It seems that movie and television characters are frequently depicted eating Chinese food with chopsticks.
Now, I’ve never eaten with chopsticks, nor have I seen anyone else eat with them; in fact, it’s never even occured to me to use them. How about you all?
I always eat my Chinese food with chopsticks. I don’t really have a reason for it; it just seems like the thing to do. Most of the people I know do as well, so I don’t think it’s terribly unusual.
Where is Waukegan, IL ? Don’t you have any Chinese or Korean or Japanese restaurants? Dispite the availability of knives and forks in such establishment many people in them will use chopsticks and for good reason.
If the food you are eating doesn’t require cutting and comes in reasonable size lumps, then the best device for picking up the food would be a pincer type item where you can squeeze the food from too sides to be able to lift it up from the plate and pop it in your mouth. Now, with a little practice, chopsticks make a very practical pincer. They require only one hand to opperate so none of that messy putting down the knife or fork to get at your wine, and they are extremely easy to make and clean having no tines to catch food particles in.
So in short for many types of food chopsticks are better than knife and fork, so you see people using them in Films and such-like.
Bippy, who as a student used chopsticks to eat more often than knife and fork
I prefer to eat with chopsticks if the food is in the appropriate size pieces (e.g. stirfry). And of course stabbing a piece of sushi with a fork is just reprehensible. I think I learned to use chopsticks when I was 6 or so, so I don’t really give it much thought.
Same here. It just seems “funny” eating Asian food with flatware.
Like fizgig, I learned to use chopsticks as a child and I also don’t give them much thought (except to ask for them if they are not automatically given when I eat Asian foods).
I always eat Chinese or Japanese food with chopsticks, even when I’ve cooked it myself at home. (I have a lovely boxed set of chopsticks which was a gift from my husband.) To me, eating Asian food with flatware is like eating spaghetti with a spoon.
After a while, chopsticks are very natural, and are very suited to the food. (Much more graceful than our Western shovel-style flatware.) If you want to start using them, I suggest you practice with popcorn.
Thanks to a huge Asian population in Sydney, nearly everybody under say, sixty, can use chopsticks. Twenty years ago, I’d be asked by the waiter if I’d prefer a knife and fork (or simply just given a knife and fork). Today, that is extremely rare, and it’s up to the customer to ask. Strangely, the only time in the last few years I’ve been asked if I can use chopsticks was in Hong Kong.
Chopsticks are pretty easy to use provided you don’t try to apply Western table manners to them. There are fewer rules with chopstick use, I’ve found.
Western table manners: Keep your back straight and your head up. Bring the food to you. If you lean forward into your bowl, you’re a bit of a pig.
Asian table manners: If you sit bolt upright Western-style, you will be seen to be disdainful of the food, and the host may be offended. Tuck in and enjoy yourself.
Of course, human social customs are usually based in practicality, and the two eating practices have no doubt come about as a result of the utensils used, not vice versa.
I’m still trying to teach myself to use a fork and a spoon like chopsticks in one hand to serve food onto the plate. It’s cool watching Chinese waiters do this, and it’s surprisingly difficult.
The use of chopsticks completes the eating experience. It’s fun. I’m still not a pro at it but I still use them when I’m eating Chinese food. Yummy.
Ever envision a chubby Chinese person, as in regularly? Food is consumed approprietly instead of our western scarf methods. Food is delectible enough to use chopsticks. The Knife and fork enable more food to be shoveled into our mouths.
TheLoadedDog: I ran into an etiquette issue a couple of weeks ago. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant in British Columbia. The miso soup came with a spoon. Normally at a Japanese restaurant the diner drinks the soup from the bowl as if it were a cup, and uses the chop sticks to keep it stirred and to eat the tofu. (Flatware is not provided unless the diner asks for it.) The restaurant in Canada was, well, in Canada. Not only that, it was run by a Korean family. So was serving a spoon with the soup because Canadians use spoons to eat soup when they are in a Japanese restaurant? Or is it a Korean thing? Or did the proprietors just see a couple of white guys and assume we would need spoons? (They also brought forks, but we asked for and used chop sticks.) Not wanting to seem rude in a foreign country, we ate the soup with the proffered spoons.
