A wok is a truly weird and wonderful utensil. Vessel. Cooking implement? Surely it's not just a ‘pot’? (Google says it's a vessel) You can use it for all kinds of cooking activities because it can handle stir and deep frying, steaming, smoking, braising for sure, but is also great for tossing pasta in the sauce and - that's the good bit – warming up tortillas for tacos as it will house more than two at a time easily.
I've had and used one for ever, having started with a cheap Ikea one. Then I thought I'd graduate to a proper grown up article and got myself a wok that needed to be seasoned. Off I went to coat it with oil and put it over high heat for two hours, or whatever the recommendation was. The fire brigade weren’t called out but the exercise wasn't entirely successful. Weird burnt film sat all over the inside and – even though that might have been precisely the seasoning, albeit overdone – I didn't like the look of it so it went to the bin.
Next I had a non-stick John Lewis (I know, not what a Chinese takeaway would use) and cooked mainly pasta in it. Then I became a bit more knowledgeable and obsessed with cast iron so an unbelievably heavy thing appeared. I would scrub it ferociously with lashings of Fairy liquid after each cooking session and then wondered why things stuck to it when next used.
I did learn eventually – you don't wash cast iron with detergents only scrape off the residues with a brush and hot water – but weirdly, the sticking problem persisted. I'd heat the wok up to glowing red, toss the meat vigorously in and it would cook nicely, but always left a horrible stuck on layer that even the vegetables cooked in it next could not always shift.
Where‘s the rub? It appears you need to let the meat sit in the wok for half a minute before pushing it about – it sticks and then relaxes as its temperature rises from the heat of the wok.
I tested it on the recipe below – if the sticky pork doesn't stick, nothing ever will – and it works. As I say below: let it sit and relax before you start to prod it. It won't burn. It's not even necessary to heat up the wok to screaming smoking – moderate heat as you'd have in a frying pan is sufficient.
NB. I also own a carbon steel wok bought when my back packed in after lifting the cast iron monster too many times. The same approach works: no detergents in washing up and a little patience when stir frying meat or fish.
You live. You learn. And YouTube helps too.