well, some time ago, i find my self thinking on how was it possible for some people to eat the olives out of a Cesar salad. One day i tried one for real and i find it pretty soft and easy to eat! that's the reason!

Chinese's image of being difficult in western countries is probably because there are Chinese characters, which look nothing like the alphabet (and there are very many different ones), and spoken Chinese sounds very different compared to western languages (and uses tones). After starting to study it though, I have to admit it's not as hard as I thought it would be. The grammar is pretty straightforward, the pronunciation is a bit hard but managable and the Chinese characters aren't hard when you realize that the strokes aren't random, they're building blocks put together in different ways to express different ideas. Of course, learning other western languages is easier because the languages are more similar. Chinese is very different. The main problems when learning Chinese in the west are the characters and the tones. I have tones in my mother tongue so it was a bit easier for me to grasp the concept, but it's hard to get used to the fact that the tone in which you say the words can change the whole meaning. Also, tones are used in a different way in English and other languages, for example raising your voice at the end of a sentence turns it into a question.