September 4th, 2011 by Rachel | Country: China | 1 Comment »
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”
– Clifton Fadiman
Tonight, I was having a farewell dinner with my flatmates and a few other friends who have been living with me for the past year and many of them are Chinese. These Chinese friends cooked authentic Chinese cuisine and shared their chopsticks with us. Chopsticks and silverware are materials that distinguish us, the Chinese and some other Asian countries and the Westerners. When I was a little child and first encountered chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant, it was a moment that sparked my realization that the world has many different lifestyles and all human beings live their day to day lives differently.
I tried to use the chopsticks throughout my life whenever I encountered them at Chinese restaurants, but I’ve always given up on using them and quickly returned to using a fork and knife, the tools, with which I was most familiar with and comfortable using.
I’m venturing to China. I need to learn to use chopsticks because it is a tool that is commonly used in the country to transfer food from the plates to our mouths. When traveling, I leave my American culture behind except when educating my host families about my culture. The world does not revolve around me by providing me the American culture wherever I go. I need to adapt to the lifestyle of another country – be it learning another language, eating with chopsticks or forks and knives with pizza, living in a cramped space and old homes, or eating spinach sauce on a bread. If I keep my culture with me at all times, I will never learn about the other culture.
Sophia and other Chinese friends taught me how to use chopsticks while living in London. I practiced using them and never returned to using forks and knives when having meals with my Chinese friends. I’ve observed them using the chopsticks effortlessly. While I have improved my skills in utilizing them a little as they taught me techniques of how to hold them and open and close the tips of the sticks, I still struggle to pick up food and even if I manage to pick up the food, it often gets dropped back to the plate by accident. My hands hurt after having a whole meal.
If these Chinese people can eat effortlessly with chopsticks, I can do it. It’s a matter of practicing, although for me, as an adult, growing up where I was surrounded by the western culture, it is expected to be harder. I think that learning to use chopsticks is like learning a foreign language where children are able to acquire the skills more spontaneously than adults, but it is not impossible to learn the skill. Once I am immersed in the country, observing the daily use of chopsticks, using them on regular basis, I will improve and adapt to them quickly like those who learn Spanish in Spain or Peru or Argentina.
We shall see how it goes when I am in China.
1 Comment
Robyn Carter
September 6, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Hunger will be what will drive you to learn to use chopsticks properly!
Have a great time in China – am looking foward to reading about your next adventure