In America most of the time people go to a Chinese restaurant, the food served there is a very Americanized form of Chinese food. For instance, P.F. Chang's is one of the most popular Chinese restaurant franchises in America, yet it serves a lot of food that isn't even eaten in China. The most common Chinese dishes in America: General Tso's Chicken, Orange Chicken, Beef and Broccoli, and many more, aren't even real dishes in China. If you tried to order these dishes in China, natives would have no clue what you were talking about. The most surprising item that actually isn't Chinese is the Fortune Cookie. No one knows what in the world a Fortune Cookie is in China and that's so ironic. I think that Chinese food is generally very flavorful and complex; the reason why Chinese food became so Americanized is because Chinese food had to become more basic and simplified since many people foreign to China won't be able to handle the complex tastes and textures of the food. Something so simple as fried rice is not a common dish in a restaurant in China at all, Chinese people usually only eat fried rice when there is a lot of leftover rice and they would use that leftover rice to make a decent lunch the next day. Another major stereotype is that Chinese people eat a lot of noodles, that is only partially true; there is a large food cultural divide in China. The northern part of China eats a ton of noodles and a lot of other flour based foods (dumplings and buns), but the southern part of China eats a lot of rice instead of noodles, dumplings, and buns. All in all, many people assume what they eat at Chinese restaurants in America is what all Chinese food is like and that is a poor misconception. To be honest, even I didn't know that a lot of these dishes weren't popular in China either so I don't blame people for having this common misconception. However, this common misconception causes people in America to be very ill-informed about another important part of the Chinese culture.
Image: Sesame Orange Chicken, CCo Public Domain, Google Images.
Image: Sesame Orange Chicken, CCo Public Domain, Google Images.