How the hell can people eat with chopsticks?

You silly boy. Just because YOU can't use them doesn't mean that they are impractical. It just means you lack the patience or skill in using them. First off, China has a culinary history of 4,000+ years. These refined instruments were designed as an extension of the hand. Using your hands to eat was viewed as "barbaric". The Chinese viewed the use of the fork much the same as using your hands to eat. Your comments were amusing: "Even with the rubber add-on thingy for amateurs, the food just keeps falling off." Do you not know how to use a pair of tongs? They aren't much different...just smaller in scale. Besides, most Chinese dishes have been prepared with food that has been pre-cut into small, managable pieces. "And people actually eat RICE with these things?" Yes, intelligent people who use chopsticks know that you don't pick up individual grains of rice with chopsticks. The proper method of eating rice with chopsticks is to fill a small bowl with rice. Then, you place the bowl gently up to your lower lip and with the pair of chopsticks held together, you scoop the rice into your mouth. This is why using Western style dishes (eg a plate) is impractical to use with chopsticks. "If I've already had to work to put the food on my table, the last thing I'd want is to create MORE work for myself by having to develop a "skill" to pick the food up with a couple of wooden sticks. Chopsticks are the most impractical eating instrument I've ever used. If I ever ate in a restaurant that only gave chopsticks, I'd use my hands even if they were dirty." Yes, you worked so hard and God forbid that anything requiring thought, skill & intellect would come across and expand your horizon. Good luck to you and the dirty hands you feed yourself with.

haha idk where the hell u heard the martial art bull **** from lolol you can toss that thought you can slap that chink but im S korean lol ive been using chopsticks since like 3rd grade for me its easy cause i was just taught that when i was a kid. i think its easy and i have no arthritis and im so far 17 lol and no strain lol. and koreans eat a sticky type of rice. its not the fried type thats all seperated so we can eat it with chopsticks. as for the fried rice or seperated dry rice. we use spoons. And some ppl put the bowl up to their mouth and kinda push the rice with their chopstick into their mouth. but thats for fat phucks. haha 3 step instructions dont come close to a asian friend that can show you how. idk man if u dont like chopsticks thats straight haha its not like we drink with chopsticks too haha we have spoons. but i have some white friends who can use chopsticks fine, if they come over to eat or sometin i ask em fork or stick and most of em are pretty good with the chopsticks. guess it all depends lol you dont have to follow the instructions try holding it diff ways. that is the traditional way. haha hows it exotic lolol just eat with a fork lol

idk... i've always found them easy to use the rice is easier than it seems, asian rice is short grain, so it get's sticky and forms little balls... usually

Fork.

If you grew up using chopsticks like I did you wouldn't find it too hard. I'm 3rd generation American Chinese born and raised in Berkeley, California. The trick is that one of the chop sticks stays stationary while the top one does the moving. You operate the top one to either open or to close down onto the bottom chopstick. The website below has a very long address, but it shows how the one chopstick is the only one that moves and how everything else remains stationary. This is how my mom taught me when I was in elementary school. Pull up the website below (long address) and you'll be able to work the chopsticks by tonite or tomorrow.

It just takes practice. There's nothing wrong or impractical about using chopsticks. Over a billion people use chopsticks on a daily basis...and it is thought that they were invented in Ancient China. So if it were really that impractical and/or useless, I doubt it would have lasted this long, and I doubt that it would be used by so many people. If you want to learn, there are "practice" chopsticks...the two sticks are connected at the top. But you don't have to learn. Every Chinese restaurant I have ever been to offers non chopstick users forks, knives, and spoons.

Some Asians say that using chopsticks is "a martial art that lets you use the energy of the food itself to project it into your mouth". Huh? Never heard that before! ROFL. Anywho, I don't really get the point of this question. You're frustrated that you can't use chopsticks and you're putting out your frustration by ranting...on Yahoo! Answers. Which is against the guideliines, if you must know. Most Asian rice tend to be sticky, and if you grab it with your chopsticks, it'll stick on pretty well. It'll still fall off if you wave it around in the air, but you would be able to eat rice with it. "Even if I did know how to use them, I'd still have trouble actually picking up the food." You only say that BECAUSE you can't use them. Stop whining, jeez. You can't use chopsticks! OKAY. I've been using chopsticks since I was seven, and it's pretty easy. But isn't it harder to learn something when you're older, than it is when you're younger? Anywho, if it's so impratical, just go on and use a fork. No one's making you use chopsticks. Edit: Why did the answer above me get a thumbs down? -__- It's the best answer here!

people who can eat with chopsticks have serious skill! =D just takes practice! =) Practise makes perfect! I doubt anyone was able to eat with chopsticks on thier first few tries! But i agree! its a mission picking up the food! Its more like your playing some kind of a game rather than eating xD

Ive been using them to eat ramen noodles since I was a kid....but it wasn't something I could just do like magic...it took a long time before I was any good at it... Practice makes perfect...