Swapsticks

It has recently come to my attention that I prefer chopsticks to a fork.

I've had my suspicions for a while. There is a restaurant I often go to with a couple of my Chinese friends called Water Paradise, where they have western and Chinese food, so they give the customers forks, knives, spoons, and chopsticks. I usually use chopsticks, unless I'm having a bad chopsticks day and making a mess like a 4-year-old, then my friends urge me to use a fork. I will oblige, but I still drop quite a bit of food. I don't think being a messy is because I can't use chopsticks but because I'm clumsy at times.

During Mid-Autumn Day Festival I went to a performance dinner shindig at the Art College outside of town. They served western-food and I ate with a fork and knife. It felt awkward. This was the first time I noticed my fork-and-knife skills declining.

Last week I had dinner at Xinjiang restaurant. Xinjiang food is more like Middle-Eastern food (i.e. not chopped into tiny bits like Chinese food which makes it easy to eat with chopsticks). The waiter took away the chopsticks sitting on the table and left us with only forks and knives. I proceeded with the given utensils, but felt myself longing for chopsticks. After a couple minutes I asked the waiter to please give me chopsticks. I ate the rest of the meal with chopsticks in my right hand and a fork in my left.

This didn't happen until now for one main reason I can think of. Some might say, "You've been in China too long!" I counter that with the fact that my other foreign friends, who have been here longer than me, still prefer forks and knives. What happened, is that last year I was eating at home more often, with a fork and knife. This year I rarely eat at home or with a fork and knife. I usually eat out for lunch and dinner. When I eat out I'm most likely to eat Chinese food because it is cheap and fast. So, I've got this strange combination of East and West going on that others find peculiar and I am getting comfortable with.