Draft of EE1

With the development of society and change of economic model in China, KFC and McDonalds have moved to the Chinese market lay combining their western products with Chinese local eating habits and food cultures. Meanwhile, this is also introduces western values into Chinese society.

When speaking western fast food, we cannot ignore two well-known, influential fast food restaurants, which are McDonalds and KFC. They are both regarded as giants among fast food industry, and distributed internationally. Also, they both aim to working class and middle class; they share similar values that providing large-amount and high-quality food, and conducting a kind of quick and convenient lifestyle; even the prices of these two are pretty close. In fact, compared to KFC, McDonalds is a much bigger enterprise with more funds, more market shares and more influences in America. So, McDonalds should possess same superiorities and take a lead in Chinese market. In contrast, KFC is more popular, has more branches and takes up more market shares than McDonalds in China.

You may be surprised to know that it was KFC who first entered China. 12th November, 1987 was the day when KFC opened its first restaurant in Beijing. McDonald on the other hand, did not enter the Chinese market until 1990. Thus KFC had a 3 year head start. The reason why KFC entered China before McDonald’s was because each produced differing research results of Chinese consumers. McDonald’s research suggested that the Chinese were very stubborn and were unlikely to take to McDonald’s products, which are traditional American fast food. However, KFC found quite the contrary, their research indicated that as long as they made some changes in their products, Chinese would accept their western fast food. As expected, KFC indeed obtained a great success in China, and even though McDonalds was competing with it all the time, it always fell behind KFC.

Through comparing the advertisements of these two fast food companies, we can clearly understand the reason why as a smaller fast food enterprise, KFC can beat McDonalds at Chinese market, and the importance of combining global products with local food cultures.

As the represents of western fast food, the significance of KFC and McDonalds moving into Chinese market is introducing the western values to China at the beginning of the society and economy reform in China, and letting Chinese get familiar with the western values, especially American identity. 

eating at the edge

According to Jamie Horwitz, the author of "Eating at the Edge", the eating habit of contemporary people has changed a lot. The author came up with a phrase "eating at the edge" at the beginning of the article, which means "occasions when food is an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be, rather than being definitive"(42). The author also mentioned a term "task-oriented world". In my opinion, "task-oriented world" means with the development of the society and acceleration of pace of life, the burden of work has becoming more and more heavy, eating is not a vital part of people's life anymore. Meanwhile, people start a new eating pattern which is strongly impacted by the "task-oriented world", and the old eating customs are gradually disappearing. For example, people were willing to gather together and spend lots of time eating and chatting in the past; nowadays, most people prefer to eat alone for quick and convenience. I think, because the eating does not refer to the process of sharing any more for most people, it just the most common thing they have to do every day that providing energy for them. So, under this new situation, portable food became more and more popular, such as fast food and TV dinner. As the author mentioned in this article, she was not surprised when she saw a student wolfing a sandwich in class. 

In fact, I have same feeling with author according to my own experience. When I was little, I never missed any meal each day, and I always took each meal on time. However, due to my tight class schedule, I usually only take lunch in dinning hall and just grab some bread or portable sushi in convenience stores for my breakfast and dinner. 

references

It is the official website of Hard Rock Cafe. I am interested in the shop section. There are lots of clothes and gifts for men and women.
https://rockshop.hardrock.com/Gifts/

food in different communities

After reading the "Breaking Bread with a Spread in a San Francisco County Jail" which was written by Sandra Cate, and the "The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen" which was written by Mary Ann O'donnell, I found something interesting about the respective characteristics of the food depending to different communities.

In the article "Breaking Bread with a Spread in a San Francisco County Jail", Cate introduced a kind of special food "spread" which is popular in prison. Because the food offered by prison's canteen are bland, monotonous and small-amount. More importantly, the food served by prison's canteen are invisible sources, limited time, high prices, no relation to personal preferences, mass-produced and contributed collectively. So in a such special community like prison, the inmates certainly invented some food with limited sources to satisfy their belly and make up the restrictions of their regular food. The author also described several specific spread made by different inmates with different flavors. But the same thing of these different spread dishes is that the process of making them is pretty simple. They are usually made by leftover materials and heated by microwave due to the limited sources and restrict regulations in prison. However, compared to the food offered by prison's canteen, spreads made by inmates themselves are not only multiple flavors, visible sources and handcrafted, but also inmates can share them with others and are not restricted by time. So spread has already become the most popular food among the prison inmates and furthermore, it is gradually becoming the symbol of this special community. 

