I honestly don’t understand why anyone, especially Americans, would ever use chopsticks.
I subscribe to the belief that you should do what makes sense. If you find that a coffee cup adequately fulfills your need to scoop and move soil around in your garden then the fact that it is designed to hold a beverage should not limit your use of it. If it makes sense do it. People should not aimlessly wander through their lives doing things just because that’s the way things are. Just because someone hands you chopsticks doesn’t mean you should use them. Especially in a society so focused on streamlining processes and making day-to-day life more efficient, the use of chopsticks baffles me.
Chopsticks were invented in China anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. The fork was introduced in the Middle East 1,000 years ago. By the 11th century the fork had made its way to Italy, and by way of the European trade lines was commonly used in all of Western Europe by the 14th Century. Forks were born from a need and desire for increased utensil development.
How chopsticks have managed to somehow avoid extinction is an extraordinary feat. It’s understandable that in China, where the use of these utensils is something that is deeply engrained in the culture, people are still willing to put up with this inferior technology. You don’t see the streets of America’s largest cities crowded with rickshaws so I don’t understand why we are willing to jab at our leftovers with two pick-up sticks. As a nation in its infancy the US picks and chooses which customs and traditions of other countries that it wants to incorporate into its own. We hardly ever choose to accept something into our society that is outdated. It just doesn’t make sense to us.
The fork is such an infinitely superior tool to the chopsticks that I see no reason for the use of chopsticks to continue. The fork’s four-pronged attack accomplishes the desired goal of getting food from your plate to your mouth with ease. The dual functionality of the fork as a shovel and a spear should be reason enough to abandon the limited chopsticks. Here some may argue that it is actually easier to eat some Asian dishes, noodle dishes for example, with chopsticks. Well then someone better notify the Italians that they’re eating their spaghetti the wrong way. If this school of thought is true I expect the spinning forks I see in Little Italy will be replaced by two little wooden sticks sometime in the near future.
Granted, the chopsticks club is not a difficult one to get into, but it is still nonetheless exclusive. A little hard work and concentration will render even the clumsiest diner an efficient chopsticks user. But if you happen to be in the estimated 20% of adults that do not know how to use chopsticks, and the chopsticks users get wind of this, expect to be ridiculed, condescended to through explanation, and then laughed at as your pants and your mouth compete over which gets more sushi. And if you happen to enter adulthood, for one reason or another, not having mastered the use of these two little sticks, then where are you? Left to practice on your own behind closed doors? Hoping that the next time you’re in a group you’ll have mastered the technique and the ridicule will end? Performing an archaic eating ritual when a fork gets the job done so much easier?
If you’re still not convinced that the chopsticks need to be eliminated then here’s some food for thought. An estimated 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used and thrown away every year. That equals 25 million fully grown trees every year. Chew on that. If you can get it to your mouth with your chopsticks.
I subscribe to the belief that you should do what makes sense. If you find that a coffee cup adequately fulfills your need to scoop and move soil around in your garden then the fact that it is designed to hold a beverage should not limit your use of it. If it makes sense do it. People should not aimlessly wander through their lives doing things just because that’s the way things are. Just because someone hands you chopsticks doesn’t mean you should use them. Especially in a society so focused on streamlining processes and making day-to-day life more efficient, the use of chopsticks baffles me.
Chopsticks were invented in China anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. The fork was introduced in the Middle East 1,000 years ago. By the 11th century the fork had made its way to Italy, and by way of the European trade lines was commonly used in all of Western Europe by the 14th Century. Forks were born from a need and desire for increased utensil development.
How chopsticks have managed to somehow avoid extinction is an extraordinary feat. It’s understandable that in China, where the use of these utensils is something that is deeply engrained in the culture, people are still willing to put up with this inferior technology. You don’t see the streets of America’s largest cities crowded with rickshaws so I don’t understand why we are willing to jab at our leftovers with two pick-up sticks. As a nation in its infancy the US picks and chooses which customs and traditions of other countries that it wants to incorporate into its own. We hardly ever choose to accept something into our society that is outdated. It just doesn’t make sense to us.
The fork is such an infinitely superior tool to the chopsticks that I see no reason for the use of chopsticks to continue. The fork’s four-pronged attack accomplishes the desired goal of getting food from your plate to your mouth with ease. The dual functionality of the fork as a shovel and a spear should be reason enough to abandon the limited chopsticks. Here some may argue that it is actually easier to eat some Asian dishes, noodle dishes for example, with chopsticks. Well then someone better notify the Italians that they’re eating their spaghetti the wrong way. If this school of thought is true I expect the spinning forks I see in Little Italy will be replaced by two little wooden sticks sometime in the near future.
Granted, the chopsticks club is not a difficult one to get into, but it is still nonetheless exclusive. A little hard work and concentration will render even the clumsiest diner an efficient chopsticks user. But if you happen to be in the estimated 20% of adults that do not know how to use chopsticks, and the chopsticks users get wind of this, expect to be ridiculed, condescended to through explanation, and then laughed at as your pants and your mouth compete over which gets more sushi. And if you happen to enter adulthood, for one reason or another, not having mastered the use of these two little sticks, then where are you? Left to practice on your own behind closed doors? Hoping that the next time you’re in a group you’ll have mastered the technique and the ridicule will end? Performing an archaic eating ritual when a fork gets the job done so much easier?
If you’re still not convinced that the chopsticks need to be eliminated then here’s some food for thought. An estimated 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used and thrown away every year. That equals 25 million fully grown trees every year. Chew on that. If you can get it to your mouth with your chopsticks.
