Chopsticks

He picked up the chopsticks placed in front of him, slipped them out from the paper packet, and cradled them between his fingers like a surgeon wielding a knife before an impending surgery. We sat in the companionable awkwardness. I watched him fiddling the chopsticks, rather unfocused. He looked up and, on the moment of eye contact, smiled.
"Perfect?" he said
"Not even close." I said.
"Getting civilized?"
He remembered what I had said to him several years ago. "Using knife and fork is caveman's way of eating food. You still stay on a primitive stage of cutting and sticking, exactly the same way cave men hunted with spears and knives. There's no grace or sophistication in it." I remembered what he said. "Using two sticks to eat makes any food taste bland. I would rather stay primitive."
Chopsticks are poetic. Their coordinative movement, with pleasant freedom, picks up a fine pea, peels off the skin of fish, weeds out ingredient you don't like however finely it may be chopped, giving a feminine dexterity of elegance to the simple physiological requirement of food intake. Chopsticks are extension of our fingers, whereas knife and fork is, at best, of our arms. I cannot stand the clumsy movement of the cutting and sticking utensils. Wherever chopsticks are available I ask for ones instead of knife and fork.
When I went to San Diego, he took me to an Italian restaurant. Among all the Italian dishes, I like spaghetti best. I ordered something that was spaghetti. I started to eat it with spoon and fork without slurping. It was tasteless. I called a waiter and asked if by any chance they had chopsticks. Saying "Sure", he left and soon came back with a Chinese pair of chopsticks tucked in a paper packet. I was surprised at the fact that in a restaurant in a business district without any Japanese customers had chopsticks ready. Although I don't like Chinese chopsticks, with a blunt tip and slippery surface, I used the pair and ate it with a little slurp. It was totally different. When I finished, there left a satisfaction in me and small orange spots on my shirts. Looking at the stains, he said laughing "it certainly is civilized."
It was many years ago. Now I was glad to see him trying to use chopsticks here in Japan. Perhaps we came one step forward to understand each other's thoughts or feelings hidden behind the simple act of using chopsticks, which are almost impossible to know through our language.