Don't apologise, I think it's well worth asking as many people who are likely to know as possible. That way you can get a kind of best-fit average opinion, and deduce approximately what the norm is.

Another one (please don't feel obliged to badger people with multiple questions on my behalf!) is taking food from a communal plate... when me boyfriend was briefly living in Japan, he was told that you should use the "wrong" end (ie, the end that hasn't been in your mouth) of chopsticks to take food from a commmunal plate. Never heard this anywhere else, though, or seen it done.