YUNXIANG YAN Actually, the local response to the"invasion"of Western fast food begar in the late 198os, right after the initial success of KFC. It quickly developed into what some reporters called a war of fried chickens"in Beijing. Following the model of KFC, nearly a hundred local fast-food shops featuring more than a dozen kinds of fried chicken appeared between 198g and 19go. One of the earliest such establishments was Lingzhi Roast Chicken, which began business in 1989; this was followed by Chinese Garden Chicken, Huaxiang Chicken, and Xiangfei Chicken in 199o. The chicken war reached its peak when the Ronghua Fried Chicken company of Shanghai opened its first chain store directly opposite one of the kFC restaurants in Beijing. The manager of Ronghua Chicken proudly announced a challenge to kFC: "Wherever KFC opens a store, we will open another Ronghua Fried chicken next door. All of the local fried chicken variations were no more than simple imita- tions of the KFC food. Their only localizing strategy was to emphasize spe- cial Chinese species and sacred recipes that supposedly added an extra med icinal value to their dishes. thus, consumers were told that the chinese Garden Chicken might prevent cancer and that Huaxiang Chicken could strengthen the yin-yang balance inside one's body. This strategy did not work well; KFC and McDonald's won out in that first wave of competition. Only a small proportion of the local fried chicken shops managed to sur vive, while KFC and McDonald,'s became more and more popular. Realizing thatsimply imitating Western fast food was a dead end, the emerg ing local fast-food industry turned to exploring resources within Chinese cui sine. Among the pioneers, Jinghua Shaomai Restaurantin 1991 tried to trans- form some traditional Beijing foods into fast foods. This was followed by the entry of a large number of local fast-food restaurants, such as the Beijing Beef Noodle King(not to be confused with the California Beef Noodle King). The Jinghe Kuaican company made the first domestic attempt to develop a fast food business on a large scale. with the support of the Beijing municipal gow ernment, this company built its own farms and processing facilities, butit chose to sell boxed fast foods in mobile vans parked on streets and in residential areas. Thus it fell into the preexisting category of hefan(boxed rice)pur veyors. Although the price of boxed fast foods was much lower than that of imported fast food, the boxed fast foods did not meet consumers'expecta tions of fast food. The Jinghe Kuaican Company disappeared as quickly as it had emerged. In October 1992, nearly a thousand state-owned restaurants united under the flag of the Jingshi Fast Food Company, offering five sets of value meals and more than 5o fast foodsitems, allofwhichrwererderived from traditional Chinese cuisines. This company was also the first fast-food enter- prise to be run by the Beijing municipal government, thus indicating the im- 9. Duan Gang 1991 20. Zhang Zhaonan 1g92a
()F IIAMBURGER AND SOCIAL SPACE. portance of this growing sector to the government. The Henan Province Red Sorghum Restaurant opened on Wangfujing Street in March 1996, immedi- ately across the street from the McDonalds flagship restaurant Specializing in country-style lamb noodles. the manager of Red Sorghum announced that twelve more restaurants were to be opened in Beijing by the end of 1996, all of which would be next to a mcDonalds outlet We want to fight McDon ald's, " the manager claimed, " we want to take back the fast-food market. "22 By 1996 the fast-food sector in Beijing consisted of three groups: The main group was made up of Mc Donalds, KFC, and other Western fast-food chains Although they no longer attracted the keen attention of the news media, their numbers were still growing. The second group consisted of the local KFC imitations, which managed to survive the 1991"chicken war. The most successful in this group is the Ronghua Chicken restaurant chain, which in 1 995 had eleven stores in several cities and more than 5oo employees. The third group included restaurants selling newly created Chinese fast foods, from simple noodle soups to beijing roast duck meals. many believe that the long tradition of a national cuisine will win out over the consumerstem- porary curiosity about Western-style fast food. Thus far, however, Chinese fast food has not been able to compete with Western fast food, even though it is cheaper and more appealing to the tastes of ordinary citizens in beijing Red Sorghum was the third business to an- nounce in public the ambitious goal of beating McDonald s and KFc (after the Shanghai Ronghua Chicken and Beijing Xiangfei Chicken), but so far none have come close. By August 1g96 it was clear that Red Sorghums lamb noodle soup could not compete in the hot summer with Big Mac, which was popular year-round. 24 The lack of competitiveness of Chinese fast food has drawn official at tention at high levels, and in 1996 efforts were made to support the devel- opment of a local fast-food sector. Concerned experts in the restaurant in- dustry and commentators in the media attribute the bad showing of the Chinese fast-food restauran ts to several things. In the mid-19gos, at least:(1) the quality, nutritional values, and preparation of Western fast foods were highly standardized, while Chinese fast foods were still prepared in traditional ways;(2)Chinese fast-food establishments did not offer the friendly, quick service of Western fast-food restaurants; (3)the local establishments were not as clean and comfortable as the Western fast-food restaurants; and (4) mostimportant, unlike McDonalds or KFC, Chinese restaurants did not em- 21. See Zhang Zhaonan 1992b; You Zi 1994: and Zhang Guoyun 1995. 22. Yu Bin 1996:"Honggaoliang yuyan zhongshi kuaican da qushi"1996. 23. Yu Weize 1995 24. See Liu Fen and Long Zaizu 1996 25. The development of Chinese fast food is incorporated into the eighth national five- year plan for scientific research. See Bi Yuhua 1g94: see also Ling Dawei 199
