get him a fork

I think I am winning a strange battle.

You never would have guessed the weight of uncertainty upon you as a westerner entering a typical restaurant in Korea.

You enter through the door as any normal person would.
Perhaps a traditional greeting: "Anneyong Haesey-o".
Find a table, get yourself settled.

We're still wandering within the realms of reality here.
Perhaps you order off of the menu (a little self-conciously due to your bad command of the lingo).
Your food arrives.
Just like anyone else.

So why at this point do you feel the weight of uncertainty and the eyesight of every patron falling upon your very table at this specific moment in time?

It's all down to those two shiny little sticks placed neatly on the table just about where our customary "knife and fork" should be.

You've now got two options, as far as I see it.
Hope that the ground opens up and swallows you thereby relieving you of the obscene pressure... or you just get on with it and pretend that you are the master of the 'sticks able to control and manouvere down to the smallest grain of rice.

I often wonder what they think I'm actually going to do with them.

In my experience, once you start throwing them around a little, just listen closely and you can hear an audible wave of relief passing throughout the establishment.

And by this time you are in the home strait.
Dust off what remains of your bibimpab, salute and congratulate the little old lady behind the counter and leave with the knowledge that dingity and decorum were once again upheld, no one "lost face" and everybody will be able to fully enjoy their evening.