One of the themes I cover a lot is how there always seems to be a “right” way of doing things in Japan, which feels odd when coming from the more diverse U.S. For example, every kanji character taught to children has a specific stroke order, and students who can write a character correctly but not in the proper order will still get it wrong on a test. There’s one right way to hold chopsticks, too, although it’s not uncommon for a person to develop their own style of chopstick-holding, and I remember having discussions with my ESL students about how this person or that held their chopsticks “strangely” while eating. My son is one of those people who holds his chopsticks in a non-standard way, although I’ll be darned if I can see any difference. When he got his first girlfriend (yes, I fail as a geek dad) he was quite nervous about eating with chopsticks in front of her, and made a great efforts to only go with her to restaurants where he could eat with a spoon.
“Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything…even get girlfriend.”
