There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
At the moment, I actually have two, one's a 10 inch for prep work, and the other's an 8 inch for line work where most would use the santoku.
The "pits" on the santoku help keep food from sticking to the blade which can pay off when you're doing higher surface area foods and you don't want a messy pileup on your board when working quickly.
Santoku tend to still have a lot of curve and can’t lift much material. Chefs tend to have even more curve and a proper point which comes in handy but radically reduces the amount of lifting they can do.
As for speed, the Western technique is to stack vegetables lower than the height of the blade (or really the 2nd knuckle of the hand holding the vegetables) for the rocking motion. The Eastern technique is to stack the vegetables as high as you can handle them - so while you may be cutting slower than rocking, you are cutting through way more at one go. This also lets you use more complicated cuts than just julienne and dice (such as cutting long eggplant or carrots into oblique shapes).
https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Detailed-Discussion-on-Knife-Sharpening-Angles-W28.aspx
The chef's knife may not be designed for such sharpening and you may compromise the ability of the knife to hold the sharp edge for long. It will also make the knife more prone to chipping.