By Hazel Woon Chopsticks are possibly the leading culinary utensil representative of East Asia, popular not just in China, where they originated, but also in many other countries. Chopsticks come in a large variety of types. Chinese users are familiar with square and round chopsticks, ending in blunt or pointed tips, whereas Koreans use a flat, metal type. The Japanese, on the other hand, have chopsticks that taper to a fine, pointed end, and the Vietnamese use a type similar to the Chinese. If you know how to use a pair of chopsticks, you are set for life at the table of an East Asian family. Growing up as part of the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, I hardly ever used chopsticks. My parents let my sister and me use forks and spoons when we were children, and the habit has stuck with us ever since. Chopsticks were only used when we ate Chinese noodles, and even then I held them in the same way I would hold a pen. Making a big mess out of the noodles was a frequent occurrence, but even after several years of making such messes, I never did manage to learn how to hold a pair of chopsticks properly. I wasn’t too perturbed by my lack of ability even after moving to Taiwan three years ago, but after an embarrassing incident in which a friend laughed at me for not being able to pick up what I wanted to eat after multiple attempts, I decided that it was time to try and master the art of wielding them.
I laid out a plan quite carefully: first of all I would learn how to hold them properly, for the essence of chopsticks lies in the user’s ability to leverage the two sticks against each other. Then I would learn how to move the top chopstick alone, which is the only one that moves, before finally putting to trial what I had learned. I didn’t have any lofty goals that I wanted to accomplish, for just learning how to hold them seemed difficult enough. Nonetheless, I still wanted to see if I could manage to eat a bowl of noodles without switching to my normal (and quite incorrect) method of holding them. With these goals in mind, I set off to conquer the elusive world of expert chopstick handling. The learning process went well in some ways, and devastatingly badly in others. I sought out my friends from different countries to see how they held their chopsticks, and while some of them had their own methods of holding them, others could use them quite capably in the “correct” manner. An important observation that I made was that they were all accustomed to the style of chopsticks that they had grown up using: my Taiwanese friends handled the square chopsticks with ease, but not the Korean ones, while it was vice versa for my Korean friends. My Japanese friends could use the Chinese style chopsticks effortlessly, but again got stuck with the Korean ones. Those who held the chopsticks correctly, however, all held them in the same way, so I knew that I was headed in the right direction. I spent a few days trying to adjust to the way I had to keep the bottom chopstick still, and while I didn’t fail miserably, I couldn’t be the Super Chopsticks Expert that I’d expected myself to become. The bottom chopstick wouldn’t stay still, and once it did, the top chopstick wouldn’t move either. Most of the time I looked like I was trying to use the chopsticks in the manner of a compass, except that I didn’t want to draw a perfect circle, and really wanted to put food in my mouth instead. There were many incidents of dropping food all over the table (if my mother had been present, she would have warned me of the imminent dangers of marrying a man with a pockmarked face), but the most hilariously embarrassing example was when I tried to pick up a piece of meat in my packed lunch and sent the entire box flying to the floor instead. It actually seemed intricately orchestrated, the way I tried to grab the top chopstick that I had accidentally pressed too hard against the bottom one and in the course of attempting to grab it back, swiped my lunch across the table and to the floor for a quiet demise. Lucky for me it was in the privacy of my room, so unless the person opposite my building had happened to look out of the window that day, my humiliation was kept to myself. Regardless of the dent in my pride, I still had managed to learn how to hold a pair of chopsticks properly, albeit much like a seven-year-old with no prior experience. At time of press I am still struggling with how to keep my bottom chopstick in place. The most difficult part of learning how to use a pair of chopsticks in your twenties has to be manipulating the top chopstick to your heart’s whims, because adults somehow magically seem to lose all dexterity when it comes to elaborate movements of the fingers. Even if I’m still fighting to keep my chopsticks to myself when I have a meal with them, I found the learning process to be very useful. There is no running away from using chopsticks if you live in Asia, so mastering them is a skill that will prove handy. The process was far from perfect, however, and there were many ways that I could have improved on it: for one, I should have bought myself some rubber grips or learning chopsticks, the way that young children start off when first using them, for they might have helped to steady my fingers and made it a habit for me to constantly keep the chopsticks in position. I also tended to switch back to my old chopstick method whenever I was stuck with not eating anything for over two minutes, so lack of perseverance was a major factor in my inability to fully master the art. So have I become a Chopsticks Master yet? Probably not, what with the trail of noodles over my side of the table whenever I have any. But I have made a good head start, and who knows? Perhaps someday I will be able to leave the surface of the table spick-and-span and, very possibly, not marry someone with a pockmarked face. a
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May 2024
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