Breaking My Chopsticks

Today I had planned on writing a post about “people I don’t feel sorry for.” However, this freakin’ chopstick debate has escalated quickly, so I feel compelled to respond. From the comments on Beth’s blog, you would think I was the head of FEMA or something. I had a nightmare last night that a bunch of hungry Asians broke into my room and somehow bludgeoned me with chopsticks. Terrifying. So today I’ve been walking around with my head on swivel, which, according to Ron Burgundy, is what you have to do when you find yourself in a vicious cockfight.

Anyway, back to the chopstick debate. Judging by the strong feelings people seem to have about these pointless, wooden sticks, don’t be surprised if in 08’, you see Giuliani and Hillary Clinton debating this subject.

Here are Beth’s comments …

What is your definition of efficient, Bill? Being able to consume the largest amount of food as fast as you can? That's not very healthy, if you ask me. Doesn't your body digest food better when it's consuming smaller portions in slow increments? Wouldn't that be more efficient?

When you use chopsticks you carry smaller portions of food and prolongs the duration of the meal. Sure, chopsticks are not for the yuppies-on-the-go, what with all of the fancy schmancy McDonalds in every corner to tempt you with french fries to go with your SuperSized indigestion.

My definition of efficient is pretty much the same as the dictionary’s, which is: acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort. Exhibiting a high ratio of output to input.

It is true that eating slowly is healthier because it allows time for your brain to process “being full”, which tends to make a person eat less. However, is it the duty of your eating utensils to monitor your food consumption? I don’t think that is in their job description. If drinking through a straw meant you drank less alcohol, would you stick a straw in your beer glass, or would you take responsibility for how much you drank? If you were someone who is constantly early to appointments, would you argue that you should take a horse because it takes more time to get where you are going than a car? Or would adjust your own personal habits to fix the problem?

It would be nice if people would take ownership of how much they are eating, instead of relying on a fork, spoon, knife or chopstick to do it for them. Where’s the discipline? Maybe the problem isn’t the fork and spoon being vastly more efficient than a chopstick; maybe the problem is undisciplined eating habits. It’s sad that there are people who turn to a wooden stick to keep them healthy, instead of monitoring their own meal portions.

Bottom line, don’t blame the superior fork and spoon for your own eating shortcomings.

Well, if we took your attitude of dismissing our past simply because we've created something far more superior, then we should be able to go ahead and destroy the Coliseum and replace it with something like your Mile High Stadium. While you're at it let's just go to some of our oldest museums and trash every priceless piece of artwork you can get your hands on. Why keep those ratty old things when we can make better pictures with our digital cameras! Hell, we can bring people back to life and have them dance with vacuum cleaners because of computers!

Actually the Coliseum would be a terrible venue to hold an event at compared to Mile High Stadium. The Coliseum would offer less leg room and space (since people are generally taller and larger than they were during the Roman Empire), no concession stands, no seatbacks, limited bathroom facilities, no scoreboards, no instant replay, no cupholders and no luxury boxes – just to name a few of its shortcomings. However, we shouldn’t destroy the Coliseum because it’s nice to look at and it’s part of history. We shouldn’t hold a football game there because it’s vastly inferior compared to the stadiums of today and would be a horrible place to watch a game. So how does this tie-in to chopsticks? Just like the Coliseum was great in its day, so were chopsticks. But those days are over. Spoons and forks give us more options, are more efficient, and are more advanced – just like Mile High Stadium when comparing it to the Colisuem … in fact someday, someone we'll be having this same debate about how archaic spoons and forks are compared to the eating utensils of the future.

Oh, and you don’t measure art based on efficiency; you evaluate it on historical importance, aesthetics, subject matter, emotional reaction, etc … so that argument doesn’t even make sense.

This technology of which you hold so much stock in, isn't all that great, Bill. True, I've benefited from technology, and I'm not about to live without it, but even you must admit not everything technology offers is always better.

I’d agree, but I would also say more times than not, better technology is an improvement, not a step back. More importantly, usually when there is a problem stemming from technology, it’s the users of the technology’s problem, not the fault of the technology itself. More on this later.

And what is so wrong with having a romantic attachment to something that was indicative of simpler times....something that is tied to aeons of culture and history that no amount of technological advancement can ever replace?

Nothing is wrong with that at all. But admit it’s a romantic attachment and not a logical argument. I don’t have a problem if you long for-the-way-it-was, but call it that, don’t try to reason your way through the discussion.

Did you know that the great scholar, Confucius, who was a vegetarian, helped develop chopsticks? He believed that knives would remind the people of animals being killed in slaughterhouses, and thought they were too violent to be used at the table. They had to find another way to serve their food, and I'm guessing small pieces of wood were all they had.

Yes, there is something definitely very wrong in that indeed. Shame on Confucius for wanting to promote non-violence!

C’mon Beth … I doubt if many, if not any, people think of the slaughtering process while eating a delicious steak using a fork and knife. Plus, vegetarians are not the only one who use chopsticks, and eating with them certainly does not prevent animal cruelty. There is no correlation between vegetarianism and chopsticks. This point is a stretch.

Look, I'm not saying I'd drop my spoon and fork and eat with chopsticks for the rest of my life. I'll be damned, though, if I let you disrespect an entire culture's eating habits, especially one so closely tied to my own.

But the point I'd like to drive home is that NO ONE is forcing you to use chopsticks, Bill.

I never said anyone was forcing me to use them. I was just saying I think they don’t serve much purpose nowadays, especially in America. If I was in an Asian country, I would fully expect to eat with chopsticks. Just like I fully expect to see a lot of people riding bikes and using rigshaws as a form of public transportation. If I said taxis, subways and buses are better, that wouldn’t mean I was disrespecting the culture – it just means there are better and more efficient ways of doing things.

Now, here is a comment from one of Beth’s loyal readers …

Using chopsticks is the most efficient way to eat noodles. That's why I use them. If they had chopsticks in Italian restaurants I would use them to eat my spaghetti too.
On modern amenities: just because something makes some tasks easier and quicker does not mean it delivers a better quality of life.

Take e-mail for instance. I can think of so many angry e-mails I've typed up in anger only to make things worse. Anger that could have been diffused in the older days, when I would have had to look for a piece of paper and a pen, an envelope and a stamp. And since it took so much effort to write an angry letter I would've thought about the whole thing again and I would've decided that it was too petty after all and just let it go.

Going back to chopsticks, it's not like anyone is being forced to use them even in Chinese restaurants. I wouldn't pick on anyone because they use forks on food that's meant to be eaten with chopsticks. Why pick on those that use them?

- Leese

I want to respond to this because it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how when a problem with technology arises, it’s often not technology’s problem, but rather the person using the technology. Don’t blame email for your tendency to respond to people without taking time to compose your thoughts and “cool down.” Take responsibility for your actions and anger, don’t lay them off on email.

If someone over-eats, don’t blame the silverware, blame the eater. If someone kills someone with a gun, don’t blame the gun, blame the shooter. If someone dies of lung cancer from smoking for 50 years, don’t blame the cigarettes, blame the smoker. If you have a temper problem and use email as a quick way to improperly vent your anger, don’t blame email, blame yourself.

It’d be nice if more people were responsible and accountable for their actions, instead of blaming everything else for their problems. As Warden Norton once said, “salvation lies within.”

I know that rant was a little off-topic, but it’s an important topic that is obviously bigger than our monumental chopstick debate.

And just in case this was missed, I can use chopsticks properly! My argument is not a result of chopstick envy or secretly longing to use them. Just like when I say cars are better than horses, it’s not because I want to ride a horse to work, I just choose not to.