Things I Realized About the U.S. That I Didn’t Understand Before

Edited on 5months ago

This time in the U.S., I came to realize a few things I hadn’t understood before.

There’s No Good Chinese Food in the U.S.
Nonsense. It’s just that good Chinese food isn’t cheap.
It’s actually really good.
Both Cantonese and Sichuan cuisine are excellent.
Way better than the pre-made dishes you get in Beijing malls or restaurants.
Yesterday in Los Angeles, I had a Sichuan meal that was just as good as in Chengdu—only the price is in U.S. dollars, about $50 per person.
The U.S. Is a Culinary Desert
Complete nonsense.
You can eat any cuisine from around the world, whatever you want.
It’s just that you might not be used to it.
Stop talking nonsense.
Cars Are Cheap in the U.S.
Absolute nonsense.
Five years ago, you could say that.
Now, for all gasoline cars that China can produce, they’re at least 30% cheaper in China—brands like Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen. For luxury cars that China can produce, the U.S. has an advantage due to tariffs—but these cars don’t matter to ordinary people.
Houses Are Cheap in the U.S.
Pure nonsense.
It depends on the location.
Are there cheap houses in Los Angeles or New York?
The U.S. has its own “Hegang” (a remote, low-cost city), and those are cheap—but Hegang is cheap too. Are you going to live there?
Everyone in the U.S. Is Fat
By my standards, not really.
By your standards, probably yes.

wokerman

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5months ago

Newbie

Cheap and expensive are not simply a matter of currency conversion, but rather a matter of the proportion of the same category of expenditure in income! For example, with the same income of 3,000, you pay 400 RMB for a tank of petrol in China, while someone else pays 50 USD for a tank. The exchange rate is roughly the same, but when you look at the proportion of income, it's clear who is paying more and who is paying less. Comparing prices without considering the proportion of income is just nonsense!

kale

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5months ago

Newbie

Just because you’ve had a good Chinese meal at one restaurant doesn’t mean all Chinese food in the US is good. It’s not a matter of price. Ten years ago, I had Sichuan cuisine at Xiao Xiong Restaurant in Houston, and it was truly authentic—much better than what you’d find in Beijing, and on par with Chengdu’s Sichuan cuisine. However, when I recently visited Houston to see family, I went back to the same Xiao Xiong Restaurant for Sichuan cuisine, but it no longer tasted like Sichuan food. My friend mentioned that the restaurant had changed owners several times over the past decade. Beijing is the same. There used to be a Hechuan Restaurant in the Olympic Village, run by a group of people from Hechuan, with waitresses even recruited from Sichuan. Not only was the taste authentic, but the Sichuan-accented Mandarin spoken by the waitresses was also pleasant to the ear. Now, it’s gone. So, you can’t generalise from one example. Just because one place is authentic doesn’t mean they all are. I’ve been to many Chinese restaurants in the United States, but I’ve only found two that were decent (the other one was a Hong Kong-style Cantonese restaurant, which can’t be called authentic, but the taste was acceptable). Maybe I’m just uninformed, or maybe I’m just broke.

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