Chopsticks neither chop nor stick. Discuss.

“Where did you learn to use chopsticks?” Huang says. It was part question and part accusation.

A boiling dish of peppers, steak, mushrooms, crab, and a lot of other things sit between us. Chongqing is famous for this dish known as hotpot because it’s boiling hot and lethally spicy to anyone from the Midwestern United States.

I don’t eat Chinese food very often at home. When I do, I don’t use chopsticks if there’s a fork within reach. I’ve always kind of thought that using chopsticks in Ohio was kind of silly. Like I was trying to be someone I was not. Besides, I have trouble enough using a knife and fork.

Where did I learn to use chopsticks?

I remember.

It was on the island of Oahu. I was visiting my Dad’s cousin who had been struck with a lifelong case of wanderlust. At the time he was driving cab by night and sleeping in his van during the day. We were in the Wainae Mountains. After a day of hiking, it was time to load up on sodium and carbs with steaming bowls of Ramen noodles. He didn’t have forks, but he did have chopsticks. He showed me a variety of techniques and left me to choose. It wasn’t pretty, but after a few bowls of noodles, a Hawaiian Chinese restaurant, a Hawaiian Japanese restaurant, I was semi-functional with the sticks.

That’s where I learned. I’m glad it wasn’t somewhere like Bob’s Chinese Buffet in Bucyrus, Ohio.

I relate the details of my Hawaiian chopstick 101 sessions to Huang and dive into the hotpot. The slimy crab meat is being difficult and I’m starting to take it personal.

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