>> I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of this article. I don't either. The tone is incredibly whiny and maybe more than a smidge elitist, in my opinion

>> I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of this article. I don't either. The tone is incredibly whiny and maybe more than a smidge elitist, in my opinion. My parents came to Canada (from China) in the early 60s, and first rented living spaces in basements of... well, white people. They told me stories of how they wouldn't cook any "aromatic" foods like shrimp paste or salted fish, because the smells were deemed offensive. But that was then. Fast forward to 2017, and the acceptance of the "weirder" Chinese foods among North Americans seems to be pretty good, and we can probably thank the Food Network and other TV shows for that. The author's complaints about the lack of interest in the finer points of some Chinese cuisines to me isn't a big deal. You can just as easily make the argument that people have the same apathy towards Italian food. I'm sure there are large swaths of people who think good Italian food is what you get at the Olive Garden. I live in a predominantly Chinese suburb in Ontario known to have a lot of good Chinese restaurants (catering primarily to Chinese people). I'm sure there is a lot of nuance to the food, but a lot of it is lost on me. Most of the popular restaurants are basically cookie cutter clones of the other restaurants. Unlike the writer, I don't have a problem with white writers introducing the non-Chinese masses to Chinese cuisine. People want someone like them to introduce them to something exotic to them. My parents for the longest time would only eat Chinese food and "common" western food like McD's, steaks and roast beef. My siblings and I would have to do a lot of convincing to get them to eat anything else. Of course, if their Chinese friends suggested something because they tried it and liked it, it would all of a sudden be "Oh I hear XYZ is delicious! We should try it", even though we may have suggested it a dozen times.