More Preparations: Chopsticks

Of late, my husband Joe and I have taken to using chopsticks for eating carrots and peas. We want to be proficient when we get to China. (Joe will be with me for three weeks each during the summer and Fall projects.) I imagine I could whip a fork out of my pocket when the need arises, but having lived with Chinese roommates, I am aware that fork-using can look extremely silly to Asians. There is excellent information available on the proper use of chopsticks, which I'm not sure I follow. But I'm not sure that doing it "right" is as important as making the effort-- outsiders can only approximate the customs and manners of a foreign culture, however hard they try. I'm attempting to use chopsticks for the same reason I'm trying to learn Chinese-- out of a sincere respect for the host culture. And by the way, I'm sure my spoken Chinese sounds ridiculous, due to my multiple errors in using its tonal system, and my attempts to write in this ideographic and non-alphabetic language are worse.

The Chinese characters at the start of this entry say thank you. I think. Where this language is concerned, I'm never sure of anything. It's going to be very interesting to try to function in China.