My best friend is Indian. Many of my friends are. We talked a lot about India. I read a lot about India. I watched a bunch of Indian movies. I ate my fair share of Indian food.

And then I went there. Nothing could have prepared me for it. Seeing it for yourself is a whole different beast. It puts the whole thing in context.

Reducing a whole culture to a meal in a local approximation of its cuisine? Come on.

Hell, after living in Canada for two decades and consuming American culture ad nauseum, going there for a few days is always a mind trip. The magic happens in the details, not in the broad strokes. I wouldn't pretend to understand America because I ate at a fried chicken place.

> Do you really need to travel to China to get an appreciation for Chinese food? That’s kinda the point the author makes.

"when I was in Abu Dhabi, I went on a guided tour of a falcon hospital. I took a photo with a falcon on my arm. I have no interest in falconry or falcons, and a generalized dislike of encounters with nonhuman animals. But the falcon hospital was one of the answers to the question, “What does one do in Abu Dhabi?” So I went."

I think the author has bigger issues than travel.

Yes, because once you get there, you learn that "Chinese Food" outside of China is generally a collection of different cuisines sanitised for the local palette. There's no such thing as real Chinese food; China is enormous and full of a wide range of cultures and cuisines. While we're on the subject, there isn't one Chinese language either...

Since you mention China specifically: I was in Beijing once. On my first day there I walked into a random restaurant and was given a vacuum-sealed package full of stuff I couldn't recognize. There were multiple spoons, a teapot (I think), a small plate... far from the chopsticks I was expecting. I eventually had to accept that I had no idea how to eat "Chinese style" and resigned myself to being "that guy" who eats straight out of the serving spoon.

I gained a new appreciation that day for what "different culture" truly means, and has made me more tolerant to those who break social rules without malice. I knew all of that before, but that moment really helped me grok the concept.

To put it in algorithmic terms (this is HN after all): one could be stuck in a local maximum and not known it, and making a small jump in a completely random direction might be exactly what's needed to get out of there.

5000 years of history summed up as Panda Express.

This is _precisely_ why people need to travel: not to learn 5,000 years (good luck) but to appreciate that there's a helluva lot more than to a place.

I don't need to have a "need". Want alone is enough. We did not "need" to do shit since we were wandering around gathering food some bazillion years ago.

I’ve eaten a lot of Japanese food in London, but I just came back from Japan and the food was /not/ the same - it was so much better.

This is a terrible example because that’s one cuisine where the western experience and the China experience are significantly different. I’m talking even authentic restaurants not Panda Express.

But we are not rational machines. There is a difference in emotion and depth to buying a cookbook, or randomly stumbling upon a dish you (maybe unexpectedly) like and take the ideas of it home with you. One (of many) example of mine is british breakfast tea.

Funny thing about that. I always have liked (Americanized I know) Chinese food without visiting China.

But I didn’t love Vietnamese food until visiting Vietnam. Having been there, I now seek it out here.

Even though I had it on quite a few occasions as a kid.

Could we do same argument with other food. Like why try any authentic burger when you have McDonald's available anywhere. Or specific pizza as you can get frozen one from a store...

Yes? I traveled to China and had some amazing food I haven’t found here since, Same for pretty much anywhere I’ve traveled. This is due to not having to force things to fit the American palate and survive as a restaurant.

Yes, unless you live in a place that really has authentic Chinese food (and there are so many different kinds). And how do you really know it is?

So the answer is almost always: certainly. Especially if we talk about Sichuan food - very hard to find the authentic stuff imho.