It depends. The rice you make sushi with is very sticky. Most of the rice I have experience with is a bit glutinous, but not enough to stick the grains together into a substantial lump.
Oh, yes, there is always the “gluntinous rice,” but it is not eaten as staple. It is used to make, for example, rice dumplings you eat during Dragon Boat Festival.
I’m awkward with them but I can get by. Mom is really good with them because her father forbade her and her sister to use them. When he was gone, they’d eat all their meals with them.
I simply can’t eat some food with anything else, even if I’m awkward, notably noodle soups. Mmm…udon…
d_redguy and I both use them for Chinese or Japanese food. We also use them for noodles, in general, a lot of the time.
only a few times, enough to stick to memory. it’s nice to know it’s not common.
oh and i have a thing about those cheap disposable wooden ones, i’ll spend like 5 minutes scraping away the splinters 
Would you believe when I was majoring in Japanese at the University of Pittsburgh, we would go to Japanese restaurants as a class and, among other things, learn to use chopsticks? Granted, there were less than a dozen students in a Japanese class in those days, and I think only about 4 people out of a few thousand in my year got their degree in Japanese.
I really did learn to use chopsticks while studying Japanese, since my family’s not into Chinese food. I got reasonably proficient while living in Japan, and I still use them at times. I might tonight if I decide to stir-fry some chicken. This thread has also reminded me that one of the restaurants we used to go to was only about 5 miles or so from here – I’ll have to check to see if it’s still there sometime.
Johnny L.A., I know what you mean about clashing customs. While I was studying in Japan, I picked up the habit of slurping my tea. In Japan, this is perfectly polite, and drinking it silently has a bit of an implication that you don’t like it. Then I returned home to my British family and had to see about unlearning that habit.
CJ
Chopsticks are one of the most perfectly designed tools. They can be made on-the-spot if needed and are disposable too. This stands for a lot in Asia where both bamboo and communicable diseases are plentiful.
A while back the Tokyo police department tested their force on chopstick ettiquette. This includes such niceties as turning around your chopsticks before taking food from a communal bowl. To their horror, almost 50% of the officers were found lacking in skill. A huge percentage of Japanese children are unable to use them as well. Evidently, the runcible spoon (AKA “spork”) is more popular. Just one more reason to hate McDonald’s.
Chopsticks are an integral component of Asian culture, representing the ability to function adequately with simple implements. I have used them since I was young and would never dream of eating Asian food with flatware. My skills with them have served me very well when dining with Asian clients and friends.
I also learned early. When I was a little kid, my folks would fold up some paper and rubber band it between the far ends of the chopsticks so they worked as little tongs. It was a good way to start.
I also use those big long ones to cook with. Very handy.
As far as soup at the Japanese restaurant–if they serve it with a spoon, I use it. If they serve it without a spoon, I sip it from the bowl. Hey, I’m adaptable.
My neighborhood Chinese take-out place throws a little packet with chopsticks, plastic fork and plastic knife in the bag, so you don’t specifically have to ask for either. I once saw someone in there raise a big fuss because he wanted the chopsticks, but NOT the plastic knife or fork, and I was thinking “dude, just take the little packet and deal with it yourself!”
Most restaurants that feature some sort of Asian fusion cuisine will set the table with flatware as well as chopsticks, and when that happens, I generally grab the flatware because I have a weird hang up about wood touching my teeth (like ice cream on a stick – eek!). I have a couple of nice sets of chopsticks at home that I will use if I remember, but frankly, when the Chinese food is at the door, I’m more excited about the egg rolls than digging through my kitchen drawers.
For the most part, I would say that in this area, chopsticks are so common that it’s not a big deal either way.
I do know this. It’s just tough to find places that give you small bowls specifically for the rice. Unless you are eating at a fancy sit down place, which I rarely get a chance to do because of lack of change. More often then not I get to eat at those little outlets in malls (not really good Chinese food, I know. It’s more westernized) so I get the plates with chow mein instead of rice because it’s easier to eat with chopsticks that way.
Used chopsticks since I was a little kid, use them nowadays when eating asian food. In the same way as I use my nice italian pasta plates when eating italian pasta, and for the same reason I don’t drink soup with a straw.
Somone used my beautiful lacquered sticks to plug a two prong plug into a three hole socket, so I am using our hardcore korean, flat metal chopsticks now. They are actually quite labour intensive, so I have moved back to using a spoon for “bowl food”. I needs me some new chops.
