(Thread 1/10) I love me some authentic Chinese food! The roots of this came from my travelling to help run Magic Tournaments. Often the staff wouldn't be out until past midnight, and several times the only restaurants still open for sit-down service were Chinese restaurants.

(Thread 2/10) Anyone who has ever been to an event with me @starcitygames knows that I will drag everyone to authentic Chinese restaurants! We've been to some pretty esoteric locations (Dragon Court Charlotte - I'm looking at you https://www.facebook.com/Dragon-Court-Chinese-Restaurant-152714471430803/)

(Thread 3/10) In Roanoke, we have a surprising number of authentic Asian places. Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese are in abundance (Shout out to Thai Oudone, City Courter 2, Vina Cafe, Ike's Kitchen, Sticks & Spoons, Viet Sub, Pho Saigon, Oriental House, Red Jasmine, Taste of Asia)

(Thread 4/10) A good number of the Chinese restaurants in the Roanoke are are owned by Vietnamese families. They serve American Chinese Food. This is the typical Chinese that most Americans are familiar with - General Tso's, Egg Rolls, Moo Shoo, etc).

(Thread 5/10) I'm all for American Chinese food, but facts are that it's not traditional. There are many, many MANY different types of traditional Chinese cooking. Here's a primer on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine

(Thread 6/10) Some of my favorite dishes:
Head-on Salt and Pepper Shrimp (Boston)
Tendons in hot sauce (NJ)
Stir-Fried Mushrooms & Bok Choy in Oyster Sauce (San Fran)
Soup Dumplings (Xiaolongbao) (Philly)
I also try to get to Peter Chang's restaurants in Richmond, when able.

(Thread 7/10) So each year, I try to reach out and see if there are any restaurants in Roanoke that have started serving ANY form of traditional Chinese food. I don't care if it's on-menu, off-menu, secret menu - I just really like and miss it. I made my post yesterday on Reddit

(Thread 8/10) And that's where this post turns from a discussion about Chinese Food into Casual Racism and calling it out. https://www.reddit.com/r/roanoke/comments/kk13wh/any_good_authentic_chinese_in_roanokesalem_area/ A lot of people started offering up Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai restaurants instead of Authentic Chinese.

(Thread 9/10) This ended up in this exchange. Notice how the people saying "it's all just the same" are getting upvoted, and people who are saying "no, it's really not" are getting downvoted. In particular /u/j0ji and /u/junkthought's posts.

(Thread 10/10) This is the type of casual racism that should be called out. It's not comfortable to do so, but the absolute very least you can do in these situations is say "saying all Asian cultures are the same and who cares If I say so" is ignorant and racist.