CHAPTER 9 Of Hamburger and social space Consuming McDonald's in beijing Yunxiang Yan In a 1996 news report on dietary changes in the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, fast-food consumption was called the most salient develop ment in the national capital: "The development of a fast-food industry with Chinese characteristics has become a hot topic in Beijings dietary sector. This is underscored by the slogan'challenge the Western fast food"In deed, with the instant success of Kentucky Fried Chicken afterits grand open ing in 1987, followed by the sweeping dominance of McDonald,s and the introduction of other fast-food chains in the early 1ggos, Western-style fast food has played aleading role in the restaurant boom and in the rapid change in the culinary culture of Beijing. A war of fried chicken"broke out when local businesses tried to recapture the Beijing market from the Western fast- food chains by introducing Chinese-style fast foods. The " fast-food fever" in Beijing, as it is called by local observers, has given restaurant frequenters a stronger consumer consciousness and has created a Chinese notion of fast food and an associated culture From an anthropological perspective, this chapter aims to unpack the rich meanings of fast-food consumption in Beijing by focusing on the fast-food restaurants as a social space. Food and eating have long been a central con- This chapter is based on fieldwork in Beijing, August to October 1994, supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to the FairbankcenterforEastAsian Research, HarvardUnF versity, and on further documentary research supported by the 1996 Senate Grant, University of California, Los Angeles. I am grateful to Deborah Davis, Thomas Gold, Jun Jing Joseph Soares, and other participants at the american Council of Learned Societics conference at Yale Unk- versity for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter i also owe special thanks to Nancy Hearst for editorial assistance 1. Liu Fen and Long Zaizu 1996
202 YUNXIANG YAN cern in anthropological studies. 2 While nutritional anthropologists empha size the practical functions of foods and food ways in cultural settings, so- cial and cultural anthropologists try to explore the links between food (and eating)and other dimensions of a given culture. From Levi-Strauss's attempt to establish a universal system of meanings in the language of foods to Mary Douglas 's effort to decipher the social codes of meals and marshal Sahlins's analysis of the inner/outer, human/inhuman metaphors of food, there is a tradition of symbolic analysis of dietary cultures, whereby foods are treated as messages and eating as a way of social communication. The great variety of food habits can be understood as human responses to material conditions or as a way to draw boundaries between us"and"them" in order to con- struct group identity and thus to engage in "gastro-politics "5 According to Pierre Bourdieu, the different attitudes toward foods, different ways of eat- ing, and food taste itself all express and define the structure of class rela- tions in French society. Although in Chinese society ceremonial banquet- ing is frequently used to display and reinforce the existing social structure, James Watsons analysis of the sihk puhn among Hong Kong villagers-a spe- cial type of ritualized banquet that requires participants to share foods from the same pot-demonstrates that foods can also be used as a leveling device to blur class boundaries As Joseph Gusfield notes, the context of food consumption(the partici- pants and the social settings of eating) is as important as the text(the foods that are to be consumed). Restaurants thus should be regarded as part of a system of social codes; as institutionalized and commercialized venues, restau- rants also provide avaluable window through which to explore the social mean- ings of food consumption. In her recent study of dining out and social man- ners, Joanne Finkelstein classifies restaurants into three grand categories: (1) formal spectacular"restaurants, where dining has been elevated to an event of extraordinary stature";(2)amusement"restaurants, which add enter- tainment to dining and (3)convenience restaurants such as cafes and fast- food outlets. Although Finkelstein recognizes the importance of restaurants as a public space for socialization, she also emphasizes the antisocial aspect of dining out. She argues that, because interactions in restaurants are condi- tioned by existing manners and customs, "dining out allows us to act in imi- 2. For a general review, see Messer 1984 3. See, e.g,Jerome 198o 4. See Douglas 1975: LEviStaus 19B: and sahlins 1976. 5. See Harris 1985: Murphy 1986: and Appadurai 1g81 6. Bourdieu 1984.PP 175-200 7. Watson 1987. For more systematic studies of food in China, see Chang 1g77 and EAn- denson 1988. 8. See Gusfield 1992, P 8o 9. Finkelstein 1989, PP 68-71