My whole family (which is Jewish) has always used chopsticks when eating Chinese food (whether in a resturant or at home). I’m not sure why, but probably because it was just a fun way of experiencing a different culture. The fact that I am engaged to marry a Chinese woman has nothing to do with it, although she was surprised the first time she opened my silverware drawer and discovered the 10 or so sets of chopsticks I keep there.
When we were first dating, I took her and her mother (visiting from China) to a nice Chinese restaurant. I, of course, made sure to ask the waiter for chopsticks. My fiancee and her mother, however, used a fork and knife, and I suspect the three of us made a pretty odd sight. According to my fiancee, in China everybody uses chopsticks and she never used a fork and knife growing up. However, once she came to America she felt it was important to “fit in” and now uses a fork and knife even in Chinese restaurants. When we cook Chinese food at home, however, we both use chopsticks (and when I make pot roast, we both use a fork and knife).
Barry
Where do you get those? My mom said she wouldn’t mind having a pair.
I have four pair in a drawer. (They share the compartment with the table knives.) But I usually just use the disposable wooden ones so I don’t have to wash them. (I also have some nice ones that a former supervisor brought back from her trip to Vietnam, but I’ve nver used them.)
Try a Vietnamese restaurant. They always put out lots of bowls! 
Okay, what kind of chop sticks do you prefer? The nice pointy lacquered Japanese ones? The chunky plastic Chinese ones? The wooden ones you pull apart? Or the bamboo ones (that remind me of twigs)? I like the Japaenese ones when I’m eating Japanese food. Chinese food, being – I don’t know, more “hearty”? – is better eaten with the Chinese sticks. But my default choice is the pull-apart wooden ones. I never have problems with spinters (like I do with the round bamboo ones) and they work well for Japanese, Chinese, Thai, ramen, etc. And you can just toss them when you’re done. They’re cheap enough, and a package from Ralph’s or Albertson’s has enough of them that I don’t have to go out buying them constantly.
BTW: What are the disposable ones called in Japanese? I’ve forgotten. “O-te-mo”? Something like that?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Lissa *
**(I have a lovely boxed set of chopsticks which was a gift from my husband.)
(Much more graceful than our Western shovel-style flatware.) **[/QUOTE
I agree with the grace issue, and my husband and I splurged and bought a beautiful laquered set of chopsticks with little chopstick rests shortly after I finished my Japanese cooking course. The boys are struggling, but learning. I purchased a large ‘children’s pair’ for my 9 year old. They look kind of like enormous plastic tweezers!:eek:
I spent most of my early years in Seattle; I mastered chopsticks before a knife and fork. (They are easier and safer to use for little kids, I think, because they’re not as sharp or pointy.) When I lived in Japan ca. 1990, many were impressed - but I wonder if that’s still the case.
I prefer either the wooden/bamboo break-apart types (the roughness makes it a little easier to grab things) or the round, tapered lacquered kind. What I don’t like are the typical Chinese chopsticks, usually in plastic (faux-ivory, I guess): square at the hand end, round at the business end, with no tapering.
Hm. I always use chopsticks when eating Asian food. I’m an American of European descent, but I grew up in San Francisco; my parents have a large collection of chopsticks, and we used them at home all the time. In college, whenever we had Asian food served in the dining hall there were disposable chopsticks to eat with.
I live in the Midwest now, and I find that chopsticks are more uncommon here. I’ve had restaurant workers express surprise at my mad chopstick skillz, and fewer people here can use them.
The lacquered chopsticks are beautiful, but I find them tough to actually eat with. Too slippery! Give me the plain ones any day.
I remember once when I was in California on a business trip. I was eating in a Mexican restaurant and I saw a young (non-oriental) woman pull a pair of chopsticks out of her purse and eat her meal with them. Really surprised me.
There are subtle differences between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean chopsticks. Can you tell?
It’s a LOT easier to get that last pickle out of the jar with chopsticks.
I learned to use chopsticks at the same time I learned to use fork and spoon, probably before I was 18 months old. I can use them left-handed almost as well as right-handed, altho my left hand will be quite tired by the end of a meal.
You know you’re good when you can use chopsticks to transfer a dozen marbles from one bowl to another in less than 30 seconds, and you’re DAMN good if you can transfer them back using the other hand in less than a minute.
My entire family and I have used chopsticks for as long as I can remember, but I guess that’s to be expected because we’re Vietnamese.
And I have a question to ask of the posters here: only one mention of a Vietnamese restaurant in all these posts? You guys are really missing out on some good food
I use chopsticks…but I’m half Chinese so it’s also expected I guess…perhaps if I use them for exactly half my meals…