Being born into the late 1950s, and growing up through the 1960s, in a city like L.A., I have experienced a vast array of culture influences throughout my life. I guess it was when I was about six that I asked my mother to buy me a set of chopsticks.
 
Now, let me say right here and right now, I am not trying to cast any shade on anyone or anything when I use the term, “Chopsticks.” I understand that some feel that it is a culturally inappropriate term. But, instead of having to state what I am speaking about in the native term from each Asia culture, I will use this understood term. If it bothers you, sorry!
 
I was watching an old Chuck Norris movie on the video tape. Chuck Norris, a great guy and a truly revolutionary figure in the world of the modern martial arts. But, I was reminded of how poorly he used chopsticks, at least in that movie. …Like he really didn’t know how.
 
Now, like when I first saw the film, (I remember), I was thinking how did he not learn how to properly use them when he was stationed in South Korea in the U.S. Military, while becoming one of the first Caucasians to study the, (then), newly developed modern Korean martial arts?
 
I think to how my lady, (of South Korean descent), commonly exclaims to her family members, when they make a comment about how properly I can use the chopsticks. “He uses them better than me!” I really don’t know why that is. It’s just something that I do. But, there is no competition or award for any of that.
 
Again, I was about six when I got my first set of chopsticks. I remember, as a young boy, trying to figure them out. I don’t know why I asked for a set? I guess it was that Asian culture was never far from me. My first girlfriend, (as I jokingly refer to her), was this chubby girl of Japanese descent. We used to walk home together, at least part of the way, from our Southcentral L.A. grammar school. My best friend/first friend, from first grade was a boy of Chinese heritage. Plus, I began training in the martial arts, from a man of South Korean descent, who made his primary living as a gardener, when I was six. So… I don’t know??? You put the numbers together…
 
In any case, I worked with the chopsticks with little thought, from the time I was very young.
 
A story that I believe needs retelling… At least in term of the chopsticks. …A story I have told in some form of literature, in some book, somewhere… But, one I have not written about in a long-long time.  A story you may find interesting, as this is story of how the mind can be the architect of reality.
 
My mother’s mother, my grandmother, passed away in 1967. My mother went back to the funeral in her mother’s hometown in the Midwest. When she returned to L.A., she was all fake wearing her sunglasses at night, pretending to be crying, and all of that kind of stuff. I could see the BS in it then, even as a child. That’s just the kind of person that she was.
 
The moment she came back, she began to tell the tale of how there was rain during the funeral of her mother. And, according to Scottish superstition, if there is rain on an open grave, another family member will die within a year.
 
…Me, I love the rain. I think that would be a good omen. But, anyway…
 
From that point forward, my mother would constantly remind me, (and other family members), of this fact. She continued to exclaim, “I am the one that will die!”
 
As a kid, that obviously, freaked me the fuck out. I would call out, “No, mom, don’t die!” But, she would not stop her rants.
 
Close to a year later, my mother, father, and I went to this Chinese restaurant over on Crenshaw to have dinner. I, of course, wanted to eat with chopsticks. Back then, they were not passed out with every meal, as they are today. Then, you actually had to ask for them. …Ask for them in a Chinese restaurant.
 
Anyway, we ate our dinner and that was that. Me, with chopsticks and my parents with a knife and fork. Afterwards, as has long been the case in Chinese restaurants, we were given our fortune cookies. My mother opened hers, and there was nothing inside of it. No fortune. “You see,” she exclaimed. “I am going to die.” Immediately, my father handed her his, “Here, take mine.”
 
My father died about a week later from a massive heart attack at the age of (only) forty-eight.
 
So, there are a lot of things you can read into this. Read into this, if you have the mind. Did her magical thinking and superstition and constant reciting of that mantra bring a curse into reality? Did her constant invocation of negativity bring about a death? Or, was the superstation true? This occurrence was and is definitely something I still, all these decades later, question?
 
I remember I was filming a movie with a friend of mine, just after the L.A. riots of 1992, and we ended up over and in front of that restaurant, as that area was one of the epicenters of where the riots took place and we were getting some second-unit stuff for a film we were putting together. I told him the story of that story. I remember the shocked looked in his eyes. But, that’s the reality of this reality. People conjure up all kinds of life realities that have no definition in true understanding. Yet, they conjure them up just the same.
 
My mother, eventually coming to know who and what she was, I understand she didn’t really mean to bring that reality of death onto my father. But, she was just one of those lost souls, lost into a selfish reality where she lived and project all things from a mindset of ME—hoping to keep the focus of all those that lived and surrounded her, focused on her.
 
So, keep this in mind the next time you evoke some level of negativity. Keep this mind, as you emphasize a superstition. Keep this mind, as you never know whose life it will take. The person who is invoking the crisis, or the person who says, “Here, take mine.”
 
As for chopsticks… I’m always surprised when someone doesn’t know how to use them properly. Chuck Norris or anyone else. This is the modern world, where cultures are so cross-cultured that it is hard to see the division.
 
Be the bridge, not the division. And mostly, do not bring your superstitions into reality for they can truly kill people and destroy the lives of those who live on.