China Exclusive: McDonald's, KFC or Yoshinoya: Chinese kids "addicted" to foreign junk food
29/9/2005 17:19
Liu Kai, father of a 15-year old boy, found himself frequently at odds
when deciding where to eat.
"I wanted to choose a Chinese restaurant for our
mid-autumn festival dinner, but my son said he preferred a hamburger, and that's
why we are in Beijing," said Liu Kai, whose family spent the traditional Chinese
festival for family union at the nearby KFC.
"We adults don't like such
stuff, and have no idea why the kids are so fond of (hamburgers)," complained
Liu Kai.
But 15-year old Liu Lin, had a rationale.
"I have had to eat moon
cakes (a traditional Chinese pie for the special occasion as mid-autumn
festival) every year, but their taste is unbearable for me. I would rather eat
here."
"Daddy, you can use hamburgers as moon cakes, too," the boy joyously
told his father, who sighed and shook his head. HAMBURGERS, CHIPS, AND CHICKEN
WINGS: DELICIOUS TO CHINESE YOUTH
Munching on french fries and sipping cola
while walking down the street has almost become a fixture in the daily life of
Chinese youngsters, a sign of the success and even fruition of foreign fast food
corporation in China.
McDonald's, KFC and Japan's Yoshinoya have become the
companions of urban Chinese new generation within only 20 years, with McDonald's
golden arches and the amiable smile of the KFC Colonel on almost every Chinese
street.
In drastic contrast, traditional Chinese hot-pot and dumpling
restaurants are losing appeal to Chinese kids.
A survey shows that about 80
percent of Beijing middle and primary school students are fond of foreign
snacks, 43.6 percent of them go to McDonald's, KFC or other foreign fast food
eateries every month, and 6.1 percent go every week or every day.
Festivals,
holidays, and birthdays and parties, all provide reasons for urban Chinese kids
to eat foreign fast food.
The survey also found that the younger the kids
are, the more are they fond of foreign snacks. 43 percent of primary school
pupils said they "liked very much" foreign fast food, and the ratio has fallen
to 25.5 percent for the secondary school students. FLOURISHING RESTAURANTS:
IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION OF FOREIGN SNACKS?
Since its debut on a downtown
Beijing commercial street in 1987, KFC proliferated across China, winning over
China's youth in one city after another.
It now has 158 outlets in Shanghai
alone.
It's rival, McDonald's, which changed its 50-year old slogan to "I'm
loving it" to entice young Chinese consumers with modern values.
Yoshinoya,
another snack food company, plans to open 300 more restaurants around China in
the coming five years, Fang Guixin, deputy general manager of Beijing Yoshinoya,
announced recently.
Accompanied by warnings from nutritionists that it is
"junk food", "unhealthy" and "no good", foreign fast food has kept growing in
China.
Professor Wang Chengrong with the Beijing Cadre Management College
noted that the foreign fast food phenomenon is the epitome of China's social
changes after the country adopted "the policy of opening itself to the outside
world", which has brought together affluence and foreign investment, and opened
a vast market for foreign fast food corporations and their masterful propaganda
machines.
Xinhua
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