OF HAMBURGER AND SOCIAL SPACE tation of others, in accord with images, in responses to fashions, out of habit, without need for thought or self-scrutiny. The result is that the styles of in- teraction that are encouraged in restaurants produce sociality without much individuality, which is an"uncivilized sociality. Concurring with Finkelstein's classification of restaurants, Allen Shelton proceeds further to analyze how restaurants as a theater can shape customers' thoughts and actions. Shelton argues that the cultural codes of restaurants are just as important as the food codes analyzed by Mary douglas, Levi-Strauss, and many others. He concludes chat the restaurant is an organized expenence using and transforming the raw objects of space, words, and tastes into a coded experience of social struc tures. ll Rick Fantasia's analysis of the fast-food industry in France is also il- luminating in this respect. He points out that because McDonalds represents an exotic Other"its outlets attract many young French customers who want to explore a different kind of social space-an "American place. "12 In light of the studies of both the text and context of food consumption I first revew the development of Western fast food and the local responses in Beijing during the period 1987 to 1996. Next I examine the cultural sym bolism of American fast food, the meanings of objects and physical place in fast-food restaurants, the consumer groups, and the use of public space in fast-food outlets. I then discuss the creation of a new social space in fast-food restaurants. In my opinion, the transformation of fast-food establishments from eating place to social space is the key to understanding the popularity of fast-food consumption in Beijing, and it is the major reason why local com- petitors have yet to successfully challenge the American fast-food chains. This study is based on both ethnographic evidence collected during my fieldwork in 1994(August to October)and documentary data published in Chinese ewspapers, popular magazines, and academicjournals during the 1987-96 period. Since McDonalds is the ultimate icon of American fast food abroad and the most successful competitor in Beijings fast-food market, McDon- ald'srestaurants were the primary place and object for my research, although I also consider other fast-food outlets and compare them with McDonalds In certain respects I3 FAST-FOOD FEVER IN BEIJING, 1987 TO1996 Fast food is not indigenous to Chinese society. It first appeared as an exotic -phenomenon- in novels- and movies imported from abroad and then entered bid 11. Shelton 199o,p. 515 12. See Fantasia 1995, pp. 213-15 13. For an anthropological study of sociocultural encounters at Mc Donalds in Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing Seoul, and Tokyo, see chapters in Watson, ed, 1997
YUNXIANG YAN he everyday life of ordinary consumers when Western fast-food chains opened restaurants in the beijing market. Kuaican, the Chinese translation or fast food, which literally means"fast meal"or"fast eating, contradicts the ancient principle in Chinese culinary culture that regards slow eating as healthy and elegant. There are a great variety of traditional snack foods called ciaochi(small eats), but the term"small eats"implies that they cannot be taken Ls meals. During the late 1970s, hefan(boxed rice)was introduced to solve he serious " dining problems" created by the lack of public dining facilities and the record number of visitors to Beijing. The inexpensive and convenient hefan--rice with a small quantity of vegetables or meat in a styrofoam box uickly became popular in train stations, in commercial areas, and at tourist attractions. However, thus far boxed rice remains a special category of con- venience food-it does not fall into the category of kuaican(fast food),even though it is consumed much faster than any of the fast foods discussed in the following pages. The intriguing point here is that in Beijing the notion of fast. food refers only to Western-style fast food and the new Chinese imitations. More important, as a new cultural construct, the notion of fast food includes nonfood elements such as eating manners, environment, and patterns of so- cial interaction. The popularity of fast food among Beijing consumers has lit tle to do with either the food itself or the speed with which it is consumed. American fast-food chains began to display interest in the huge market in China in the early 198os. As early as 1983, McDonald's used apples from China to supply its restaurants in Japan; thereafter