You know what occurred to me?

Au contraire mon ami.

My favorite dish is a big plate of Shrimp Lo Mein that I bring home and grate a generous amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano over the noodles. I'm breaking all the culinary rules, including using cheese with seafood, but that's some good eats.

I'm not big on Asians, but if I found a Chinese stripper that could cook a mean bowl of Szechuan Shrimp, I'd put a ring on her.

How about Chinese Jews? Is there such a thing as Chinese Jews?

Chinese people are genetically intolerant of lactose. While turning milk into cheese reduces the lactose content, it does not eliminate it.

It mostly has to do with the lack of domestic herding in China which is generally true of most Asian countries. In Mongolia and NW China where herding cattle and goats was more common, you see more cheese in cuisine.

China has a long standing tradition of each region eating mainly what it produced, Communism reinforced that idea.

They don't use beans either

Ermita_Nights, then how do Chinese babies digest mama's milk? >_>

Most mammals can digest lactase fine as infants (it's one of the definitions of a mammal), but have decreased lactase enzyme production as they become adults.

Decreased lactase activity correlates well with cultures who do not have a lot of diary in their diets and ranges from "5% in northern Europe through 71% for Sicily to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries."
en.wikipedia.org

*Most mammals can digest LACTOSE fine as infants

We really need a quick couple minute edit function.

Mr. Miyagi's protein of choice is flies - not cheese

There is a second reason for the lack of cheese, 1 the climate over much of the region is less than awesome for milk production. Thus leading that culture to develop a method of extracting protein from soy and putting it into liquid form (soy milk) and that liquid can be curdled and pressed just like cheese to make tofu. So in essence tofu is chinese cheese.

There's no Little Chinatown in China...

As some people have already mentioned, because milk and dairy in general are not common in Asia, a lot of people develop lactose intolerance due to not being exposed to milk often enough, so a lot of Chinese dishes don't use cheese.

As an Asian person born and raised in the US though, I don't have this problem. Good thing too, because I fucking love cheese.

There have been some surprisingly informative posts in what is essentially a dunk joke thread on a strip club message board. Thanks guys! This was a fun read.

Sometimes there’s no cheese in cheese either.

The above is a tribute to Gatorfan’s famous one liners :)

Papi,

As in fumunda cheese, toe cheese...?

Luckily, after eating Chinese, you can still cut the cheese.