Donut Sticks launched by McDonald's in America have gone viral recently. They resemble a traditional Chinese breakfast item "Youtiao" (fried dough sticks) both in shape and taste. Many Chinese are thus flocking to the stores to gratify their patriotic stomachs and even heal their homesickness.

A Chinese girl called Albee living in Iowa posted a photo on Chinese social media platform Weibo saying, "I tried mini Youtiao at the McDonald's and broke into tears."

Different from Americans who like to eat Donut Sticks covered with sugar and paired with a cup of coffee, Chinese customers prefer to order the original salty flavor and pair them with soybean milk, which is a popular breakfast combo in China.

Youtiao paired with soybean milk

Compared with Chinese Youtiao, Donut Sticks are much smaller, being only a little longer than a finger. A further difference according to a Chinese resident living in the US is that they taste like a cross of Youtiao and croissants.

Donut Sticks are sold only for breakfast, which ends at 10:30 a.m. The average national price is $2.59 for a half a dozen with a small cup of coffee, $1.69 for a half a dozen and $3.29 for a dozen.

This is not the first time that foreign companies have rolled out Chinese-style food in their homelands and achieved success. For instance, the ice-cream cone containing Shanghai-produced White Rabbit creamy candy, launched by a Los Angeles store, became a sensation in the United States during the Chinese New Year 2019.

White-Rabbit candy-flavored ice-cream cone

Someone even joked on Weibo that "the intellectual property needs to be protected, and the problem could become China's bargaining chip in the Sino-US trade negotiations."

On the other hand, American fast food chains have been working really hard on localization of their products in China. Early in 1998, McDonald's launched Mulan Szechuan sauce as a side-line product of the film "Mulan". Pizzahut rolled out a time-limited Pizza composed of 9 kinds of Chinese local cuisines in 2018. Also, KFC provides Old Beijing Chicken Wrap and a few kinds of rice topped with meat and vegetables to sate local palates.

Foreign fast food chains were jokingly given their Chinese nicknames according to their pronunciation or food features, except for Jin-Gong-Men, the official name of McDonald's Chinese company.

Some people believe these foreign companies could set an example for their Chinese peers in overseas' product localization and marketing.