I remember being very confused by 'expiration dates' when I first came to China. Everything pre-packaged seemed to be out-of-date. Only after a few months did I work out that the dates on the packaging was actually the date of production, so of course they were all past that date.
This is still largely the practice although unfortunately, expiry or best-before dates are beginning to creep in. The are most often a con, designed to make you overcautious, bin stuff and re-buy. Fortunately not much food is pre-packaged here.
Worth repeating this example from the Food Funnies topic again.
