>When I was young, we used to go to "Western" chinese restaurants in our small town. As an appetizer they used to put out a plate of sesame seeds and another plate of soya sauce. We would dip our forks in the soy, then into the seeds and eat it off of our fork.
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>I now live in Vancouver which has tons of authentic chinese restaurants and I have even been to China, but have never seen this. Was this a western creation like some other styles of chinese food?

I don't know about this apetizer, but as a bit of trivia, the eggroll was invented in the US, and chinese food is quite different depending on what country you eat it in (i.e. in Venezuela a wonton soup is a whole meal by itself - it's got pieces of pork and lots of noodles in it besides the dumplings).

Alex