Drained from a morning on the crowded boulevards of this teeming city, Sui Qing and her husband were inclined to find a sit-down restaurant where they could relax while waiters covered their table with a profusion of dishes — the experience that has for centuries defined Chinese eating.
Their 5-year-old son had other ideas. So the couple submitted to what has become a near-universal experience among the world's parents: They agreed to go to McDonald's.
"It's crowded," Sui said, as her husband navigated six-deep lines at the register, bearing hot chocolate and french fries. "It's not nutritious, and they don't have the variety that a Chinese restaurant would have. But children like it, so we're here."
Fast food becomes king
As the world's most populous nation continues its transformation from a former outpost of communism into a place where spending power reigns, it has come to this: China's cuisine is increasingly being altered by the growing consumption of fast food, with Chinese now more likely than Americans to eat takeout meals, according to a survey released last week by ACNielsen Corp., the market research firm.
The survey, which polled more than 14,000 adults in 28 countries, found that 41 percent of respondents in mainland China eat in a fast-food restaurant at least once a week, compared with 35 percent in the United States.
Elsewhere, 61 percent of Hong Kong residents, 59 percent of Malaysians and 54 percent of respondents in the Philippines say they frequent fast-food places at least weekly, underscoring how Asians are more likely to carry their meal in a bag than people in any other region. By contrast, 11 percent of European adults eat take-out meals weekly, the survey found.
A dozen years have passed since the opening of the first McDonald's outlet in Beijing, which amounted to a cultural spectacle, a landmark in China's then-fledgling engagement with the outside. Steps from where a monumental portrait of Chairman Mao beamed down on Tiananmen Square, 40,000 people lined up to inspect a Big Mac and have their pictures taken with Ronald McDonald.
Take-out on every corner
These days, the opening of a Western fast-food outlet is an everyday occurrence. McDonald's owns and operates more than 600 stores across 105 Chinese cities, with plans to add more than 100 annually in coming years, according to the company. Kentucky Fried Chicken has more 1,200 shops in China. It opened 270 new outlets this year and plans to launch at least 200 more in 2005, said a spokesman for Yum Brands Inc., which owns the KFC brand.
Where foreign brands in China have often met with more frustration than profit, fast food amounts to a lucrative exception. Major brands have enjoyed striking and visible success, carving into what now stands as a $48 billion-a-year Chinese fast food industry, according to Bloomberg News. With urban incomes up 40 percent from 1999 through 2003 and city-dwellers increasingly inclined to eat on the run, sales at McDonalds are growing faster here than in the United States.
Fast food merchants are finding new customers on the strength of aggressive marketing campaigns, often targeted at children and featuring lively colors and cartoon characters. The basketball icon, Yao Ming, is a visible pitchman for McDonald's. They are also capitalizing on a traditional Chinese taste for fried, salty foods, and by providing a clean eating experience in the midst of the some of the most frenetic and hygienically challenged cities in the world.
"It's a decent place, it's clean, they have the music," said Liu Suwen at Jigsaw International, a Shanghai-based market research firm, speaking of restaurants such as McDonald's and KFC. "There's the feel of a Western experience."
New focus on waistlines
Health experts fear the concurrent arrival of another sort of Western phenomenon — expanding waistlines. About 200 million Chinese are overweight and 60 million are considered obese, according to state press reports. Public health experts view the growing popularity of fast food as a primary contributor to rising rates of diabetes and high blood pressure.
"For young people born in the 1970s and after, lifestyles are not as healthy as before," said Lin Xi, a nutrition expert at the China Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.
Strangely, the uptake of fast food is happening alongside a modern-day Chinese preoccupation with vanity and weight loss. Taxis and buses in seemingly every Chinese city are plastered with ads for slimming potions and appetite suppressants.
The same day ACNielsen issued a press release promoting China's growing stature in the Filet-O-Fish-eating, Pepsi-drinking cosmos, it issued another study asserting that roughly two-thirds of Chinese are swept away by the tide of losing weight, with 80 percent exercising regularly and three-quarters listing health as their primary concern.
But on Saturday, as tired weekend wanderers rested their feet in a jam-packed McDonald's in the center of the city, most dismissed health considerations.
"This is convenient and it tastes good," said Liu Jiahong, 24, partaking in an order of fries as she and a friend recovered from a plunge into the hordes at a department store next door. "I don't care whether it's healthy or not."
Convenience and consistency
At McDonald's restaurants in China, the menu features most of the classics, but some items have been tailored to the local palate, such as red-bean-paste ice cream sundaes and pork burgers.
Price does not appear to be a major consideration for Chinese consumers of fast food. While McDonald's and KFC are not considered particularly expensive by most urban Chinese, they are substantially pricier than many alternatives. Within a three minute walk of the McDonald's, where a large order of french fries costs more than $2.50, a plate of eight skillet-fried pork buns could be had for 25 cents.
But people said the certainty of a known menu was worth the premium. "If you go to one of these traditional Chinese restaurants, there are big differences between one and another, and you have to know where you are and what to order," said Qian Kun, 20, a college student who was trying a new McDonald's item released in China, the curry beef triangle — spicy beef wrapped in dough — and washing it down with a vanilla shake. "Here, there's a standard. A familiar taste. You always know what to expect."
Across the street at KFC, three girls fresh from school made a snack of burgers and soft ice cream cones, the spread underwritten by bi-monthly allowances from their parents.
"Chinese food, that's all I ever ate when I was growing up," said Wen Yannan, 13. "I want something different."
Special correspondent Jason Cai contributed to this report.