Chopsticks

Twenty-four hours later I am officially sitting in my hotel in Shanghai, China ready to collapse into bed at 8pm. Excited and overwhelmed, the only thing I have the energy for is a quick amusing tale from the plane ride over.

Being a very recent college graduate, I was very familiar with what I was served for dinner on Air Canada: the airplane version of Ramen noodles. It seemed appropriate on a flight to Shanghai. However, I was not given utensils. For some reason, after years of practicing at my local Chinese restaurant, I thought the transition to chopsticks full-time would be easy. I seemed to have blocked from my mind the fact that I only use chopsticks for easy things like orange chicken, and gladly trade them in for a fork when it comes to things like rice.

What was I supposed to do with chopsticks and soup with foot-long noodles in it?

I purposefully fiddled with my napkin longer than necessary to first observe those around me. The lady to my right skillfully slurped up noodles at a breakneck pace, finishing before I could get my chopsticks apart. The lady to my left more daintily picked up one noodle at a time and slowly coiled the entire thing into her mouth. I decided that I would try to approach this as a compromise between the two.

Putting the chopsticks near my mouth, I got a bite of the first noodle, but somehow managed to drop the second one down my sweater. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen, contemplating if it was better to try and stealthily dig around for it, or leave it and pretend it had never happened. I went for the latter option. Deciding that I was not going to make my first attempt look effortless no matter how hard I tried, I went for my right-hand seat partners method of slurping as quickly and gracelessly as possible. And I thought it was my Mandarin that was going to need the most improvement...

Observations on Shanghai to come soon.