From the article (emphasis mine):
"My childhood home in suburban Chicago always smelled like whatever we were cooking. Visiting us meant cloaking yourself in the scent of haam daan ju yoke beng, a dish of steamed pork and salted egg, or the perfume of mapodoufu, tofu and minced pork with a spicy chili and fermented black bean sauce."
Chili peppers are exclusively originally from the Americas, and so are black beans. They were only introduced to Asia from European traders in the last several hundred years. So the author's genuine Chinese cuisine has ingredients originally only eaten by Native Americans and then traded to them by Europeans.
China is now by far the largest producer (appropriator?) in the world of potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers; all of which came from the Americas and were only introduced to the rest of the world including China in recent times.
Food is already a global mix beyond what most people realize. -_-'