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.
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.
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."
[view link]
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.
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.
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