it began to build up distribution and processing facilities in northern China. However, Kentucky Fried Chicken took the lead in the Beijing market On October 6, 1g87, KFC opened its first outlet at a commercial center just one block from Tiananmen square The three-story building, which seats more than 5oo customers, at the time was the largest KFC restaurant On the day of the grand opening, hundreds of customers stood in line outside the restaurant, waiting to taste the world- famous American food. Although few were really impressed with the food it- self, they were all thrilled by the eating experience: the encounter with friendly employees, quick service, spotless floors, climate-controlled and brightly-lit dining areas, and of course, smiling Colonel Sanders standing in front of the main gate. From 1987 to 1991, KFC restaurants in Beijing enjoyed celebrity status, and the flagship outlet scored first for both single-day and annual sales in 1988 among the more than g, ooo KFC outlets throughout the world In the restaurant business in Beijing during the early Igos, architecture andinternal decoration had to match the rank of a restaurant in an officially prescribed hierarchy, ranging from star-rated hotel restaurants for foreign- ers to formal restaurants, mass eateries, and simple street stalls. There were strict codes regarding what a restaurant should provide, at what pnce,and 14. See Love 1986. P 448
OF HAMBURGER AND SOCIAL SPACE what kind of customers it should serve in accordance with its position in this hierarchy. Therefore, some authorities in the local dietary sector deemed that the kFC decision to sell only fried chicken in such an elegant environment was absurd. i5 Beijing consumers, however, soon learned that a clean, bright and comfortable environment was a common feature of all Western-style fast- McDonald's has been the most popularand the most successful ong them, food restaurants that opened in the beijing market after KFC. among them The first McDonalds restaurant in Beijing was built at the southern end of Wangfujing Street, Beijings Fifth Avenue. With yoo seats and 29 cash reg- isters, the restaurant served more than 4o,o00 customers on its grand open ing day of April 23, 1992. The Wangfujing McDonald's quickly became an important landmark in Beijing, and its image appeared frequently on na- tional television programs. It also became an attraction for domestic tourists a place where ordinary people could literally taste a piece of American cul ture. Although not the first to introduce American fast food to Beijing con- sumers, the McDonald,'s chain has been the most aggressive in expanding its business and the most influential in developing the fast-food market. Ad ditional McDonald's restaurants appeared in Beijing one after another: two were opened in 1993, four in 1994, and ten more in 1995. There were 35 by August 1997, and according to the general manager the Beijing market is big enough to support more than a hundred McDonald's restaurants 17 At the same time, Pizza Hut, Bony Fried Chicken(of Canada), and Dunkin Donuts all made their way into the Beijing market. The most interesting new- comer is a noodle shop chain called Californian Beef Noodle King. Although the restaurant sells Chinese noodle soup, it has managed to portray itself as an American fast-food eatery and competes with McDonalds and KFC with lower prices and its appeal to Chinese tastes. The instant success of Western fast-food chains surprised those in the lo- cal restaurant industry. Soon thereafter, many articles in newspapers and journals called for the invention of Chinese-style fast food and the develop. ment of a local fast-food industry. April 1992 was a particularly difficult month for those involved in this sector: two weeks after the largest McDonalds restaurant opened at the southern end of wangfujing Street, Wu Fang Zhai, an old, prestigious restaurant at the northern end of wangfujing Street, went out of business; in its stead opened International Fast Food City, which sold Japanese fast food, American hamburgers, fried chicken, and ice cream. This was seen as an alarming threat to both the local food industry and the na- tional pride of Chinese culinary culture. T8 15. See Zhang Yubin 1992 16. See New York Times, April 24. 1992. For a dctailed account, see Yan I997a 17. Scc China Daily, September 12, 1994: and Service Brdge August 12, 1994 18. See Liu Ming 1992: Mian Zhi 1993
