Chow Magazine’s blog The Grinder has picked up on one of the downsides of the East-meets-West cultural showdown:

Worried that students may be losing their culture to the onslaught of hamburgers and spaghetti, a high school in Nagasaki, Japan has added a new test to their entrance exams—chopstick skills.

If Japan must fight to retain this important part of their culinary and cultural heritage, maybe we here can do our part to make chopsticks an integral part of the global table. After all, once you learn how to use them, chopsticks are convenient, delicate and surprisingly adaptable to a variety of tasks. You don’t believe me? Try eating salad with chopsticks; you’ll never go back to the salad fork again.

First things first: Knowing how to use chopsticks is more than just how to hold them and pick things up. There are a few rules of etiquette best followed lest you look like a lumbering oaf with your utensils. Escape Blog highlights a few tips to ensure you’ll be gracious in both Japanese and Chinese settings, and Garrett at Vanilla Garlic has some good all-around usage pointers that should keep you out of imminent trouble.  

Now, if you have a weejun or two that you’d like to start training, there are some handy (and adorable) Children’s Beginner’s Chopsticks, outfitted with a thumb hook and finger grips for easy handling; they conveniently come in boy blue and girl pink. If on the other hand you are the novice in the household, then maybe you want to consider a handy pair of Rookie Chopsticks.  The connected ends allow you to focus on the pinching action rather than gripping the sticks in perfect position; you can work up to that later. Equally clever, and maybe a wee bit cooler looking in their translucent colors, are these Clothespon Chopsticks.

OK, so once you’ve got your chopsticks on, it’s time to graduate to something a little more … grown up. Wood is the classic material, and there are way prettier ways to go than those splintery split-‘em-yerself variety you get in sushi bars. Craft Revolution is “strangely drawn” to a set of handcrafted Birdseye Maple chopsticks. Myself, I have a vase full of varying shapes and styles on hand.

For the ultimate in chopstick convenience, consider keeping a pair on hand so you can be ready to eat at any minute. Rose Polinsky stores a pair of James Bond-worthy collapsible chopsticks in her purse.  “Just like a professional pool cue, these tools of eating wonder are made in parts. The stainless steel upper section is hollow. Pop the top off and slide the white ash lower section out. The wooden tip screws into the upper section using all brass hardware. And now you are ready to eat. When you are all done, wash the chopsticks, collapse them, and store them in the included weather resistant nylon pouch.”

Of course, if you still remain perennially chopstick-challenged, there is one last option: Forkchops.  Stefano Ricci appreciates the convenience: “These handy-dandy utensils allow you to eat your Chinese and Japanese food with chopsticks. But when you get tired or frustrated, you simply flip them over and use them as a knife and fork.”

See? East-meets-West isn’t necessarily such a bad thing after all.