My family is ethnic Chinese and I grew up using chopsticks. I hold it using the pencil hold and no one has ever corrected me. It works well like 98% of the time. I may not be able to delicately pick up a tiny grain of rice or an entire salt shaker like my uncle who was demonstrating the proper hold but honestly those are such edge cases. The pencil hold is just way more natural and easier adoption may outweigh the benefit of handling some edge cases.