Well, actually, it means “even monkeys fall in the tree.” What you meant to say was saru mo ki kara ochiru. But really, it’s a proverb and not a witty comeback. And also, six years.
Six years ago, still in Japan, at the 24 year mark now! I have a whole repertoire of comebacks but mostly stick to mentally rolling my eyes these days.
Since I first posted to this thread, I had two kids and taught them to eat with chopsticks. Gee, time flies.
So white I glow in the dark, and I learned to eat with chopsticks so young I honestly do not remember. My Dad taught me - I am assuming, my Mom can’t use chopsticks to save her ass. I know I was using them by the time I was 5 years old, as on the way home from Germany we stopped to visit my Grandparents in NY and were taken to eat at a Japanese restaurant [also my first taste of red bean past jelly, I wanted dessert and that was the closest thing they had other than fresh fruit.]
We moved to Hawaii when I was little and used to go to the Chinatown district for Chinese food once in a while. The first time we went, my brother and I were trying to use chopsticks and doing a pretty bad job of it. At the table next to us, there was an Asian family with two little kids about the same age (about 7 or 8) as my brother and me. I kept looking at them, worried that they’d laugh at me for not knowing how to use chopsticks. When their food came out, the parents used chopsticks but the kids used knives and forks instead. They cut their noodles up, and then tried, very unsuccessfully, to stab them with their forks. By the end of the meal, my brother and I had reverted to forks and the other kids to chopsticks. I remember being amazed that someone didn’t know how to eat with a fork, but I’m sure to people who grow up using chopsticks the difficulty we have in learning how to use them is just as amazing.
A couple of years ago I had a Chinese family with their 19 month old son as guests for dinner in my house. As I was serving Western food and not Chinese, only standard cutlery was on the table. Everyone was impressed when the baby, for the first time, managed to feed himself without using his hands (a fork, in this case). His parents later told me that it’s very common to teach their children to use cutlery first.
I know people snicker at chopsticks users in Thailand, but hey, they’re available in the plant cafeteria, so when I’m there, I use them. Thai food is easier to eat and tastes better with chopsticks (as does most Chinese food, I might add). I have to use a spoon with the Thai rice, though, as it’s not sticky like Chinese rice. Forks are generally available, but the Thais prefer to use spoons for most things (except for noodles, as was mentioned in a post above).
In India, people tend to eat with their hands (even wet stuff!), but luckily cutlery is universally available.
Chinese airlines never give chopsticks during meal service on flights; usually it’s a plastic “spork” in economy and real, metal flatware in business.
I’m amazed when I watch Chinese cook in their homes. They use chopsticks for pretty much everything in the kitchen, whereas I have a couple of different tongs, various solid spoons, slotted spoons, ladles, spiders, and so on.
Often in Chinese restaurants a fork is brought to me without my having asked for it.
Sticky rice is easy to eat with chopsticks. But you can’t play chopsticks with sticky rice, or a sticky keyboard.
I’m not sure I agree with the other poster who said we Brits called East Asians ‘Oriental’ - that sounds like a rather antiquated term more commonly used to refer to things than people. But when a Brit hears ‘Asian’ we pretty much only think of someone from the Indian Subcontinent, not Japanese etc.
Ditto. My dad put change in a bowl, then let me keep anything I could pick out via chopsticks. In my teen years I could even use laquered ones to eat noodles.
My best friend from age 17 to today is Japanese-American, so I learned Japanese chopstick etiquette, and mostly have eaten with the smaller Japanese chopsticks in the past 25 years. Now that I’ve moved away, I’ve had to re-learn to use the longer, heavier kind the local Chinese/Dim Sum place uses.
Some days, my hand arthritis doesn’t approve of any chopsticks. 
Thirded. The funny thing was Dad learned how to use them about 30 seconds before he taught me. First time either one of us was in a Chinese restaurant.
Now I use chopsticks for damn near anything but soup. I keep packages of cheap chopsticks at school and amaze my students by using them to eat my salad for lunch. (They have a low threshold of amazement.) I even figured out a moderately efficient way of eating fried rice from a plate with chopsticks. Then I learned that Asians just use a spoon or fork. :smack:
Eh? Sticky rice is supposed to be eaten by hand. At least in Thailand, and especially in the Northeast of the country, where ithe grain is most common.
And in Japan it is eaten with chopsticks.
And in both Thailand and Japan sticky rice is easy to eat with chopsticks, even if generally isn’t done due to cultural norms.
I’m married to a Japanese woman and know plenty of others and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them “cheat” and switch to a fork or spoon. I don’t find it difficult either (even with relatively non-sticky rice) with Japanese chopsticks, but the larger Chinese ones are a bit harder for me.
Well, I’m a 50ish white guy in the US and rather fussy at that. I don’t like to eat messy things with my hands. I eat sushi with chopsticks, including the rice in a charashi bowl.
There’s a photo essay book titled (something like) “A Day in the Life of China”, it may be as old or older than this thread. It shows some toddlers learning to use chopsticks: they’re in high chairs, their pants are open (because China didn’t use diapers, as this photo described it) and they’re eating uncooked bean sprouts. They are not very successful, and frustrated and crying. But they gotta learn somehow. Look up the book and view the picture. Chopsticks take getting used to for everybody.
That said, I’ve given a three year old chopsticks. She basically used them as a shovel. But she was clearly happy to have a chance to emulate her parents. Her parents were surprised, they hadn’t given them to her before.