President Barack Obama's gum chewing, reported to be part of his efforts to kick cigarettes, drew the ire of the Chinese on social media during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Beijing this week.
Obama's blatant chomping of Nicotine gum during the conference caught the attention of the Chinese, and
not in a good way, The Washington Post reported.
"We made this meeting so luxurious, with singing and dancing, but see Obama, stepping out of his car chewing gum like an idler," Yin Hong, a journalism professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University, wrote on China's micro-blogging Twitter equivalent.
Back home, Fox News columnist Charles Krauthammer was equally as hard on Obama.
"My mother used to say, 'Don't chew gum,'" Krauthammer said. "And that was just in class. Look, the Chinese of all people have been extremely sensitive to the rituals, the decorum, the subtleties, the deference of diplomacy. This goes back 3,000 years. In China, chewing gum is a sign of disrespect."
This is not the first time Obama's gum chewing has set off foreigners on social media. Back in June, the president was criticized by the French for chomping on gum during the 70th anniversary of the
D-Day invasion, according to The Huffington Post.
The upside is that Obama recently received a clean bill of health, which can partially be attributed to a smoke-free lifestyle aided by the Nicotine gum, The Post noted.