Although Chinese snack foods are almost unheard of outside of the country, some native dishes from southeast China's Shaxian county have made a big splash domestically with the opening of several "Shaxian snack bars" in major cities.

Eleven years ago, Lin Kaiming and his wife traveled from Shaxian, located in Fujian province, to the city of Zhanjiang in southern Guangdong province to open their first Shaxian snack bar. Although they had to work nearly 20 hours a day in the beginning, their returns were satisfactory.

Liu's success is just one example of the 60,000 Shaxian natives who have opened snack bars in China, as well as in the U.S., Japan, Germany, Australia and Singapore.

"The Shaxian snack bars produce an annual turnover of more than 5 billion yuan and a net income of more than 700 million yuan," said Huang Songfu, president of the Shaxian Snacks Guild.

The local government in Shaxian has made efforts to help the snack food industry flourish.

"To increase the employment rate and incomes for local residents, the Shaxian government has always played an active role in promoting Shaxian snacks," said Zheng Xingjing, director of the Shaxian Snack Bureau. Zheng said the bureau, established in 1997, is the first and perhaps only one of its kind in the entire country.

Guan said he intends to boost the industry to a new level by starting a listed company to act as a "carrier" for Shaxian snacks, a goal that Huang said can be realized by incorporating large private snack food chains, as well as processing and supply companies.

"Shaxian snacks bear the dreams of all of Shaxian's people," said Le Rongguang, deputy magistrate of Shaxian county. "We have spared no efforts to foster the industry's growth."

滬江英語快訊：沙縣小吃，遍布全國，恐怕沒有人沒有吃過吧？如今，沙縣小吃已在全國開設(shè)了2萬多家分店，解決了當(dāng)?shù)?萬多農(nóng)民的就業(yè)，年?duì)I業(yè)額超過50億元，凈收入約7億元。現(xiàn)在，沙縣小吃更是走向世界，在美國、日本、德國、澳大利亞和新加坡都開了分店。誰說沙縣小吃就不能成為中國的麥當(dāng)勞呢？