you know Japanese? How neat!! I'd love to learn tiwanese or vietnamese but they are so hard!

I don;t like either of those ideas, either! I do like your idea of just faking dropping it to the floor. If they have a salad for and a regular fork, I would use the one that looked clean...but I have to say, it would be rather off putting to have dirty tableware. I tend to check as I lay places out!