There’s another thread about this somewhere. Basically, I eat with chopsticks because when I was a little kid, watching Barney Miller, I’d see Jack Soo eat with chopsticks (or pencils). And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. I was in freakin’ college before I ever got the chance. So now, I’ll be damned if I’m not going to use chopsticks to eat Asian food, if they’re available!
** Johnny L.A. ** Koreans eat soup with a spoon.
I actually find I have more trouble eating asian food with a fork. Once your used to chopsticks, it’s just much easier. You need to use a spoon though, when your at the bottom of your bowl of rice and whats left is no longer sticking together.
I generally eat all food with a fork and spoon, which is Thai style (although Thais will use chopsticks for bowls of noodles). You use the spoon in your right hand, fork in the left. Use the fork to push the food into the spoon. It’s very efficient for anything that doesn’t need to be cut with a knife. FWIW I can also use chopsticks quite well. In fact, I remember many years ago, when we first moved to Cincinnati, eating at a Benihana’s. I was woofing down my food with my chopsticks. Some local yokel saw my wife, who is Thai-American, and said to his wife, “look at that guy eat, she sure taught him how to use those things.” Which was fairly ignorant, since she still doesn’t use chopsticks very well.
Bippy the Beardless writes: “Where is Waukegan, IL? Don’t you have any Chinese or Korean or Japanese restaurants?”
Waukegan is a suburb of Chicago. It’s more or less working class; not very many people from Waukegan commute to Chicago, in contrast to suburbs like Glencoe and Lake Forest.
We certainly have Chinese restaurants. I guess they just don’t issue chop sticks to patrons around here, unlike many other places.
Thanks to everyone who responded.
When I was a kid, my mom once put me on a diet where I could eat anything I wanted as long as I used chopsticks…
I am now a very large, chopstick-adept woman!
Another person from the West coast who has been using chopsticks almost as long as flatware.
I learned to use chopsticks as a kid, and I’m another one who uses them to eat Chinese or Asian food.
You probably can get chopsticks in Waukegan, IL (I speak as a Chicago-and-suburb resident) but you have to ask.
One thing I do find annoying is the way many Asian restauranteurs around here presume that because I’m a roundeye I’m incapable of handling chopsticks. Where I’m a regular this quickly ceases to be an issue, but new help or a new eatery and I have to go through the “No, really, I just need chopsticks, forks completely unnecessary” routine.
My preference for sit-in Asian dining is a table where both forms of utensil are readily available so the diner can choose their own.
I live in Hong Kong at the moment and there’s nothing I hate more than being given a fork to eat a bowl of noodles. Fortunately this doesn’t happen too much, I guess they figure a honkey who can speak Cantonese can probably handle chopsticks. If somebody comments about my poor technique I just tell them “you should see how I hold a pen.”
What I don’t understand is why some people insist on using chopsticks even though they clearly can’t. I’ve seen people use their left hand to push rice into their chopsticks held in their right. If you can pick your own utensils and don’t have to suffer the indignity of specifically asking for a fork, why use utensils that you’re incompetent with?
I always use chopsticks for Asian food. Just seems more “right.” I guess I’m used to it. (I’m not from the West Coast either!)
You’re in Hong Kong? We should go have a drink some time.
You mean you are not supposed to do that? :o 
I used to live right near Waukegan (for those not in the know, that’s where Ray Bradbury grew up, too… Greentown is based on Waukegan.) I dn’t remember eating at any Chinese places in Waukegan in particular, but I know you can certainly get chopsticks - and many people do - in Gurnee and Lake Villa, both right down the street.
It’s fun to use them, and once you realize that EVERYONE looks silly the first few times they try, you won’t feel as self-conscious.