The red meat thing

People here are utterly convinced that Americans eat nothing but beef 24/7 x 365.

Someone asked me if I can eat japanese food. I said yes. Since we were talking about my "hometown" at the time I explained further that there are a lot of Japanese restaurants in my hometown.

Immediately she said "Oh, Yoshinoya?"

This is a Japanese fast food chain that serves only beef bowl, in particular US beef. In other words, the only restaurant that would work in the US.

The day before, at a linch event, I got asked by a person, who has known me for at least 5 years and also knows that I've lived here for over 10 years if I have "ever used chopsticks."

Not can you but "have you EVER used chopsticks."

She was shocked and impressed when I said that I had and she told me how great i was and how I had adjusted to Japanese life so well. Kinda like if I made my own poison darts and dugout canoe after living with an amazon tribe for 10 years?

Just to put an exclamation point on it, this was after we had been talking about my snowboarding trip and the homebrew beer I had just given the, So I can ski down the top of a mountain, make my own beer... but it's shocking to her that a guy she's been chatting with Japanese for the past 30 minutes has ever used chopsticks.

She's a nice lady who gives me lots of presents so it's hard to scold her, but c'mon, think a little.

I still havent figured out how the chopstick thing got so blown out of proportion.