Fancy a Chinese?

[Tinktravels]

Now I know this is ridiculous but it might give you a laugh.

American people on tik tok have discovered that we call it ' a Chinese' rather than 'Chinese food'.
There has been so many stitches of videos from mainly English or Irish people saying things like 'I haven't had a Chinese in ages' or 'I really fancy a Chinese tonight'. There are many that are actually calling it racist which is we all know is rubbish!

They are also slating the food itself for not being authentic Chinese and having dishes like curry sauce and chips. Cant argue with that one we all know its not authentic but its bloody lovely.

Has it ever even crossed your mind that people would consider this racist?

(Search A Chinese British on tik-tok there are so many videos on this.)

@Gtsr443 "See Goodness Gracious Me and "Going for an English".

Just checking -you are referencing this to highlight that it's better not to say "a Chinese" aren't you? Forgive me-it's not entirely clear.

"Also ‘mad as a box of frogs’ is offensive to the French."

No it isn't. And I suspect you know it isn't.

Gawd almighty... some people need to spend less time on tiktok and more in face-to-face interactions. it's slang. same with getting an Indian, full English etc... ps: i am chinese..!

Americans have no room to comment when they have a Chinese takeaway in New York City that serves cheese burger egg rolls and cream cheese wontons. They also like chicken tikka masala in their Indian restaurants and I think they'll find that one belongs to Scotland!
Besides which, Chinese curry sauce that we have in the UK is literally made to have Chinese chips dipped in it! Food of the God's! I'd say those running Chinese takeaways here have got their target market down to a tee 😁

@CurlewKate
I though that in general people didn't say "a Chinese" any more? Nobody I know would. erm, me and everyone else I know says a Chinese, an Indian, a Thai a Mexian etc? God I'm hungry now!

I don't think "having a Chinese" is racist. Its descriptive of what it is.

But if we go for an Indian we say "going for a Ruby" - I think its rhyming slang, but not sure what for or why, we just do.

A big breakfast is a full English and I have seen menu's in Dublin serving a Full Irish for breakfast.

@CurlewKate really? What would they say then? I don’t know anybody who would say anything different? It’s an abbreviation- instead of saying “shall we get a Chinese takeaway tonight?” Instead people say “shall we get a Chinese tonight?”

We call our own national dish a Full English FFS
Americans eh?

There are many that are actually calling it racist which is we all know is rubbish!

From what I can see, a tiny minority is offended by the ‘a Chinese’ because they didn’t know it was short for ‘a Chinese takeaway’. The vast majority (including people who are British Chinese) are not offended at all and are explaining the difference.

"a Ruby" is a Ruby Murray - a curry

This is just (yet another) example of American identity politics being applied totally uncritically as if they are universal.

The original woman complaining about it, just couldn’t see at all that her assumptions only reflect her own cultural context. And, because it’s so easy to do via social media, broadcast it to the world as if she were ‘educating’ everyone.

The incredible irony of it is all the videos complaining that standard British Chinese takeaway is pathetic and inauthentic, unlike American Chinese take away. 🤣 Even more so that they’re using tik tok to arbitrate from an American perspective about what real Chinese food is.

Stupid.

Tik tok is full of people looking for the next stupid bandwagon of the week to jump
on to. Last week it was cakegate. This week it’s British takeaway.

The Daily Mail makes another, proxy appearance. It seems to feed lots of threads that turn up here.

I agree with you.

Hmm, if getting a takeaway I say will we have Chinese or Indian, there is no racism there, I don’t need to add the word food to confirm that. I am not intending eating a Chinese or Indian person.

I really fancy a Chinese now.

Ah!

I have just googled Ruby Murray. Well, she wasn't what I was expecting. How odd - you have a lot of success in your own right, but you are forever known as rhyming slang.

Just like poor old Richard III.

No, that’s what a mad poster claimed, sorry if I wasn’t clear.

surely frogs in this case is referring to amphibians not French people.

