Chopsticks

I learned a sort of game from one of the students I eat lunch with. You take your waribashi (disposable chopsticks) and hold them at the tips. Then say the name of the person you like. As you say each syllable his or her name you move your fingers step by step up the chopsticks. When you run out of syllables, you break the chopsticks. One chopstick should represent you and the other should represent the one you admire. Typical waribashi chopsticks never break evenly, so the side with the most wood on it is the one who loves the other more, like this:

I'm represented by the stick on the right, so I am loved more. More often than not I am loved more, which I am reminded daily by a certain someone...

These days, though, I think about the environmental impact of all these waribashi and how wouldn't it be a great idea to have an eco club at school and have the students sell reusable chopsticks as a fundraiser and then donate the funds to some environmental organization or a scholarship fund for those wanting to study environmental sciences. That's just one idea I've had. I don't know how well it would go over, though. Maybe I'll ask my English club kids if they would be interested at all. We could read articles in English and discuss them, perhaps. Hmmm...maybe. I know I would like to start a Save the Environment club at my school when i return home. I wonder how many kids would be interested. We'll see.

I found a couple of websites, by the way, discussing the impact of waribashi. Here's one to get started if you're interested:

http://www.well.com/user/indigo/donna/waribashi/faq.htm

And here's a blog about what one group has been doing with waribashi. It looks pretty cool: 

http://waribashiproject.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_archive.html