In the article "The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen", O'donnell related the eating habits of Sherzheners to the Chinese political culture, and compared the different diet features between northern of China and Southern of China. The most interesting opinion of this article is  the author connected the different eating habits of northern and southern to the different personalities of people who lived in northern and southern. For example, the author mentioned that southerners prefer to eat fish and seafood, and fish and seafood are hard to catch; however, northerners usually eat cattle and sheep, and cattle and sheep are easy to get; so O'donnell thought it is one reason that why northerners are generally honester than southerners.  

From these two articles, I realized that there is always a reason that a specific food located in different regions and communities, and meanwhile, these special food and eating habits on the contrary influence the local cultures. 

The battle between McDonalds and KFC in China

Once speaking western fast food, we cannot ignore two well-known, influential fast food restaurants, which are McDonalds and KFC. They are both regarded as giants among fast food industry, and distributed internationally. Also, they both aim to working class and middle class; they share similar values that providing large-amount and high- quality food, and conducting a kind of quick and convenient lifestyle; even the prices of these two are pretty close. In fact, compared to KFC, McDonalds is a much bigger enterprise with more funds, more market shares and more influences in America. So, McDonalds should possess same superiorities and take a lead in Chinese market. In contrast, KFC is more popular, has more branches and takes up more market shares than McDonalds in China. In order to explain this situation, I found several advertisements of both McDonalds and KFC, and analyzed the values of these two brands through their respective advertisement methods.

You may be surprised to know that it was KFC who first entered China. 12th November, 1987 was the day when KFC opened its first restaurant in Beijing. McDonald on the other hand, did not enter the Chinese market until 1990. Thus KFC had a 3 year head start. The reason why KFC entered China before McDonald’s was because each produced differing research results of Chinese consumers. McDonald’s research suggested that the Chinese were very stubborn and were unlikely to take to McDonald’s products, which are traditional American fast food. However, KFC found quite the contrary, their research indicated that as long as they made some changes in their products, Chinese would accept their western fast food. As expected, KFC indeed obtained a great success in China, and even though McDonalds was competing with it all the time, it always fell behind KFC.

Why as a smaller fast food enterprise, KFC can beat McDonalds at Chinese market? The answer is simple when you saw their advertisements. Looking through the Chinese advertisements of McDonalds, we can clearly see that the main products which were highly publicized by McDonalds are still traditional, standard American fast food.   For instance, they both said “high recommendation in this month” in these two above print advertisements, and despite that they came from different months, the productions were still similar chicken hamburger, chicken wings and French fries. Obviously, McDonalds did not do the prepare work well that getting familiar with Chinese culture and Chinese eating habits, or they did not realize that how important combining the local eating culture and their own productions is.

However, KFC really adjusted their products according to their research result. Because the distinguished features of Chinese dishes are that there are variety in diet and obvious taste difference depending on regions. And KFC understood that and catered to the Chinese people far better. Although chicken was already a popular part of many dishes in China, KFC did more than offer a new take on how to cook chicken, they adapted their whole product range to meet Chinese needs but more importantly their local 

needs. For example, in this above KFC’s Chinese print advertisement, it recommended a new flavor grilled chicken hamburger with spicy sauce from SiChuan, China. I believe all Chinese know that SiChuan is famous for its spicy dishes, so this new product was pretty attractive for people who like spicy food and who come from SiChuan. Furthermore, in order to appeal to more Chinese customers, KFC even started to combine their chicken and western soup with rice, which is the most traditional and fundamental food Chinese always eat. So they released their new series of production “abundant rice dish”, which were really popular in China. The above advertisement shows this new production.

In conclusion, it is vital for a foreign restaurant to research the different food culture and unfamiliar eating habits of a new region when it entered to that region. Then, the foreign restaurant need to maintain its characteristics and meanwhile, connect local food features to its productions. Through comparing the Chinese advertisements of McDonalds and KFC, we can see despite that they aimed to same group of people, have close prices and shared similar values, KFC always can attract more Chinese customers because they understood the relationship between flavor and culture, and indeed swam with the current, adapted their productions for new surroundings. The method that combining the American style with Chinese local eating habits gave KFC the edge over its rival as McDonalds stuck firmly with its Western style in Chinese market

