I was surprised, maybe a little too pleasantly so, that they served it as a snack on the flight to Hong Kong. Normally you would expect mini-pretzels or mixed nuts but as homage to the destination of the journey, I found myself looking at a miniature cup of noodles the size of my fist (along with mini-chopsticks!)
- It's smaller than it looks!
Now imagine yourself as the CEO of a large airline company. You have just had the type of brilliant, light-bulb over head, eureka-esque moment that justify your unjustifiable salary: You decided to serve regional snacks to your passengers. (I wonder if they provide complimentary mini-vodka bottles on flights to Russia...) You want to mass-produce these items to cut costs, yet, still have it appeal to the myriad of localized ethnic-identities in the East. What do you do?
The obvious answer apparently was to make instant cup-noodles called, in English, "Chinese Noodles," with the description in Japanese and instructions in Korean. The noodles themselves tasted like Vietnamese phở. Hey, you just created a product that is patently safe from any accusations of discrimination. What more can you hope for?
