I always seem to draw attention. Between my fair complexion, my latest gadget, or my penchant for hats (oh – and let’s not forget all my ‘one gram gold’!), I know these folks can’t help but stare… and I have gotten used to it; I even wink back at them sometimes. 🙂 Today I hit on a new draw for attention – my expertise and command with chopsticks! I’m not kidding!

So there was a six hour layover @ Shanghai (four hours were scheduled; the extra two hours were a ‘government bonus’) and they fed us dinner since the flight to Dalian kept getting delayed. Part of dinner was these itty bitty pinto beans. I’m sure there’s a different name for them over here – but by golly they were pinto beans (just served with rice instead of cornbread). I’ve become fairly proficiently talented with moving food from plate to mouth with two small sticks – far as I’m concerned, it’s a survival skill over here. Anyway, I was merrily eating away at my beans (one by one by one… so to effectively eat you gotta get up some momentum)… I’m just plowing away and felt the (familiar) sense of someone looking at me. Well it wasn’t ‘one’ person – it was four… a whole family! They were all in synch… all had stopped mid-bite (i.e., chopstick raised halfway) and were sitting there slack-jawwed watching me shovel my supper. I guess you had to be there to appreciate it. It was a ‘fun’ moment – I’ve stopped traffic over here for lots of reasons, but never my chopstick-wielding expertise!