The Fun In Teaching My Mom How To Use Chopsticks At Kyukyu Ramen 99

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November 7, 2023

I must admit that in my entire life, I can't remember the last time I spent quality time with my mom. As I stepped out of college, my life focused more on making a living, while my mother's focused more on taking care of our family. We barely had time for each other. Not even for intimate mother-daughter talk. We live in the same family, but we seem to be in different worlds.

During my vacation in the Philippines, we had more time to bond after my father's burial. Since we often go to the city, I took the chance to let her experience new things because most of her life had been isolated only in the four corners of our home, performing her duties as mother and wife.

We went to Ramen 99 one day when we were looking for a place to have our late lunch. The food shop serves Japanese ramen for as low as Php99 or less than $2. It was the most affordable ramen restaurant I ever encountered, so I didn't think twice about entering the place to let my mom taste Japanese food and hear her feedback on it.

This self-service restaurant has a minimalistic Japanese interior with comic walls. Reading the comic walls is somewhat entertaining, which is great while waiting for the orders to be served.

Here is the ramen of different flavors they serve in this restaurant.

Since I don't like flavored soup bases, I opted to order the ordinary one, Kyu Kyu Ramen, with a plate of gyoza or dumplings. The same order was made for my mother.

Before entering the restaurant with the thought of eating noodles, I knew it would be a struggle for my mom to eat using chopsticks. The funny thought of her doing so was already in my mind, and I intended to teach her. I looked for a fork in case she wouldn't get the proper way of using chopsticks, but to no avail. The way she held it was already wrong, lol.

I saw her picking up the noodles using chopsticks, so I initially thought she knew it. Upon seeing her fingers, she wasn't holding them properly, loo.

She thought she was clever enough, but look at her hand 🤣. Chopsticks areclosed,d as she just grasped them both tightly. I never thought it would be harder to teach someone how to use chopsticks than my first time usingthem. Nobody taughtme;, I just learned through my initiative. Besides, I needed to learn badly since people in my workplace are using chopsticks.

Then the chopstick lesson began. Following my instructions, she picked up the chopsticks, and I started teaching her the proper way of holding chopsticks and picking up food.

She would follow at first but still end up grasping the chopsticks tightly, as if afraid that the food would fall. In the video, you'll see how I tried to teach her, but her fingers seemed stiff and she couldn't properly hold chopsticks.

Looking at her struggling to properly hold chopsticks and pick up the noodles, my tutorial ended up throwing laughter, especially seeing my mom's facial expressions. I couldn't keep myself from laughing at her, and we ended up laughing together.

She managed to pick up noodles using chopsticks in her own way. She even learned how to pick the dumplings without my help, even though it wasn't proper, lol.

When everything seemed to end up in vain as she was hard to teach, I shared with her another way of eating noodles using a spoon along with chopsticks. Just scrape the noodles onto the spoon using chopsticks, and viola! It was easier. We both finished the big bowl of ramen, but I did it before her.

This chopstick tutorial became a source of laughter, as I kept laughing throughout the session. Hearing her laughter and seeing her funny face brought me happiness. We had never done such a thing before, so I felt genuinely happy.

(All photos are mine)

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