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