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by thereare5lights 2012 days ago
> Chinese Restaurant Syndrome

you'd think the name would give it away, but people are so quick to dismiss racism that this blaring red flag is just glossed over

3 comments

Ah but people didn’t make up that term. It was ‘popularized’ by the likes of the NYT. I’ve never heard a regular person refer to their perceived reaction to msg as Chinese restaurant syndrome. That comes from the press —the same ones now chastising people.
So stop calling MSG sensitivity "chinese restaurant syndrome" and disconnect the phenomenon from the racism. Does hysteria does not exist because it is a sexist word?
Yeah I never heard that term before reading these comments. I remember back in the late eighties the jokes about MSG were like (and about as lame as) the jokes about tryptophan in turkey. I don’t recall it ever being a critique of Chinese people, but of the Americanized Chinese junk food (e.g General Tzo’s chicken), very much so. The same way people criticize(d) chicken McNuggets. Nobody ever spoke down about expertly done Peking duck that I recall.