I stumbled upon this Chopstick Challenge TV program where people were in a contest for most skilled chopstick person.

First, in various areas of the country they had group contests. One for example was to hold like a golfball in chopsticks while riding a free fall ride. The winners from the various contests were brought together for the big challenge.

The first part was, you had to be the first to pick up just the egg yolk from a whole egg on a plate using your chopsticks only. Then, carry that yolk across a gym, over a set of stairs 8 steps high, under a hurrdle then endure getting tickled for 30 second and finally place it in a frying pan on the other side of the gym.

The second part was, from a floor covered with pachinko marbles about 10 by 10 feet. While standing on the floor of marbles (slippery), pick up one marble with your chopsticks, walk over to a pachinko machine and insert the marble, not the normal way into the tray but into a vertically facing hole just large enough for one marble but not large enough for the chopsticks. Then, if you managed to get it into the machine, you had to shoot it up and get in it one of the slots. If you failed, go get another marble.

The third was to as fast as you can, grab a single pea from a miso soup bowl. As soon as you managed it another bowl is placed in front of you with another pea. Most peas in a 1 minute wins. The winner was 102 peas.

Forth was to flip over a table of crackers one cracker at a time (about 64 crackers), then pick up a big one (about 4 inches around), eat it completely, then flip on more big cracker over.

Next was to catch a ping pong ball in mid air. They had some kind of mortar/canon that would launch about 8 balls in the air and first to catch one won.

Next was to grab a foam, 3 legged boomerang in mid air. Some guy would throw 2 of them, they would make one revolution around the room and then you'd try to catch it. Plus, you were attached to a pole by a 15 foot long bungie so as you ran out to catch the boomerang the bungie would pull you back.

Next was to grab itty bitty mushrooms from an aquarium mounted on some contraption that shook the whole platform which you were also standing on.

#8 was to get inside a clear plastic box and grab a fly with your chopsticks.

#9 was to run up a hill, about halfway up they started pouring ping pong balls down the hill. You had to catch one, then carry it up the hill and put it in a cup. The hill was almost too steep to climb, especially with one hand full.

Last was to climb that same hill, grab the thread from a mounted spool with your chopsticks and feed that one thread through about 10 needles each about 1 foot apart. To give you an idea how steep the hill was, one player had 4 or 5 needles threaded before the other one made it to the top. That second player actually only lost by one needle. It was the hill that killed him.

One thing that made it interesting is each person had a video camera mounted to their forearm focused on their hand so you could see up close how it was going.

After all that, the winner of those 10 contests had to compete against last year's winners in a kind of chopstick obsticale course.

First, pick up an egg yolk again from a whole egg, put it in a plate about 10 feet away.

Next stand 10 5 yen coins on their edges very nicely in a row. Making it worse, you had to do it within 2 minutes or this model train would come by and knock them all over making you start over. And of course like dominos, as you were placing the next one you could easily knock all the previous ones over.

Next, carry the same egg yolk to another table, this one you had to take two band−aids off a large ballon with very sharp chopsticks. Again there was a model train, this time with a needle on the front of it so if you didn't do it quickly it would pop the balloon at which point you had to wait a minute before they would give you another balloon. You had to take if off completely. If the band−aid ripped you had to get all of it off.

Next pick up the same egg yolk and carry it to another table. This time you had 1 minute to insert a pencil led into a mechanical pencil from the front using your chopsticks. If you didn't do it within 1 minute, some big body builder would come over and spin you around in your chair 4 times to make you all dizzy before were were given another minute. Note: you could not put the lead in part way and then turn the pencil over and push the lead in using the table, you had to push the lead in with your chopsticks.

Next, carry the egg yolk to the next table. Wire your hand to this machine that would shock your hand about once a second or two. While it was shocking your hand you had to stack 10 dice, about 2/3 (maybe 1/2) the size of a normal dice, vertically on top of each other. Again there was a model train that would knock over your stack of you took too long. Getting past 7 seemed almost impossible.

Finally, carry the yolk to a frying pan.

The 2 people that lost didn't make it past the balloon table.

Are you up to the challenge? 😛

One thing I found out...I use my chopsticks *correctly*. Maybe correctly is the wrong word although that's the word they used. If your chopsticks cross like scissors, supposedly that's not the correct way to use them though I know at least 1/2 my friends do it that way. Whatever works though 😃