Monday, March 15, 2010

Eating with chopsticks

Almost two decades ago, I watched a Japanese tv series, Oshin, dubbed in English. My mom was a fan of this series. I was a young child then. This tv series is not the subject of my post. I watched one thing in that tv show for the first time in my life. The thing I watched is "eating with chopsticks" which seemed so impossible to me, and this is the thing I am going to write about in this post.


I always thought it is quite impossible to eat with chopsticks. I was amazed to see people eating with it in movies. I even saw them eating rice with it which I can't imagine. I watched Liz eating with chopsticks in front of me while I was in London last year. I was looking at her, how easily she was eating with it. I asked her how to do it. She told me I just have to start eating with it. She didn't show me the technique. May be that's how girls are - don't wanna go in detail. I became more interested about it after seeing it in person but I could not start until last week.


Last week I went to Farzan vi's home and I found chopsticks in his kitchen. He has a Chinese house mate and those belong to that guy. I curiously took two of those and said "how come people can eat with this?". Farzan vi smiled and said I just need to know the holding technique and then start trying. He said he learned from his house mate and now he can eat with those. Then he showed the holding technique and suddenly it seemed possible to me. Later I just requested that Chinese guy if I can take two of his chopsticks so that I can learn. He happily gave me :) The most difficult part comes after that - trying.


I started on that very night during dinner. My menu was rice and salmon fish. It seemed so difficult at first. I was hungry but I could grab only a small amount of food with it. Sometimes the fish dropped from it. My hand was aching, I was loosing my patience but still continued. It took me almost 30 minutes to finish half the amount I usually eat in dinner. The next day I tried again and again it was difficult. The first 3-4 days were really difficult. Now, it's been more than a week that I am eating with chopsticks and I don't have much difficulties :) Now I can say that I can eat with chopsticks; well, not an expert but I can.


Those who are interested to learn it, I can tell them things from my experience:

  • Holding technique is the key. So hold it properly
  • Move only the top stick. The lower stick will be fixed
  • Start eating with it :)

I am giving a video link here that demonstrates how to hold chopsticks.





Programming Solution

3 comments:

Gagan said...

Xia once told me that there are soo many variations of holding the chopsticks. They even have some superstition on judging people by checking how they are holding it.. for example, at what height of the stick you are holding it.

And oh, if u happen to find two sticks with different heights, it may be you are gonna miss a train or plane or something. And bad luck finds u if u drop the sticks ;)

geteamon said...

Interesting :)

blueberry.thorn said...

NIIICE you learned! omggg chopsticks are soo hard to eat with, wow xD
the first time i tried was in like a japanese restaurant and i was with all my asian friends LOLLL and i couldn't dooo itt. and so i asked for a fork and they're like we don't have any >_> and i'm like oh snaaap. and then i made my friend feed me LOLLL. but i'm getting better, i can eat a littleee now..slowly..but yaa XD

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