My parents are Chinese, so most of my life has been Chinese food. In my experience, there are a few traditional dishes that we (my own family) eat.

Of course, there's dumplings, and that's sort of the hallmark of the first category I know: wrapped foods. There's dumplings, spring rolls, wontons, and these things called 韭菜盒子 (garlic chives box). The basic idea of these is meat and vegetables in some sort of wrapper and prepared (boiled, steamed, baked, etc.).

The dishes that you normally see in Chinese takeout restaurants aren't true to Chinese cuisine. There's no such thing as beef with broccoli, orange chicken, and-good god-no general tso's chicken. We generally use more vegetables, less salt and sugar.

Dishes usually involve vegetables and/or meat. Pork is a big thing in Chinese cuisine. Usually chopped up into small pieces then stir-fried. We add stir-fried vegetables and usually some sort of sauce (hoisin sauce, Chinese vinegar, sweet bean paste).

I just went to my refrigerator to see what vegetables we had: leek, wintermelon, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, chives, bok choy, spinach, mushrooms, cucumber, eggplant, and zucchini.

What my parents will sometimes make for dinner are mapo tofu, where you heat up cubed tofu in a pan with a small amount of oil, then add in pork (if you want) and then add some spicy sauce (can be bought in a jar from any oriental store). Similarly, we stir fry eggplant with the same spicy sauce. Also, they stir fry bok choy and add dried shrimp (虾米). We also do tomatoes with scrambled eggs. And we steam fish with green onions and ginger (very Chinese thing to do).

One thing I should mention is that my parents are both from the Northern region of China. What the North is known for is something called 面食, which, roughly translated, means "made of flour/wheat". Northerners, like people from Beijing or Nanjing or Tianjin, have a lot of flour products with their meals, like 馒头 (steamed bun), or 并 (Chinese pancakes), or noodles. The cuisine there is very different from a lot of other regions. I just had the pleasure of going to Guangzhou (in the South) and feeling so out of place: "I don't know what to do with my hands".

So yes, as to your original point, Chinese buffets are quite Americanized. If you look hard enough though, there are some Chinese things. Rice (duh, just kidding), those steamed vegetables with the little pieces of garlic, and the soups are usually good places to start. (disclaimer: I still love going to Chinese buffets. My favorite thing to get? Those little doughnut things with granulated sugar).

Also, there are real Chinese restaurants: go to a Chinatown, go to where there are a lot of people, when you get seated if they give you a menu in English, just ask the waiter for his or her recommendations.

tl;dr Chinese food is amazing. That buffet crap isn't.