208 YUNXIANG YAN ploy advanced technologies or modern management methods 26 From a Marxist perspective, Ling Dawei has concluded that the race between im ported and local fast foods in Beijing is a race between advanced and back ward forces of production; hence the development of the local fast-food in- dustry will rest ultimately on modernization. 27 There is no doubt that these views have a basis in everyday practice; yet they all regard food consumption as purely economic behavior and fast-food restaurants as mere eating places. A more complete understanding of the fast-food fever in Beijing also requires close scrutiny of the social context of consumption-the participants and social settings, because "The specific na- ture of the consumed substances surely matters; but it cannot, by itself, ex- plain why such substances may seem irresistible. THE SPATIAL CONTEXT OF FAST-FOOD CONSUMPTION As Giddens points out, most social life occurs in the context of the "fading away"of time and the"shading off"of space. 9 This is certainly true for fast- food consumption Fast-food restaurants, therefore, need to be examined both as eating places and as social spaces where social interactions occur. a hysical place accommodates objects and human agents and provides an arena for social interactions, and it follows that the use of space cannot be separated- from the objects and the physical environment However, space functions only as a context, not a determinant, of social interactions, and the space itself in some way is also socially constructed. In the following pages I consider, on the one hand, how spatial context shapes consumers behavior and social relations, and how, on the other hand, consumers ap propriate fast-food restaurants into their own space. Such an inquiry must begin with a brief review of Beijings restaurant sector in the late igos in order to assess the extent to which Western fast-food outlets differ from ex- isting local restaurants Socialist Canteens and Restaurants in the I9705 Eating out used to be a difficult venture for ordinary people in Beijing be- cause few restaurants were designed for mass consumption. As mentioned 26. For representative views on this issue, see Guo Jianying 1995: Huang Shengbing 19951 Jian Feng 1992: Xiao Hua 1993: Ye Xianning 1993: Yan Zhenguo and Liu. Yinsheng 1992a; and zhong Zhe 1993 27. Ling Dawei 1995 28.Min1993p.27L 29. Giddens 1984. P 132 30. See Sayer 1985. Pp.30-31 c Lechner 1991: Urry I 985
OF HAMILIRGER AND SOCIAL SPACE earlier, the restaurants in Beijing were hierarchically ranked by architecture function, and the rype and quality of foods provided. More important, be fore the economic reforms almost all restaurants and eateries were state owned businesses, which meant that a restaurant was first and foremost a work unit, just like any factory, shop, or government agency. Thus a restau- rant's position and function were also determined by its administrative sta tus as a work unit. Generally speaking, the restaurant hierarchy consisted of three layers. At the top were luxury and exclusive restaurants in star-rated hotels, such as the Beijing Hotel, which served only foreigners and privileged domestic guests At the next level were well-established formal restaurants, many of which spe cialized in a particular style of cuisine and had been in business for many years, even before the 1949 revolution. Unlike the exclusive hotelrestaurants he formal restaurants were open to the public and served two major func- tions: (1)as public spaces in which small groups of elites could socialize and hold meetings; and (2)as places for ordinary citizens to hold family banquets on special, ritualized occasions such as weddings. At the bottom of the hier archy were small eateries that provided common family-style foods; these were hardly restaurants( they were actually called shitang, meaning canteens). The small eateries were frequented primarily by visitors from outlying provinces and some Beijing residents who had to eat outside their homes because of special job requirements. The majority of Beijing residents rarely ate out- they normally had their meals at home or in their work-unit canteens. In the 1950s the development ofinternal canteens(neibu shitang) not onl constituted an alternative to conventional restaurants but also had a great impact on the latter. Most work units had(and still have) their own canteens, in order to provide employees with relatively inexpensive food and, more important, to control the time allotted for meals. Because canteens were sub- sidized by the work units and were considered part of employees benefits, they were run in a manner similar to a family kitchen, only on an enlarged scale. The central message delivered through the canteen facilities was that the work unit, as the representative of the party-state, provided food to its employees, just as a mother feeds her children(without the affectionate com ponent of real parental care). The relationship between the canteen work- ers and those who ate at the canteens was thus a patronized relationship be tween the feeder and the fed, rather than a relationship of service provider and customers. The tasteless foods, unfriendly service, and uncomfortable environment were therefore natural components at such public canteens, which prevailed for more than three decades and still exist in many work units today The work-unit mentality of"feeding"instead of "serving"people also made 32. For a comprehensive study of the work-unit system, see Walder 1986