Pizza is pretty popular in East Asia though.

And there's such a thing as hong Kong style cheese baked rice.

I mean it's 2021. When I was growing up Kraft singles were common. Today I can go to a supermarket and pick up a block of Gouda.

Also, I think there's degrees of lactose intolerance? I don't really take full cream milk as is anymore because of that but cream and cheese and lattes are fine...

Definitely degrees to it, and also for many people it does fluctuate over time depending on how much you help your guts keep feeding on lactose to keep the workers alive.

Funny, I was just talking about dairy in Asia in the thread about alcohol flush. At least in Taiwan, cheese is super popular. Wine and cheese charcuterie, cheese on dan bing, cheese tea even (albeit creme cheese). It's probably a generational thing though. Many young people here study abroad and are very international in their tastes.

East Asians are the most lactose-intolerant humans. I assume that's a factor.

Africans are, as far I know. And it's the mouth-feel of cheese the Chinese hate.

Interesting. In my experience, living in Japan and Korea, cheese is everywhere -- sometimes in dishes you wouldn't even expect. I wonder if age is a factor in your observations.

"Cheese" in Japan tends to be mild, inoffensive "Kraft Singles" type processed cheese (in taste/texture, that is, actual form factors vary). Stronger tasting cheeses of any kind (sharp hard cheeses, white or blue cheese, etc) remain quite niche.

Japanese ”cheese” is not really cheese. You easily can’t find a cheese that would not be a single slice packaged in a plastic. The ”actual cheese” like sold in europe is harder and comes in actual blocks.

Both those countries also have sixty years of exposure to cheese through the US military presence, the change may be fairly recent and may be somewhat limited to areas foreigners are likely to go.

I've lived in Japan for over a decade and definitely not in the foreigner bubble. Cheese is just ubiquitous...

Is it widely used in the countryside, like throughout Hokkaido?

I haven't been to the place, but I'm gonna assume cheese is a big thing there as well, considering 60% of all dairy products in the country are produced there.

I do have been there (I live in Aomori, so quite close), and it's exactly as you describe.

Cheeses (mostly processed cheese) are pretty common food (at least than funazushi) in Japan everywhere at least for 20 years. It seems that lactose in cheese isn't much high.

It depends on your level of lactose intolerance. I have a family member who is lactose intolerant, but can eat aged, hard cheeses.

An aged, hard cheese will have much lower levels of lactose than a fresh, soft cheese, to the point where it virtually disappears.

That can be checked by looking at "sugars" in the Nutrition Facts table: lactose is a sugar, and most cheeses do not have added sugar (well, at least "ordinary" ones). If the "sugars" row is at zero or "traces", that means all the lactose has been digested by the bacteria.

Honestly it's mostly just the Chinese (except those living nearer to Russia) who hate cheese.

Why? Is it the sharp taste, how its made, or something else?

Like anything it probably varies, especially by local culture. Source, method of production, smell, etc, as well as the particular product--there's significant variety to cheeses, not to mention dairy products generally. But one very general aspect described to me is the lingering milky mouth feel and aftertaste. That person didn't much like butter, either. I've enjoyed several East Asian analogs to cheese, like stinky tofu and natto; none are similar in that regard as they go down rather clean.

And don't discount the mental factor. I've eaten balut (the Vietnamese variety that is older and more developed), dog, live shrimp, fish gut soup, etc. Other than balut, which has a livery flavor (not to my personal taste, though it's more pronounced with duck than with chicken), the flavor and texture were never particularly foreign or distasteful, per se; the aversion was mostly mental and simply an artifact of cultural familiarity. The dog stew I ate was delicious, but near the bottom of the bowl, my appetite sated, disgust reared its head and I had trouble keeping it down. Later that day I learned my partner had the exact same experience. Fermenting and consuming the lactation secretions of herd animals is, on its face, kind of gross if it's not what you grew up with.

It's biological waste grown on cow extract. Pretty sure it's not that different from other gross-to-those-not-familiar-with-it foods, it's just that we're familiar with it.

An Asian friend once told me that when she came to America as a child and someone gave her cheese, she thought they were trying to poison her. I get the sense that that's not too far off from the common sentiment for those uninitiated.

East Asians have a higher rate of lactose intolerance.

I'd assume the mould is a deterrent.

Shoyu (soy sauce), sake, and miso are all made with mold (aspergillus oryzae) and are major components of Japanese cuisine, so no.

Shoyu and miso etc. are fermented, and the end result is all the consumer sees - the mould isn't there. My Japanese wife love all fermented Japanese food, but has an extreme aversion for mould of any kind, even in minuscule amounts. Her nose is hyper sensitive about the stuff. So no blue cheese here.. (she likes a lot of other types of cheese. She's not lactose intolerant, but in any case hard cheeses tend to be very low in lactose).

SE Asia uses mould too. Eg tempeh.