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China's young going more for junk food
Xinhua

Beijing, Sep 30 (Xinhua) Liu Kai, father of a 15-year old boy, found himself frequently at odds when deciding where to eat.

"I wanted to choose a Chinese restaurant for our mid-autumn festival dinner, but my son preferred a hamburger, and that's why we are here," said Liu Kai, whose family spent the traditional Chinese festival for a family union at the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

"We adults don't like such stuff, and have no idea why the kids are so fond of hamburgers," complained Liu Kai.

But 15-year old Liu Lin had his own argument.

"I have had to eat moon cakes (a traditional Chinese pie for the special occasion as mid-autumn festival) every year, but their taste is unbearable for me. I would rather eat here.

"Daddy, you can use hamburgers as moon cakes, too," the boy joyously told his father, who sighed and shook his head.

Munching on French fries and sipping cola while walking down the street has almost become a fixture in the daily lives of Chinese youngsters, a sign of the success of foreign fast food corporations in China.

McDonald's, KFC and Japan's Yoshinoya have become the companions of urban China's new generation within just 20 years, with the golden arches of McDonald's and the amiable smile of the KFC Colonel on almost every Chinese street.

In drastic contrast, traditional Chinese hotpot and dumpling restaurants are losing appeal for Chinese kids.

A survey shows that about 80 percent of Beijing middle and primary school students are fond of foreign snacks; 43.6 percent of them go to McDonald's, KFC or other foreign fast food eateries every month, and 6.1 percent go every week or every day.

Festivals, holidays and birthday parties, all provide occasion for urban Chinese kids to hog on foreign fast food.

The survey also found that the younger the kids are, the fonder are they of foreign snacks. Forty-three percent of primary school pupils said they liked foreign fast food "very much", as contrasted to 25.5 percent for the secondary school students.

Since its debut on a downtown Beijing commercial street in 1987, KFC proliferated across China, winning over China's youth in one city after another.

It now has 158 outlets in Shanghai alone.

It's rival, McDonald's, changed its 50-year old slogan to "I'm loving it" to entice young Chinese consumers with modern values.

Yoshinoya, another snack food company, plans to open 300 more restaurants around China in the coming five years, Fang Guixin, deputy general manager of Beijing Yoshinoya, announced recently.

Despite warnings from nutritionists that it is "junk food", "unhealthy" and "no good", foreign fast food sales have kept growing in China.

Professor Wang Chengrong with the Beijing Cadre Management College noted that the foreign fast food phenomenon is the epitome of China's social changes after the country adopted "the policy of opening itself to the outside world".

This has brought together affluence and foreign investment, and opened a vast market for foreign fast food corporations and their masterful propaganda machines, he said.

Indo-Asian News Service