My grandfather is originally from China. He came to the US to work and settled in Southern California, where he took a liking to avocados. He later returned to China and brought with him several avocado plants which he planted on his parents' property. At that time no one in China ever heard of avocados and there were certainly no avocado trees to be found. The trees took a long time to grow, and my grandfather moved back to the states. After his parents passed away, relatives lived in the house. They had heard stories about the mysterious avocados my grandfather planted, but since it's not a fruit grown in China, they did not know when the avocados would ripen.
The first few times they plucked the avocados from the tree, they were not yet ripe and the relatives thought "Pitooey...these are hard and bitter." They let the avocados stay on the tree until they ripened and fell to the ground. Unfortunately, by the time the avocados fell to the ground, they were over-ripe. The relatives thought "These are black and mushy." For the life of them, they could not figure out why my grandfather was so enamored with avocados.
A few years ago, several of my cousins went to China to visit the village where my grandfather grew up. They said the ancestral house is still on the property, but the avocado trees had been removed. I guess my Chinese relatives never heard of salsa!