Im chinese, no I dont find this offensive, but I do feel a bit sad that they call it "chinese food", I know its not their fault because people need to alter the dishes to suit the local peoples taste, just like Mcdonalds in China sells rice dishes too. However, if you have ever been to China you will you we eat nothing like those "American Chinese" food.

Not racist. But it's a bit odd.

But saying "a McDonald's" or "a Costa" is weirder!

The response videos to this are all over my FYP at the moment, but I’ve yet to see the original version.

Some of these creators seem to be chronically online. A little while ago there was a fuss over Drew Barrymore dancing in the rain, and about the British slang word for cigarettes.

My daughter has a TikTok account for horse riding and she got a roasting from American TikTokers who clearly didn’t understand the differences between American and English riding. I just don’t think some of them realise there’s a whole world out there with a whole different way of doing things

RE the variety of food - in the US, the most long-standing Chinese restaurants in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles where there’s a large, consistent, and very long-standing Chinese population are MORE likely to have a variety of food on the menu that is not Chinese in origin. They originally served local communities and had things for Chinese people with Americanised children (and increasingly Americanised tastes of their own) as well as to bring in new regular customers by catering to the tastes of non-Chinese people and specifically other immigrant groups that might have a significant concentration in the area.

A lot of these more casual, everyday neighborhood places have gone and been replaced with more upscale Chinese focused places where people go specifically to have Chinese food because they DON’T eat it every day. But the old places (if you can find one!) still often have at least a few choices of sandwiches, pasta, hamburgers, fried chicken, etc. on the menu. And it’s very common to see combo place - Cuban Chinese is classic in NYC, and there are loads of Chinese-Japanese, Chinese-Korean, Chinese-Thai, Chinese-Vietnamese etc. on the west coast. I’ve seen seen Chinese Mexican and Chinese Peruvian in Southern California.

Of course, the Chinese food in the diaspora is not the same Chinese food you'd typically have in China, unless someone has intentionally mirrored current tastes and trends from China, imports ingredients, etc.

The person who originally posted it has backed down as she accepts it's shorthand for a Chinese takeaway/meal and that the UK uses it for all nationalities (including a full English ) and corporations (eg a McDonalds)

As for the authenticity angle, the US has plenty of American chains that sell inauthentic equivalents. Not everyone has access to a China Town with authentic cuisine.

I don't order chips from the Chinese but this reinforces how arrogant some Americans can be about the world and an insistence that everyone else must be wrong.

The other bizarre thing is that the many things on a standard Chinese takeaway menu seem to have been reduced on tik tok to chips with curry sauce, possible salt and pepper chips, plain fried rice and chicken/pork balls with sweet and sour sauce.

Which, is fine, if that is what you get from
the takeaway. But loads of people are eating all sorts in theirs.

Then there’s the simple fact that you can actually order much more what people in
china eat versions of Chinese takeaway in most British cities, which seems to have been lost in all of this. If I want to order mixed pork congee with century egg, or smashed cucumbers with garlic sauce or chicken and pork tripe braised with white pepper or poached frog legs in chilli sauce I can get that on Deliveroo in the provincial city I live in.

or I can order chicken balls and chips and curry sauce (not from the same place admittedly) if I prefer.

Because there’s quite a lot of choice and differentiation on offer even within the Chinese takeaway offering in this country in the 21st century. There are actually loads of takeaways that have two menus - so it would be possible to phone through an order of red braised pork knuckle and chicken balls with curry sauce if I wanted to combine the two.

I assume that it’s possible to do the same in many American cities. Except that you would have hot and spicy pig intestines with your lo mein, general tso’s chicken and beef and broccoli.

(Full disclosure: I don’t think I will be ordering the frogs or the tripe any time soon - but the congee and the cucumber are nice! I think the properly Chinese students at the local university population may be more the target market for much of that menu).

I couldn't be more sure that nobody ever thought "mad as a box of frogs" is offensive to French people.