It happens in some other countries that the representative Chinese dishes for local people are far different from those for Chinese people. It’s also true in our relatively close neighbour Japan.
I never figured out why Chinese restaurants in Japan feature mapo tofu (a classic Chinese dish) along with some other uncommon dishes. This phenomenon even spread to Korea as well. They also made changes to the flavour so that the dish is more sweet and less spicy. I felt like flying back to China and having some authentic mapo tofu to remind myself of the real essence of spiciness.
4.
Chinese
cuisine =
mapo tofu?
No way.
It was in summer when I travelled to Japan and the weather couldn’t be said to be cold at all. But I noticed that a lot of people was wearing masks. “Are they afraid of getting tanned?” I thought.
The other day I asked my Japanese friend about this interesting fact, and she told me that quite a lot of Japanese are allergic to pollen. Besides, girls like to wear masks if they didn’t wear makeup. Hmm, in that sense it’s very convenient and maybe I should try as well…
3.
Why do
they like
wearing
masks?
It’s not difficult to understand their affection for pandas after all as everyone knows Japan loves and produces kawaii things. Almost every city/town I had been to in Japan had their own mascots. But unlike in China, where some mascots have appearance that makes you wish they’d better don’t exist, Japanese mascots are very well designed and hence very popular even in other countries.
2.
They cutify
everything
and make
mascots
I don’t even think Chinese people love panda as much as Japanese people do! I mean, we do love these fluffy balls and are very proud of them. But we don’t show off them everywhere. But in Japan, you can find pandas on packaging, in front of restaurants, on TV, in souvenir shops…
Maybe a foreign visitor will start doubting whether pandas really originate from China instead of Japan.
1.
PANDA
FEVER!
