The term “Chinese fries” does not exist. This is mindblowing. I’ve called them “Chinese fries” all my life and it turns out my parents just made the term up. Apparently, as a small child, I was like “what’s this?” and my parents were like “Chinese fries!” because it was something an American kid would understand. Obviously I knew that wasn’t the Chinese term (that’s yu char kway, or youtiao) but I thought it was a common term/translation used by English speakers. NOPE

This is like how Dad refers to fruit flies as “boongies” and all my life I figured it was a Malay word or something (I even told HGR this) and a couple years ago I found out Dad just made it up. It’s his own personal word.