Starbucks in the Forbidden City

In the Forbidden City, the Chinese emperors' inner sanctum in centuries past, a walled enclave within a walled enclave within a walled enclave, an architectural symbol of Chinese insularity (and just a stone's throw from Tien-a-men Square) there is... You guessed it...

A Starbucks.

As proof for skeptics, I offer this photograph of the very spot, taken by me one week ago.

Our cheerful local guide gave us a tour of the Forbidden City, but frowned when I suggested that this Starbucks was where the emperor used to hang out with the empress when they were dating. A nice fellow, he rushed us past this particular landmark. Other Americans in our tour group, an upscale bunch from Los Angeles (all of whom I liked), expressed dismay at the presence of this Starbucks in particular and Starbucks' in general throughout China. (They are in every city I've visited). It is almost mandatory, these days, for cultured individuals to express digust over the proliferation of Starbucks and, indeed, over any popular American export (MacDonald's, Burger King, Coca Cola, etc.)

It fell to me, the cretinous economist, to defend the supposedly indefensible: MacDonald's in Beijing and Starbucks in the Forbidden City.

None of us liked the food we were served on this trip. Our guide chose expensive restaurants that catered to westerners and wealthy Chinese. We liked the food ordinary Chinese people ate. We liked the steamed dumplings served on the street, and spicy noodle soup, and the clay-pot rice. To our guide, this food was not special enough. It was low-class food. He did not approve of this food and would not take us to these places.

In a word, we had peasant tastes.

Picture now, the Chinese person who hears that a MacDonald's is opening in Beijing. He is curious. He goes there to find out what kind of food Americans eat. He discovers that MacDonald's food is fun, genuinely fun. (The vast majority of customers you see at a MacDonalds in China are local people.) He does not eat at MacDonald's every day, nor does he make hamburgers a major component of his diet. But he enjoys going to MacDonald's and his children like it too. I have talked to a number of Chinese about MacDonald's, and this is the story I hear over and over again.

They like American peasant food.

Who am I to deny him that pleasure? The pompous guide who does not want me to like authentic Chinese peasant food (preferring that I consume expensive and less popular cuisine) is no less a proponent of class distinctions than the cultured American tourist who bemoans the presence of MacDonald's in Beijing.

An identical argument holds for Starbucks. I see young Chinese in Starbucks all over the place in China. They read, they study, they work on laptop computers, they meet for romantic trysts or they show up to relax and get away from things for a while. They like Starbucks for the same reason Americans like Starbucks. Why deny them this? Why insist that they should prefer something less popular, something less emblematic of American tastes?

I celebrate the Starbucks in the Forbidden City. I celebrate it because I love eating Chinese food that is popular with the common people and delight in the notion that Chinese do the same with American food. And I celebrate it because I can imagine no more appropriate metaphor for a nation in transition. Western tastes, western habits of behavior are no longer forbidden, even in the Forbidden City.

A nation that opens itself to the tastes and habits of foreigners, that allows its citizens to consume what they choose, when they choose, where they choose, is moving away from totalitarianism and toward freedom. Consumers appreciate Starbucks. They like the coffee and they like the experience. These days the people telling consumers what they should and should not like are not the rulers of communist China, not the former totalitarians...

They are western intellectuals who scorn the tastes of commoners. Foremost among them, I've noticed, are university professors.

How fortunate that no one ever listens to them.

P.S.Babcock

Comments

[Another Economist]

Hi P.S.,
I believe that the outrage is about symbols and tradition, not about denying or allowing consumers to do this or that. My best guess is that the reaction by many Chinese traditionals is a version of what many American "peasants" would feel if some big Chinese food chain opened a franchise in the middle of ground zero. The forbidden city is still sacred to many Chinese who hold on to tradition. Which is hard to relate to when brought up in the U.S., I guess.

[SunSet]

从你的文章中可以看出你对中国以及中国文化的热爱，欢迎你来到中国。但是你想吃到的一些正宗的中国美食是在类似故宫的旅游景点吃不到的，很多美食总是藏在民间的小吃街中。

Welcome to China.
But the delicious high-class Chinese food you want could not be found on the places of historic interest such as Forbidden City, it always hide in the civilian food-street.

