It’s been forbidden in the Forbidden City. OK maybe not forbidden, but Starbucks’ Forbidden City (in Beijing) location is closed as of last week. According to BusinessWeek Online’s story, one CCTV anchor “ignited a firestorm after taking up the issue on his popular blog last year. ‘Starbucks has good quality stuff, but it is still a symbol of America’s low-class food culture,’ wrote Rui Chenggang on Jan. 12, 2007. ‘It’s maybe O.K. to have a Starbucks around the Forbidden City. But having one inside the City is inappropriate. This is not globalization, but an erosion of Chinese culture.’ ” (the blog is in Chinese, so I’ll have to accept BusinessWeek Online’s translation). Others apparently agreed, and so Starbucks’ American image was shown the door (or maybe the gates; the Forbidden City is a former palace, after all).
As I travel, I’ve begun to feel like Starbucks is the McDonald’s of the 80s and 90s. Like the burger chain wiggled its way into foreign lands in the past decades, Starbucks is doing that now and is just as much a symbol of Americans’ consumerism as the golden arches. But if the closure in the Forbidden City is any indication, our wacky fast-food (and beverage) habits aren’t welcome everywhere.
Oddly, though, the big green circle has been in pretty much every city I’ve visited, and I have to say I’m a bit perplexed by it. Paying nearly $5 for a caffeine buzz is ridiculous to even some Americans…but in countries where a meal and drink in a mid-class sit-down restaurant can be less than $3 and the daily wages are about $25, the proliferation of Starbucks abroad is quite startling. Sure they’re there often for the tourists, but I can’t help but wonder what the Thai guy (who probably makes less than the $25/day average) thinks as he’s whipping up a $4.77 drink for the farang tourists.
If he’s like the quoted anchor who called Starbucks part of “America’s low-class food culture,” he probably thinks its hogwash that anyone would spend that much on a cup of Joe that’s not even served at a fine-dining establishment. Yet, that’s what Americans (and plenty of others) do.
Needing a quiet place to do some work Saturday, I did it too. But for a gal who doesn’t drink caffeine, that $4.77 chocolate chip cream drink after lunch was pretty much the devil. It kept me up until 6:20 the next morning. I might have to show Starbucks the gate for a while, too.
