do not be surprised when you see people using bare hands to eat. It is part of their tradition. Those days when fork and spoon are uncommon, they used their hands to take food into their mouth. In Terengganu, it is common to see people use his right hand (not the left hand) while eating. Using the left hand to take food into the mouth here is considered rude unless you do not have the right hand or your right hand is very dirty. Priority is to use the right hand.

If you want to experience eating using your right hand , do not use the fork and spoon. First you must wash your hand. Usually a small kettle is provided on the table. You just pour the water from the kettle and wash your hands. Then use your right hand to eat. For the first timer, it is not easy to use hands for eating especially when you eat rice and its gravy. I had seen many foreigners (who are not used to this style) failed to do it. 

A word of caution, if you want to take the gravy from other plate, do not use your bare hands. Use the spoon to scoop the gravy. Using bare hand will spoil the gravy. This etiquette must be observed.

They also use their hand to eat laksa (Terengganu version of spaghetti). Terengganu laksa comes with gravy . What they do was that they eat the laksa first and drink the gravy at the end. Nowadays, they use the spoon to assist in eating laksa. This means they eat laksa with gravy bit by bit. Happy trying.