Oh, Europeans! While Americans fumble with chopsticks in Asians restaurants, reminding everyone how smug they are because they are being multi-cultural by using unfamiliar new eating utensils, the Europeans are just straight-up designing different interfaces to eat Asian food entirely. (Or as we Asian-Americans call it, food.)
Take for example the TUKAANI, a “hand made eating device for Asian food consumers in the West,” developed by Ugandan-born Finnish designer Lincoln Kayiwa to be used as an unspoken alternative to chopsticks. The design may be inspired by a toucan’s bill, but it looks more like a pair of salad tongs that curves like a dildo. (What, you don’t see it? It totally does.) Thankfully, it’s hand-washable, something disposable wooden chopsticks don’t have the luxury of being. Someone should come up with metal chopsticks or something.
But at least the TUKAANI looks sophisticated and classy (well, as sophisticated as curved salad tongs can look); behold, the Chopsticks Aid, where a Polish guy named Jaroslav Kucera designed this spork-like attachment which, combined with a pair of chopsticks, gives anyone the ability to stab peeled edamame and fish balls — so long as you can withstand the looks of judgment from everyone else in the restaurant.
So the question becomes this: what’s more embarssing — watching white people eat sushi or noodles or a bowl of rice with something that looks like it came from the Maker Faire? Or having them play the drums or doing the walrus face before their meal?
(Hat tip: Jun, via the 8asians tumblr)
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13 Comments to “European Designed “Chopsticks Aids” IKEA Like, or Culturally Insensitive?”
Tim wrote:
On metal chopsticks: You do know that the Chinese Emperor’s chopsticks were made of silver, right? Because silver tarnishes when it touches arsenic or some other poison. It was a way to test his food to make sure he wasn’t being poisoned. I don’t know if this is true or not, but that’s the story I was given a set of silver chopsticks from my parents. It’s supposedly a high honor to receive silver chopsticks.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 7:50 am | Permalink
Efren wrote:
ok, they look like really long, painful nipple clamps.
don’t ask me how i know. i’m just sayin’.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 8:47 am | Permalink
andrew wrote:
Hey, Koreans invented metal chopsticks, or at least popularized them a long time ago. From what i understand, chinese use long wooden ones, Japanese use short wooden ones ( due to traditionally picking up dishes in one hand near their mouth). However, someone recognized the antiseptic properties of silver and decided to use them in chopsticks…
Anywho, living in korea you will see that 70-80% of all chopsticks here are metal. Some are plastic too. However, when eating greasy stuff, holding onto thin, slippery metal sticks is hard…
Posted on 11-May-09 at 9:18 am | Permalink
Jason wrote:
I hear metal chopsticks are the in thing these days — at least from my hypochondriac mom who insisted that I carry a pair of retractable titanium sticks with me to Taiwan last year lest I be exposed to hepatitis b.
Salad-tong chopsticks aren’t really new, are they? I remember visiting some restaurant as a kid and being graced with disposable sticks tied together at one end with rubber bands and a sawed-off piece of chopstick in between to act as a fulcrum.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 10:11 am | Permalink
Teresa wrote:
This stuff will continue to offend me. I am incredibly protective of “my culture.” I would much rather watch a fool eat East Asian food with a fork than to have swanky, European companies tweak a culturally-specific item just so smug fools can have a successful go at something as exotic and kitschy as using chopsticks.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 10:43 am | Permalink
Efren wrote:
Teresa: I’d hate to say this, but Asian companies have been doing this tweaking for years for chopsticks for kids who don’t have the ability to eat with chopsticks correctly. Other countries are just finally catching up.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 1:16 pm | Permalink
Marchukim wrote:
Somebody needs to tell this Jaroslav Kucera dude that Asian restaurants have forks available. The Chopsticks Aid is a waste of resources.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 1:27 pm | Permalink
daniel wrote:
if you can’t use chopsticks, just use spoons/forks. seriously.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 4:44 pm | Permalink
Jeff wrote:
@marchukim: Asian restaurants usually have forks, but they don’t always give them. I remember one really wonderful moment at a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco when one of my party asked for a fork. The waiter replied, “when I go to an American restaurant, they never give me chopsticks!” and then walked away. The guy never got his fork.
Posted on 11-May-09 at 5:05 pm | Permalink
TJ wrote:
I ask this in all serious, why does it matter? Many people – Asian and Western can’t use chopsticks effectively because of arthritis and other reasons. While in China we bought our daughter and our friends kids several kid-friendly chopstick designs – some hinged, some with springs, some you just slide a pair of chopsticks into a silicone figure. They work great especially for a three year-old who doesn’t have the hand coordination to use normal chopsticks. If these are being sold in China why can’t designers try to design something different from the traditional chopstick?
Why should people who aren’t used to using chopsticks be in position to look clumsy simply because their cultural background didn’t give them opportunities to use chopsticks when they were young? I had the experience of working in a Japanese restaurant 25 years ago with chefs fresh from Japan who struggled to effectively use a knife and fork at meals – simply because they had never used them before coming to America. Yet those same chefs were spectacularly gifted with a knife and chopsticks.
While I can use chopsticks comfortably and reach for them automatically – except for metal ones which can be slippery when eating pho – I would give these implements a try just to see how they work. Plus they are more environmentally friendly than wooden chopsticks.
Posted on 12-May-09 at 6:39 am | Permalink
Teresa wrote:
@Efren:
I definitely overlooked ability/disability when I posted my comment. Thanks for checking me.
While your point is totally valid, I do think mine is as well. I don’t think it was the intention of Kayiwa (the design company) to design these chopsticks for those who don’t have the ability to use traditional chopsticks. I highly doubt people with various disabilities was what the designer had in mind when creating this particular chopstick aid. It may just so happen that this product would be beneficial to some who aren’t able to use traditional chopsticks, but I think that might be letting this product get by a little too easily.
Posted on 12-May-09 at 7:18 am | Permalink
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC wrote:
Sushi is finger food.
Posted on 13-May-09 at 10:16 am | Permalink
commercial kitchenware wrote:
Nice design.. It makes the work easy.. It will be useful for those people who didn't know how to use chopsticks.. but for me.. I always prefer using spoon and fork..
Posted on 21-Jun-09 at 9:28 pm | Permalink
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