At first glance I thought it was simply a collection of ancient eating utensils which had been dug up somewhere.  However, two things stood out… 1) The utensils were in perfect condition, 2) there was a gap in between the majority of the items and the final two.  These two facts were enough to attract my attention and warrant further investigation.

It turned out that the items were not old at all! In fact the exhibit was called something like ‘What we use to eat with 2009’.  After reading this, I realised that display was not about old items in any way, but was actually highlighting the complicated array of 40+ western utensils which are commonly used to eat with, compared to the 2 used for everything in China (technically you could argue it’s one, since it’s a PAIR of chopsticks). 

Interesting stuff…

You can argue that Chinese need more skill to eat their food, whereas other cultures simply have better tools and require less skill.  That’s pretty controversial if you apply it outside of eating habits and to the cultural differences at large.