YUNXIANG YAN Actually, the local response to the"invasion"of Western fast food begar in the late 198os, right after the initial success of KFC. It quickly developed into what some reporters called a war of fried chickens"in Beijing. Following the model of KFC, nearly a hundred local fast-food shops featuring more than a dozen kinds of fried chicken appeared between 198g and 19go. One of the earliest such establishments was Lingzhi Roast Chicken, which began business in 1989; this was followed by Chinese Garden Chicken, Huaxiang Chicken, and Xiangfei Chicken in 199o. The chicken war reached its peak when the Ronghua Fried Chicken company of Shanghai opened its first chain store directly opposite one of the kFC restaurants in Beijing. The manager of Ronghua Chicken proudly announced a challenge to kFC: "Wherever KFC opens a store, we will open another Ronghua Fried chicken next door. All of the local fried chicken variations were no more than simple imita- tions of the KFC food. Their only localizing strategy was to emphasize spe- cial Chinese species and sacred recipes that supposedly added an extra med icinal value to their dishes. thus, consumers were told that the chinese Garden Chicken might prevent cancer and that Huaxiang Chicken could strengthen the yin-yang balance inside one's body. This strategy did not work well; KFC and McDonald's won out in that first wave of competition. Only a small proportion of the local fried chicken shops managed to sur vive, while KFC and McDonald,'s became more and more popular. Realizing thatsimply imitating Western fast food was a dead end, the emerg ing local fast-food industry turned to exploring resources within Chinese cui sine. Among the pioneers, Jinghua Shaomai Restaurantin 1991 tried to trans- form some traditional Beijing foods into fast foods. This was followed by the entry of a large number of local fast-food restaurants, such as the Beijing Beef Noodle King(not to be confused with the California Beef Noodle King). The Jinghe Kuaican company made the first domestic attempt to develop a fast food business on a large scale. with the support of the Beijing municipal gow ernment, this company built its own farms and processing facilities, butit chose to sell boxed fast foods in mobile vans parked on streets and in residential areas. Thus it fell into the preexisting category of hefan(boxed rice)pur veyors. Although the price of boxed fast foods was much lower than that of imported fast food, the boxed fast foods did not meet consumers'expecta tions of fast food. The Jinghe Kuaican Company disappeared as quickly as it had emerged. In October 1992, nearly a thousand state-owned restaurants united under the flag of the Jingshi Fast Food Company, offering five sets of value meals and more than 5o fast foodsitems, allofwhichrwererderived from traditional Chinese cuisines. This company was also the first fast-food enter- prise to be run by the Beijing municipal government, thus indicating the im- 9. Duan Gang 1991 20. Zhang Zhaonan 1g92a
()F IIAMBURGER AND SOCIAL SPACE. portance of this growing sector to the government. The Henan Province Red Sorghum Restaurant opened on Wangfujing Street in March 1996, immedi- ately across the street from the McDonalds flagship restaurant Specializing in country-style lamb noodles. the manager of Red Sorghum announced that twelve more restaurants were to be opened in Beijing by the end of 1996, all of which would be next to a mcDonalds outlet We want to fight McDon ald's, " the manager claimed, " we want to take back the fast-food market. "22 By 1996 the fast-food sector in Beijing consisted of three groups: The main group was made up of Mc Donalds, KFC, and other Western fast-food chains Although they no longer attracted the keen attention of the news media, their numbers were still growing. The second group consisted of the local KFC imitations, which managed to survive the 1991"chicken war. The most successful in this group is the Ronghua Chicken restaurant chain, which in 1 995 had eleven stores in several cities and more than 5oo employees. The third group included restaurants selling newly created Chinese fast foods, from simple noodle soups to beijing roast duck meals. many believe that the long tradition of a national cuisine will win out over the consumerstem- porary curiosity about Western-style fast food. Thus far, however, Chinese fast food has not been able to compete with Western fast food, even though it is cheaper and more appealing to the tastes of ordinary citizens in beijing Red Sorghum was the third business to an- nounce in public the ambitious goal of beating McDonald s and KFc (after the Shanghai Ronghua Chicken and Beijing Xiangfei Chicken), but so far none have come close. By August 1g96 it was clear that Red Sorghums lamb noodle soup could not compete in the hot summer with Big Mac, which was popular year-round. 