I suppose Chinese 'culture' is something that most westerners are not used to. I went to China on a school trip in October and I was quite shocked by my fellow pupils' attitudes and misconceptions. I do not claim to know a lot about Chinese culture, but when we were presented with chopsticks, there was a huge uproar...
"OMG why are there no knives and forks!?"
"EEEEEW what is THAT???"
"It's beef.."
"Oh, are you sure it's not DOG MEAT???"
"Urgh, what are you eating???"
"It's called 'mantou' - a type of bun/bread."
"Oh right coz it looks like MONKEY BRAINS!!"
Watermelon is brought out at the end of the meal...
<whilst eating the fruit>...
"Where's the dessert?"
"WHAT? You mean that WAS our dessert?? I thought we were going to get a proper pudding like apple crumble!! What? Not even CHOCOLATE? OMG!"
"Eeeew, that cheese is gross!"
"It's not cheese...It's tofu..."
"WTF? What's tofu?? WHAT do you mean it's not cheese??"
"The Chinese don't traditionally eat much dairy..."
"OMG WTF?"
And yes, every meal was like that. For breakfast we had bacon, eggs etc and people complained about how they wanted a 'proper English' breakfast. When we went to a different hotel where there were no Chinese foods for breakfast, with the same bacon, eggs etc they said, "OMG finally, a REAL English breakfast...I was getting so sick of Chinese food for breakfast..."
At the end...
"Omg I am so proud of myself, I tried REAL Chinese food!!!"
Yes, so authentic, the stuff you get in takeaways back home. Meals were sweet and sour, rice, CHIPS (!!), beef stir fry etc.
