Acculturization

When travelling to a new land, especially one very different from your own, a person feels a great need to fit in, even when such a thing is completely impossible. The flight to Beijing was about 2/3 white Americans and 1/3 chinese, roughly. The dinner meal came out a few hours into the flight, too late to be an American supper, yet too early to be a Chinese lunch. My options were slimy chicken with potatoes or weird brown beef with rice. After seeing my neighbors choose the beef, I followed suit; it looked edible enough. On the tray was a bunch of dim sum like cups with shrimp and noodles, a dinner roll, crackers and cheese, a simple romaine salad and the aforementioned beef and rice. It was all a pretty good equal mix of the two different food traditions.

On the tray were two choices of eating utensils: chopsticks and a fork and knife set. I figured since the beef tipped my meal in favor of being more Chinese and I'd need to get used to it anyway, I chose to eat with the chopsticks. Now, chopsticks are old hat for me. My staple quick meal at home is vegetable stirfry and a long ago bought a nice set of chopsticks for dinner parties. This seemed to be a bit of crash course, however, for many of the westerners surrounding me.

"Susan!" I heard the woman behind, voice obscured by food, giggles, and thick Carolina accent, "Try holding one slightly higher than the other, that seems to work for me."

This prompted me to stretch my legs and and have a scope at the people of the plane. Every American had chopsticks in hand, eating with a widely varrying level of proficiency. That's when I noticed that every Asian on the plane was eating peacefully and simply with forks. Was this is a careful mass effort by everyone on the plane to pander to the culture of the other, or was this proof of American's inability to do things in a practical manner. I mean really, who eats a salad coated in ranch dressing with chopsticks?