An American lady asked me, "Japanese tea cups, why do they come in different sizes?" It took me a while until I realized what she was asking. Basically she wanted to buy a pair, but she was frustrated because none of the pairs she saw in shops, came in an identical size.
Japanese tea cups are often sold in pairs or by a set of 5. Pair cups are often purchased as a gift to newly wed couples, big ones for husbands, and small for wives. And the idea of having a dedicated set of everyday dishes, that is also applied for chopsticks, rice bowls, and miso soup bowls. Recollecting how things were with my parents, we never ever mixed them up. I recall few cases when I used guest chopsticks, but those were the times I had a massive appetite as a child and had bit off a tip of my own chopsticks by mistake.
The more I think about this, this is essentially quite different from many cultures I have so far seen. In some countries I have visited, I noticed that people had a set of plates, cutleries, and cups with exact same shapes, and they did not belong a particular member of the family. The closest thing I have seen is the napkins for French people. They mark their own napkins with napkin rings so that they know which one is for who.
The difference is probably due to table manners: when you eat Japanese food, you are supposed to lift soup/rice bowls and bring closer to your mouth. In fact, bring yourself closer to dishes or tables, are considered to be very lousy. This naturally sets quite a strict criteria as tools have to be ergonomic, fitting into your own hands.
This actually brings me a new question: If Japanese are so keen on how dishes fit into their hands, why don't we have mobile phones with more diverse form factors with anthropometric considerations?
Returning to the topic of tea cups, if you are looking for guest tea cups that are sold in a set of four, you should forget about it. Sets will never come in fours as the number 4, shi, is pronounced exactly the same as the word death. Unlike the table manners, this is a common belief in Korea and China as well, thanks to the influence of Chinese characters across the Far East.
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