It seems that Keith and Graeme had some food issues in Shanghai. They stayed in a four star hotel in the suburb of Shanghai because it is close to where they work. They don’t have many choices of the food as there are not many restaurants nearby. All they can do was eating at the hotel.

They felt a bit bored with hotel Chinese food after a few days in China. Then they asked if the hotel can provide some western food. After having the yes answer, they asked what exactly the hotel could provide.
Steak!
Anything else?
NO, only steak.

Both of them were very confused because the hotel can do steak but cannot cook any other foods, even as simple as pasta or sandwich.

OK, here comes the culture matters again.

As a Chinese, I hate the western Chinese food when I was abroad. All they could do were fried rice, sweet and sour pork, fried noodles etc. But of course, to a Chinese, this is not Chinese food and We don’t eat those often when we are in China.

So vice versa, for many Chinese, if talking about western food, the first thing in their minds is definitely steak. Steak is the symbol of western food in China.

If you are not a steak fan, do double check with the restaurants when they told you that they can do western food, because the result could be all they can do is only steak.

Tags: Chinese Food, Culture Matters

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