QFT
Outside Japan, add to it eating with open mouth and loud burping.
After visiting Shanghai and having a lunch with local coworkers my idea on what constitutes acceptable eating noises dramatically shifted.
I do not even mind the noise that much, if I have my own food to eat, but it constantly amazes me what is humanly possible without chocking on food.
Oh yeah, my wife’s a wee mite, and she can re-part your hair from across the table!
There was some TV documentary where they proved that the amount of broth that accompanied the noodles into the mouth was increased by slurping, as measured by the remaining broth in the bowl for the two conditions of eating-with-slurping and eating-without-slurping. For the eating-with-slurping condition, there was some XX% decrease in the amount of the broth that remained on the bowl at the end, and hence that slurping was the proper, tastier way to eat the noodles with broth in the mouth at the same time, as is supposedly intended.
I couldn’t find the actual documentary that I was thinking of on YouTube, but here’s a related video.
So, Europeans use forks as a spoon?
Well, at this buffet I was using plastic chopsticks, and the corn kernels were coated in oily salad dressing, so they were really slippery against the plastic chopsticks, and I don’t think that even your strategy would have helped in this case.
But if the chopsticks had been the disposable bamboo kind, I can imagine that there would have been enough friction to pick up a row of kernels as you mention.
If they didn’t make pasta with red water here in Taiwan, they wouldn’t need to resort to slurping to get any semblance of flavour.
Did they also measure the amount of broth on the table and people sitting close by?
IMO this is easily solved. Don’t eat something that should have been left in peace flooping around on the seabed.
Why anybody ever thought, “mm mm, that warty squishy thing look tasty”, I have no idea.
In any case, you’d have thought they would have corrected themselves on that after trying it.
Whatever they were smoking at the time, they’d have been millionaires selling that instead of trying to build up a sea-cucumber-fishing business.
Turns out they can be pretty expensive. I never knew that.
I ate (/briefly chewed then spat out) them a couple of times in China at work dinners when I had no choice. I think I would have preferred the money. 
The stuff served in Taiwan and labelled as food is barely that, and hardly Chinese.
I remember returning to Canada after years in China and mom gave me a chicken breast, which I stabbed with a fork and started to take bites of. When she asked why I wasn’t using a knife, I said it should have been delivered ready to eat!
Steamed rice takes practice, but with proper chopstick technique it isn’t necessary to shovel into your mouth until the final bits
Fresh fried peanuts were tricky at first, now I prefer eating some things with chopsticks. Spaghetti, salad, etc.
Also, oxygenation enhances flavor, same reason people slurp many beverages
Some people will stick anything in their mouth for the right price.
You could have used your hands.
Exactly, fork and knife, the perfect match. Also, spoon and fork for spaghetti. I don’t mind using chopsticks, but sometimes I’m glad when I have brought my own fork and spoon, expecially when eateries only provide those one-time-use chopsticks and white plastic spoons for soup. Or those tiny forks for glutinous-rice meat balls, or those tiny plastic forks for birthday cakes.
How much did you get?
All of it plus tip.
How do you think small kids eat out in local restaurants? They get a spoon.
Chopsticks are pretty inefficient in my opinion.