Food ads and Socioeconomic identities

      According to Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky, the authors of "Authenticity in America: Class Distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising", food is a striking marker of socioeconomic class identity. So in order to investigate the relationship between different food and different class identities through various food descriptions, the authors compared the advertisements of twelve common brands of potato chips in America, and analyzed the differences of the languages they use to appeal their respective customers with different statuses. Finally, they found the several facts which indeed can prove their initial assumption. Firstly, the more expensive chips, which are also those targeted at higher-class customers usually use more complex language than inexpensive chips, which aimed at lower-class customers. Because general speaking, the people who have higher status obtained higher educations. More expensive chips thus were designed with more complex language in order to attract more higher-class buyers who believe that the product is somehow conform to their educational levels. Secondly, advertisers used significantly more words or statements relating to health on expensive chip packaging than on inexpensive chip packaging, which is exactly corresponding to the research result that "in the United States and many other countries over the last 100 years have found higher mortality rates in people of lower-class status".(48) Moreover, expensive chip advertising is full of comparison and negation to distance the higher socioeconomic classes from lower socioeconomic classes and their tastes by establishing the distinction between upper-class food taste and lower-class food taste. Finally, upper class has different authentic forms from lower class. For most upper classes, authentic food refer to natural, healthy, and not artificial food; however, authentic food for working classes usually is American traditions or family traditions, and located in the American landscape. 
      Among the four outstanding differences of language in several potato chips advertisements according to different social classes, I was convinced that the people who have different statuses indeed have different tastes of food and different requirements for food. Food companies emphasize these differences in their advertisements in order to appeal customers with different statues. Furthermore, through the compare of these four aspects, I noticed that higher-class people have different educational levels, health conditions and opinions about authenticity from lower or working-class people in general. And more noteworthy situation is that most higher-class people attempt to extend the distance between themselves and lower-class people in various details.  

Taste Love

        On the Chinese New Year eve this year, the downstairs dining hall in my dorm held a celebration dinner. The dining hall really prepared lots of Chinese traditional food for the occasion. The most impressive food among them for me should be the dumplings. Dumplings are one of the most traditional food in China. Due to the shape of dumplings are similar with that of the ancient Chinese gold bullion, eating dumplings is a kind of good wish for Chinese. So in my family, we always eat dumplings on the New Year eve dinner.

That was my first time to celebrate New Year overseas without my family. Actually, I just video chatted with my whole family in that morning. Because of the time difference between Denver and my hometown, they all gathered in my grandma’s house and were taking the big New Year eve dinner together when I talked to them. My parents introduced the various dishes they had to me through the video. It was indeed made me miss these Chinese traditional dishes and want to join them. I noticed that my grandma still made the dumplings as usual. She is pretty expert at making dumplings in my family, so the dumplings in almost all of our New Year eve dinners since I can memorize were prepared by her. The characteristics of the dumplings she makes are thin dough, various juicy fillings and sufficient big size. Every time she made dumplings, I always can eat several bowls of them. And she also knows that I like eating the dumplings she makes, so she usually made some for me during her spare time.

        In fact, I spent plenty of time in my grandma’s house when I was little. Because my parents were pretty busy with their work at that time, they usually left me with grandma. My grandpa had passed away several years ago, so my grandma lived alone all the time. Her house is in the first floor of an apartment with a small garden. Because she hates climbing stairs since she took a leg surgery, and she likes planting plants. She indeed planted lots of plants and flowers in her garden, such as peony, chrysanthemum, narcissus and orchid. She looked them after carefully, and I believe that she enjoyed the process to plant them and take care of them. She always told me at that time that “every plant has its own life and soul.”

         I still remember the experience that observing her made dumplings when I lived with her. She got up early in that morning, went to supermarket and bought various vegetables, meats and flour. She said that “if I went lately, I probably cannot obtain fresh vegetables and meats. The freshness is the most important to delicious dumplings.” When she came back home, she started to wash and cut vegetables and meats, mixed the flour with water and roll the dough, which prepared for making dumplings. I stood outside of her kitchen and stared at her all the time. She smiled at me and asked me to come in. She explained every single step to me when she was doing that. She told me the secret of her thin and soft dough was that she always poured sufficient water with the flour, and when she rolled the dough, she always covered on lightly floured surface. I stood aside and listened to her quietly. Even though I recall the image of that day now, I still can feel that how the time flied peacefully of that day with grandma. When all the prepared works were done, grandma moved the dough, fillings and seasonings to the table in the living room because in this way, she can sit down on a chair and concentrate on making dumplings. I noticed that she brought a bowl of water with her, and I asked her with curiosity that why did she prepare a bowl of water. She gave me a faint smile, then answered that moistening the outer edge of every piece of dough with water can make the dough much stickier, and the dumplings are more stable.  After listening to this explanation, I suddenly realized that the reason that the dumplings made by grandma are always much more delicious than the factory produced dumplings is that she truly spends her all thoughts and throws herself into it. Perhaps, making dumplings for her is not just cook a meal, but is a silent way to express her love to us. I was glad that I understand her silent love.

         Time goes by, I am already a university student and studying abroad alone. My grandma still lives in that apartment and takes care of her plants. On my first alone New Year eve in a foreign country, those dumplings evoked the memories of my grandma and those days I spent with her. I guess, I will never eat such delicious dumplings as my grandma made.