I went abroad several times before, mostly on business trips to western European countries, and my destinations usually were small towns where my company’s manufacturing facilities were located. In a town named Schweinfurt in south Germany, which has a population of around 50,000 people, including 6,000 American troops stationed there, there is a Chinese Restaurant called Mayflower, and whenever my stomach’s craving for Chinese cuisine reached the boiling point during my stay at the town, I would go there and munch on dishes like spring rolls, roasted ducks, and stewed spicy tofu to quench my thirst for the food that I grew up eating.
Mayflower, as I learned later, is the only Chinese restaurant in town, so I was really surprised that almost every co-worker whom I knew from Schweinfurt appeared to be as good as I was at using chopsticks. There was even a guy named Juergen, who was a leftist when using chopsticks, while writing with his right hand. I once joked with the restaurant owner who was originally from Zhejiang by asserting that he must have run a mass training course in chopsticks to boost his business in Schweinfurt, and the beaming fifty-something folk simply reply: ”they learned by themselves, and they learned fast.”
Luton is also a small down near London where we have a colleague Mr. Graham, who comes to China on a regular basis. We once went on a 10-day tour of China visiting customers together, during which time we had numerous business dinners with customers and business partners. Frankly speaking, I had never seen a guy who was crazier about fried rice (炒饭) than Mr. Graham was, as for every single dinner, he would entreat me to help him order it. The funny thing was he had never swapped chopsticks for fork and knife for any dish, and everybody at the table would be stunned at seeing him scooping up grains of rice into his mouth adeptly with chopsticks.
And I can still vividly remember an occasion when I had lunch with a couple of colleagues from Nordic countries in Shanghai years before. I might have been too brusque in making a crack about a Swedish specialty, surstromming, and my Swedish colleague instantly retorted that Chinese food gave him a hard time keeping fit. Initially I thought he might refer to the calorie counts in our food, however, he actually was arguing that, unlike western style meals, which were served in a certain sequence of courses roughly consisting of Hors d’oeuvre, salad, soup, main course, and desert etc., he was never quite sure where he was during a Chinese meal, as our dishes were seldom served in any particular order. So he always ended up over-eating in most of the dinners he had had in China. I could not help but clap my hands at this plausible discourse, while watching in awe my Swedish buddy proudly pick up a peanut expertly with a pair of chopsticks, and drop it into his mouth as a reward for himself settling scores.
And while I was admiring the Swedish guy’s wits, his companion, a Finnish pal, appeared to be struggling a little bit with his chopsticks when he was attempting to lift a strand of rice noodles off the plate. I was initially amused by his repeated failures before I realized the slippery noodles could also be a challenge to me, as i could see that he was apparently maneuvering the chopsticks in a flawless way. After cheering on him for his tenacity in grabbing the elusive grub, I asked: ”What do you think is the most difficult thing to pick up with chopsticks?” At hearing this question, the Finnish dude, whose country was never known for great sense of humor, blurted out:”Soup.” I was floored.
……
While I am crafting this blog, the word chopsticks has just kept conjuring up images of my favorite dishes, which rightfully call for a dinner with some of my chums. So I may spend the next 15 minutes making phone calls, which I would end with the phrase: ”See you at the Lan Club, chop chop!”
Curious Dragon 