I do think it’s something many Chinese home cooks get used to rather than have strong preference for. My mom only used a cleaver for everything. Veggies, meat, noodles…you name it. It was the only knife (aside from a paring/utility knife) that we had in the apartment growing up. I don’t think my mom ever even touched a chef’s knife until her kids grew up and bought them. For my mom, it was partly a practical, immigrant thing – why buy more than 1 knife and pay so much at the US dept store when you can get 1 for a fraction of the price? I find the thing way too cumbersome, and only on the rare occasion when I need to hack at something with bones do I break out my cleaver.
