It depends on where in the country. In the southern China, people eat a lot of stuff that other people would consider exotic. But in the north, the diet is actually pretty "normal" according to Western view. When I lived in Beijing, China, our diet was just like here in the States: poultry, pork, beef, fish, veggies like tomato, potato, cucumber... I didn't try any exotic stuff, like pig feet and chicken feet, until I came to the U.S. because most of Chinese food served in the States are southern style (I'm talking about real Chinese food in Chinatown, not that fake stuff like beef brocoli). Heck, I still don't know what half of the veggies I find in Chinatown are called. Those are mainly southern food. My wife always messes with me by telling me a name for a type of veggie. Only later, I found out that she made up that name to get me in trouble...:nono:
When we went back to China to visit in 2000, I had snake for the first time. And yes, they got snakes and things in China, but in the North, people also treat them as exotic items. The restaurant we went to had live performance by people who are believed to be "snake eaters" and they made the whole thing look like some sort of adventure experience. So this would definitely be something exotic to the local people in Beijing.
