You can call me "The Master of Chopsticks"

When I first moved to Korea in December, I was faced with a couple of eating challenges: One, I didn't like rice. This was a major problem because most everything here is served with rice and, beyond that, if you eat Korean food without rice you will most likely starve to death (it is not very filling). And two, I couldn't use chopsticks to save my life. Fortunately, chopsticks and spoons are the two main eating utensils in Korea, so if I couldn't chopstick my way through a meal, I could at least spoon it. (Most restaurants here have forks on hand if you need one, but I have yet to learn how to say "May I have a fork?" in Korean, so it's either chopsticks or a spoon for me.)

I spent my first month here struggling with the chopsticks. Sometimes it would take me nearly an hour just to finish my meal because I was hell-bent on eating like a Korean (minus the weird, slurpy noises they make, but that's another topic). It was really frustrating for a long time, but I slowly but surely started getting the hang of it....

I went out to dinner with a couple of my Korean friends the other day and one of them, after watching me eat for a minute, commented on my chopsticking skills. Much to my delight she said, "Liz, you have good technique!" I didn't realize there was a specific technique to using chopsticks, but she proceeded to tell me that I was holding my chopsticks like a Korean. Woohoo!

Now, as I'm sitting here at the computer eating chicken-fried-rice with a pair of wooden chopsticks, I must say... I'm pretty darn impressed with myself. Not only am I eating rice because I want to be eating it (yes, I've acquired a taste for rice), but I'm eating it like a pro.