Lots of bullshit details here.
China expert was in China for a whole 18 months as an anglo expat english teacher. expat english teachers are famously known to learn much about the cultures in which they live. in no way do most of them make mostly expat friends, go to expat bars and eat at western slop restaurants
First thing they noticed about China: the macdongles is different! Surely this offers some insight into the asian mind.
The difference: I'm sure we've all seen the old redditesque urban legend where someone's dad prides himself of not cleaning up after eating, because being a messy dickhead "creates jobs". apparently, the chinese are a whole nation of redditor dads, which is now a socialist virtue. because there's nothing more socialist than creating work by wasting people's time, especially in a country that could maybe hire people to reforest the desert or work in a solar cell factory.
personally, I don't eat at mcdangols, whether in china or elsewhere, but I use their toilets frequently so i've been inside their corporate-imperialist embassies many times. chinese maccy-eaters are in no way more messy than westerners.
Imagine being in a place with ten thousand years of culinary traditions through dozens of cultures and still going to the McDonald's.
best food country in the world and they went to mcburg
macdong's in china has youtiao and soymilk though, so it's already better than western mac's. still, you'll get much better youtiao and soymilk and any morning market/breakfast joint
China has a very active restaurant culture. You usually eat out, for breakfast at least.
if they only went to mcdonald's, or if they were only there a few days, sure. but if you're somewhere for months and months you can probably sacrifice one meal to check out the local interpretation of something familiar.