Fastfood
McDonald’s runs over 28,000 fast-food chain restaurants in 119 countries, with 430 million customers per day. These three figures, plus chain operation, have made the giant golden M a shared enemy of green groups, anarchists, and Europeans who look down upon American culture. In the 21st century, the pressure groups against hamburgers are assembled under another common flag – anti-globalization.
China, soon to be a member of WTO, has also seen waves of such “anti-M” campaigns, launched by local participants of the Chinese-style fast food industry in an attempt to share the market along with the “foreign fast food” Yet, the result consists of the failures of Ronghua Chicken (vs. KFC) from Shanghai, and Red Sorghum (vs. McDonald’s) from Henan.
At the end of last year, Quanjude, Goubuli, and Lanzhou Noodles were identified as pilot brands to promote Chinese-style fast food by the China Cuisine Association. Although it is open to question to participate market competition with administrative orders, those foods in Quanjude, Goubuli (not including the one in Tianjin Food Street), Lanzhou Noodles and Ronghua Chicken taste very good. However, it is still doubtful whether “deliciousness” is the necessary condition for Chinese-style fast food restaurants to achieve economy of scale and even compete against McDonald’s.
In the middle of the 1980s, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Taiwan. Liang Shiqiu, who “felt good about it”, wrote: “…because it is clean, economical, simple and delicious. It is true that we will never be fed up with our clay oven rolls, fried bread sticks, and soybean milk. Yet just take a look at those who make them at the street, at their clothes and whatever all over them, and all their equipments, who dares to buy their products! The good overwhelms the bad, which is obvious enough in such a small case alone, needless to talk about grand topics like similarities and differences...
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