YJL

In the last couple of days, I stumbled across two videos which coincidentally had some unusual chopsticks sort of being showcased.

First video is Costco-sized Challenge : Jar of Kimchi (30”) by Matt Stonie, a competitive eater, with a pair of strangely curly plastic chopsticks:

Second video is Miso Salmon Soup (1‘55”) by Crumbs Foods with “child-friendly” chopsticks, an attached of regular clothespin or clothes-peg between chopsticks:

Both have something you might call clever for using chopsticks. I was born to use chopsticks, I knew how to use them. Let’s face it, this type of so-called easy chopsticks is just being silly.

First of all, you need put more energy to cancel the extra unnecessary force by the added device pushing outward. Not only you need to have enough energy to hold the food or any object, you now also have to cancel the additional outward force.

So, it’s just silly to use a chopsticks like in those videos. There is nothing clever or easy with those, only you waste more, make your more tired just by using those chopsticks.

If you want to train yourself, then use real chopsticks. Eating any Asian food with a fork, no sensible Asian would even think you less. Chopsticks is a tool for picking up food and then send to your mouth, they don’t add any flavors, basically. So, whatever you use to transfer the food doesn’t really matter in terms of flavor or smell.

But using these types of chopsticks, well, I am not really sure what to think about people who thought it’s easy to use chopsticks. Because clearly, those ain’t chopsticks and it’s even harder to use, although the users apparently are not aware of that. This is what I’d call false positive.

I think most of Asians are not actually deliberately trained by parents when we start to eat on our own, you just watch how people use chopsticks. Granted, things dropping at very first stage, but as time goes on, you learn. It is like learning to walk, it’d be clumsy, you would fall a few times, but eventually, you learn.

One thing for sure, using those are looking very awkward, much worse than people who can’t hold or use chopsticks properly, struggling to hold chopsticks in hand, not even the food yet.

So, if you can’t use chopsticks, then just use a fork.

And don’t waste money on those gadgets.