Yes, I also lived there for a year and was surprised to read what you quoted, but I assumed maybe I was simply remembering wrong. (It was almost 20 years ago…)
But you’re confirming what I thought I remembered–that sushi is eaten with chopsticks in Japan.
That depends on how much sauce, how wet the sauce is, etc. But in general, I find it pretty straightforward to eat the rice that sops up the sauce, especially if it’s in a rice bowl. I suppose I sort of scoop, rather than pinch, the rice.
Funny story. I said above that I learned to use chop sticks as a kid, but that isn’t quite true. My father tried to teach me as a kid, but I struggled with it.
Then, the local Chinese restaurant closed, and I didn’t use chopsticks for years.
When I was a young teen, a new place opened in town, and my family went for dinner. And I discovered that I just knew what to do, and could use chop sticks easily. I it was a sort of weird discovery. So I guess I learned the basic technique, but wasn’t dexterous enough to implement it reliably as a child.
How weird. I can’t find an image of my interlocking fork chopsticks. I never thought of them as obscure since they came with a QFC salad, but apparently they are. Nonetheless, awesome utensils.
Great. Now I want some sushi and Chinese food for dinner.
Thanks, SDMB!
(BTW, Tibby, your last post about the stealth bragging made me LOL.)
LOL???..you think I’m funny? Funny, how? Funny like a clown?*
*NSFW
Lunch today was (greasy) garlic bread, eaten with chopsticks.
I tried popcorn with chop sticks today. It’s okay, but it’s faster and easier to eat popcorn with my fingers.
The true skill test for chopsticks is being able to pick up a small nut, or even half of one.
Show off. 
I had never really learned to use chopsticks (hashi in Japanese) until I wound up on Okinawa at the invitation of the Navy. Second week I was there I was tired of Army chow already so I wandered out of the gate and into the small restaurant across the street. Like Siam Sam said, unless you’re in a real touristy area, the default is no fork so the plateful of yaki soba arrived with just the hashi. After several moments I decided there was no time like the present and attacked it with the hashi. That first meal took a long, long time, but by the end I was already better than when I’d started.
A year later I got a new room mate and he walked in about an hour after the chow hall closed until breakfast. Since he was hungry I took him to that restaurant. My first clue he was a nerf was when he ordered a hamburger for his first meal in a foreign country. (Served him right; their burgers were a rude approximation of the real thing) I ordered my usual, a bowl of ramen with a side of gyoza and when it arrived, he looked on in amazement as I deftly picked up the gyoza without breaking them, hoisted the noodles from the bowl to let them cool a moment, and dipped the char su into the gyoza sauce (which is why I paired them).
“How’d you learn to do that?”
“Well, the first time I tried, it took a while. Perseverance pays off.”
I got pretty good, but egg fu yung defeated me. That tangled mass of bean sprouts glued together with solid egg defied me. I could break up the mass but I decided I might as well use a fork in the first place.
[quote=“davidm, post:89, topic:742311”]
Is it this?
https://www.thechork.com/[/QUOTE
No, I’ll have to post from work tomorrow. They’re quite unique!
Didn’t Wok With Yan feature spring-powered chopsticks?
For those saying they have never seen/heard of Japanese eating sushi with their fingers, go to 13:50 in the following cartoon (Chibi Maruko-chan). You will see a little girl and her grandfather eating sushi with their hands in the normal course of the story.
Granted it is a cartoon, but it was the first thing I could think of where I could likely find a sushi-eating scene in a typical Japanese show. (i.e., something that wasn't part of a "how to eat" sushi video which might paradoxically seem unnatural.)And no, it is not a case where the animators just omitted the chopsticks for simplicity or something. There are plenty of scenes in that series that depict people using chopsticks.
That being said, it seems to me that IRL most of the time people use chopsticks to eat sushi. When Japanese people have “taught” me how to eat sushi, they seem to use chopsticks themselves but frequently mention that the “real” way is to use your fingers.
Reminds me of an ancient Japanese joke I have never once heard:
A man goes to the doctor and says, “Doc, my penis has a fish-like smell.” The doctor says, “Really? That’s very unusual…I wonder if that has something to do with your lifestyle. Tell me, what do you do for recreation?” The man smiles sheepishly and says, “Oh, nothing special really. I just stay home and eat sushi while watching pornos…”
Well, crap - I’ve got the picture, but I can’t find a way to load it.
Yeah, but that’s because you can take out up to a handful at a time.
Faster and easier, sure, but funner? I think not.