24 The lack of competitiveness of Chinese fast food has drawn official at tention at high levels, and in 1996 efforts were made to support the devel- opment of a local fast-food sector. Concerned experts in the restaurant in- dustry and commentators in the media attribute the bad showing of the Chinese fast-food restauran ts to several things. In the mid-19gos, at least:(1) the quality, nutritional values, and preparation of Western fast foods were highly standardized, while Chinese fast foods were still prepared in traditional ways;(2)Chinese fast-food establishments did not offer the friendly, quick service of Western fast-food restaurants; (3)the local establishments were not as clean and comfortable as the Western fast-food restaurants; and (4) mostimportant, unlike McDonalds or KFC, Chinese restaurants did not em- 21. See Zhang Zhaonan 1992b; You Zi 1994: and Zhang Guoyun 1995. 22. Yu Bin 1996:"Honggaoliang yuyan zhongshi kuaican da qushi"1996. 23. Yu Weize 1995 24. See Liu Fen and Long Zaizu 1996 25. The development of Chinese fast food is incorporated into the eighth national five- year plan for scientific research. See Bi Yuhua 1g94: see also Ling Dawei 199
208 YUNXIANG YAN ploy advanced technologies or modern management methods 26 From a Marxist perspective, Ling Dawei has concluded that the race between im ported and local fast foods in Beijing is a race between advanced and back ward forces of production; hence the development of the local fast-food in- dustry will rest ultimately on modernization. 27 There is no doubt that these views have a basis in everyday practice; yet they all regard food consumption as purely economic behavior and fast-food restaurants as mere eating places. A more complete understanding of the fast-food fever in Beijing also requires close scrutiny of the social context of consumption-the participants and social settings, because "The specific na- ture of the consumed substances surely matters; but it cannot, by itself, ex- plain why such substances may seem irresistible. THE SPATIAL CONTEXT OF FAST-FOOD CONSUMPTION As Giddens points out, most social life occurs in the context of the "fading away"of time and the"shading off"of space. 9 This is certainly true for fast- food consumption Fast-food restaurants, therefore, need to be examined both as eating places and as social spaces where social interactions occur. a hysical place accommodates objects and human agents and provides an arena for social interactions, and it follows that the use of space cannot be separated- from the objects and the physical environment However, space functions only as a context, not a determinant, of social interactions, and the space itself in some way is also socially constructed. In the following pages I consider, on the one hand, how spatial context shapes consumers behavior and social relations, and how, on the other hand, consumers ap propriate fast-food restaurants into their own space. Such an inquiry must begin with a brief review of Beijings restaurant sector in the late igos in order to assess the extent to which Western fast-food outlets differ from ex- isting local restaurants Socialist Canteens and Restaurants in the I9705 Eating out used to be a difficult venture for ordinary people in Beijing be- cause few restaurants were designed for mass consumption. As mentioned 26. For representative views on this issue, see Guo Jianying 1995: Huang Shengbing 19951 Jian Feng 1992: Xiao Hua 1993: Ye Xianning 1993: Yan Zhenguo and Liu. Yinsheng 1992a; and zhong Zhe 1993 27. Ling Dawei 1995 28.Min1993p.27L 29. Giddens 1984. P 132 30. See Sayer 1985. Pp.30-31 c Lechner 1991: Urry I 985
OF HAMILIRGER AND SOCIAL SPACE earlier, the restaurants in Beijing were hierarchically ranked by architecture function, and the rype and quality of foods provided. More important, be fore the economic reforms almost all restaurants and eateries were state owned businesses, which meant that a restaurant was first and foremost a work unit, just like any factory, shop, or government agency. Thus a restau- rant's position and function were also determined by its administrative sta tus as a work unit. Generally speaking, the restaurant hierarchy consisted of three layers. At the top were luxury and exclusive restaurants in star-rated hotels, such as the Beijing Hotel, which served only foreigners and privileged domestic guests At the next level were well-established formal restaurants, many of which spe cialized in a particular style of cuisine and had been in business for many years, even before the 1949 revolution. Unlike the exclusive hotelrestaurants he formal restaurants were open to the public and served two major func- tions: (1)as public spaces in which small groups of elites could socialize and hold meetings; and (2)as places for ordinary citizens to hold family banquets on special, ritualized occasions such as weddings. At the