Chinese restaurants, the bane of my existence

I was at Jeem yesterday, for dim sum, and was asked twice if I needed a fork. Whaa? This is the first time this has happened to me in a few years. I think last time someone said this was at Bobo in Champaign.

I wasn't even struggling with the chopsticks or anything. Certainly I wasn't sticking them in my nose, confused as to their use. I'm here for dim sum and you assume this is the first time I've ever encountered chopsticks? Should I offer my waiters a dictionary when they don't understand me? Would that be racist? Isn't their assumption toward my chopstick familiarity also racist?

Here's a question I got on QuestionSwap:

do you consider even positive stereotypes racism? (ex: black people are good at sports, asian people are good at math)

My answer:

Going strictly by the definition of racism (1. The belief that members of one race are superior to members of other races, 2. The belief that members of one ethnic group are superior to members of another ethnic group, 3. The belief that capability or behavior can be racially defined), positive stereotypes are indeed racist.

Not going by the strict definition, I believe positive stereotypes are still racist. A statement "Asian people are good at math" implies that race determines, to a certain extent, a person's intelligence. If this is assumed to be true, it follows that while Asians are smart, some race has to be dumb. This is racism.

This is somewhat off-topic: these stereotypes exist for a particular reason. Saying "Asian people are good at math" is racist and inaccurate. However, saying "on average, Chinese students attending urban schools exceed their counterparts from other parts of the world in the subject of math" is not racist and is factually correct. So, there are "acceptable" ways to express your sentiment, as long as you don't base things on race and present factual arguments.