bottom of the hier archy were small eateries that provided common family-style foods; these were hardly restaurants( they were actually called shitang, meaning canteens). The small eateries were frequented primarily by visitors from outlying provinces and some Beijing residents who had to eat outside their homes because of special job requirements. The majority of Beijing residents rarely ate out- they normally had their meals at home or in their work-unit canteens. In the 1950s the development ofinternal canteens(neibu shitang) not onl constituted an alternative to conventional restaurants but also had a great impact on the latter. Most work units had(and still have) their own canteens, in order to provide employees with relatively inexpensive food and, more important, to control the time allotted for meals. Because canteens were sub- sidized by the work units and were considered part of employees benefits, they were run in a manner similar to a family kitchen, only on an enlarged scale. The central message delivered through the canteen facilities was that the work unit, as the representative of the party-state, provided food to its employees, just as a mother feeds her children(without the affectionate com ponent of real parental care). The relationship between the canteen work- ers and those who ate at the canteens was thus a patronized relationship be tween the feeder and the fed, rather than a relationship of service provider and customers. The tasteless foods, unfriendly service, and uncomfortable environment were therefore natural components at such public canteens, which prevailed for more than three decades and still exist in many work units today The work-unit mentality of"feeding"instead of "serving"people also made 32. For a comprehensive study of the work-unit system, see Walder 1986
YUNXIANG YAN its way into restaurants in Beijing because, after all, the restaurants were also work units and thus had the same core features as all other work units-that is, the dominating influence of the state bureaucracy and the planned econ- omy. Commercial restaurants also shared with the work-unit canteens the poor maintenance of internal space, a limited choice of foods, the require- ment that the diner pay in advance, fixed times for meals(most restaurants were open only during the short prescribed lunch and dinner times), and of course, ill-tempered workers who acted as if they were distributing food to hungry beggars instead of paying customers. It is true that the higher one moved up the ladder of the restaurant hierarchy the better dining en- vironment and service one could find. But in the famous traditional restau- ants and the star-rated hotel restaurants, formality and ritual were most likely the dominating themes. Still, until the late 198os it was not easy for ordinary people to enjoy dining out in restaurants In contrast,. Western fast-food restaurants offered local consumers a new cultural experience symbolized by foreign fast food, enjoyable spatial arrangements of objects and people, and American-style service and social interactions The Cultural Symbolism of Fast Food It is perhaps a truism to note that food is not only good to eat but also good for the mind. The (Western)fast-food fever in Beijing provides another ex ample of how in certain circumstances customers may care less about the food and more about the cultural messages it delivers. During my fieldworkin 1994 I discovered that although children were great fans of the big mac and french fries, most adult customers did not particularly like those fast foods. Many people commented that the taste was not good and that the flavor of cheese was strange. The most common complaint from adult customers was chi bu bao, meaning that McDonald,'s hamburgers and fries did not make one feel full: they were more like snacks than like meals. It is also interesting to note that both McDonald's and KFC emphasized the freshness, purity, and nutri- tional value of their foods(instead of their appealing tastes). According to a high-level manager of Beijing McDonald's, the recipes for McDonald,s foods were designed to meet modern scientific specifications and thus differed from the recipes for Chinese foods, which were based on cultural expectations. 5 Through advertisements and news media reports this idea that fast foods use nutritious ingredients and are prepared using scientific cooking meth- 33. In prereform Beijing even the hotel restaurant and guesthouse canteens were open only during "proper"meal times. So if a visitor missed the meal time, the only alternative was to buy bread and soft drink from a grocery store. 84. For more details on the result of the survey, see Yan 1997a 35 Sec discussions in Xu Chengbei 1994