[Dean]

I'm chinese,23 years old. I don't like Starbucks in the Forbidden City totally. I don't hold on to tradition but I think there should have tradition in China in some place. You like Starbucke in the Forbben City, while much more foreigners hate this. This is desecration of China.

[朋友]

仅仅是路过

[Dean]

Sorry for my mistake!

[yinhexi.cn]

Hi,philip, congratulations!your article was recommended by a famamous Chinese TV news compere: http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/4adabe27010008yg , so i am here now~~

From your article, i can understand your meaning. Yes, for two different countries, sometimes attentions on curious covering anything. So then you can understand why most of Chinese like KFC, Coca Cola,and even Starbucks,and for the Amercians, they are interesting in Chines Noodles,even steamed dumplings. The real difference of this interests is the Amercian low-class food when in China became high-class, but Chinese food not when in US Market.

For the culture, it is not a proper decision to make a Starbucks in Forbidden City definitely. I agree with you!

[亮空间]

70％看懂了。谢谢你这么喜欢中国，喜欢北京。有机会再来时也尝尝北京的传统饮料“豆汁”吧,我相信你会爱上它的。

[我走了]

星巴克就那样.口味不怎么样.广告却塑造的深入人心.

[P Wang]

I read this article by a hyperlink and it is very impressive. I am a Chinese and I love my country. I always believe China needs to protect the tradition and culture which also includes these famous buildings. Certainly it is a very bad way to protect, advertise and market our culture. Chinese government needs to make rules to guarantee these things we are proud of.

[liyichen]

i think it is a china culture for adimination of Forbidden City.

[Do what i want to]

I am chinese. Welcome to china and glad that you love our country.Thanks to the open policy,we can get touch to the western world,we are curious to the outside,such as what the American's life ,food ,and so on. That brings up the our enthusiasm when the MacDonald and other company enter china.Now we are more and more used to them and also realize our traditional food is good for our health sincerely. But there is also a long way to harmonize the protection of our tradition and western thought,I also hope the government can realize it ,and take the quick action which we can see the effect.

[Alan]

谢谢!别的不多说~~~

[Dirk]

Can you see Starbucke in the White House? Can you see Starbucke in the Buckingham Palace? Can you see Starbucke Taj Mahal? Pleaes, go out the Forbidden City

[fn]

I am a frequent customer of Starbucks but I hate that one in FC. Some stupid Chinese are crazy for money and totally have no sense of dignity, or in Chinese term, face. They just are greedy but unfortunately foolish. Trust me, they are shit among Chinese.

[maomao]

This seems to be a typical "Lexus and the olive tree" issue as described by Friedman.
I'm a chinese, I truly believe that certain cultural heritage should be protected against those threats of market economy, however, while most of us cavil at the more obvious phenomenon like" starbucks in the forbidden city". There are actually more heritage are being carelessly and irreversibly cast into oblivion.
Philanthrophy, or simply love for the common people, which was the central theme of the confucian values, is for ever lost in such cold-blooded concrete jungles of today's China. Some recent news: some private vehicle drivers purposely ran over people they accidentally hit, because paying for the dead is less than paying for the injured; or in suicidal cases, crowds laughed and jeered at someone hesitating on the verge of the tall building, and finally infuriated and jumped down.And there are ridiculous and hypocritical shows like new officials taking public vows against corruption, new surgeons taking vows against receiving bribe......
While I read these news, I could really feel the anger, the anger galloping out from my heart, the anger gushing in every arteries and veins.
Maybe one day I'll leave China, or maybe one day I'll become like the famous Taxi driver....Here's a man who would not take it anymore... here's a man who stood up against all the scum the filth the dogs... here's a man who stood up!

[Ming]

I can not agree such an idea like "starbucks in Forbidden city".
I've have been to the Forbidden city for 2 times with this years,but didn't noticed it,ever.Thanks to your picture,now i knew a new achievement our stupid offical made.
Someone have already spoke what I want to express,just add one more:will the French people let starbucks open in Palais du Louvre?
Visa versa.

Welcome the mac and cocacola made their new branch on the debris of the old Beijing.The open policy is not wrong,but to "open" is not to "instead",Guess what the Palestine children see on their own tv channel?(i've seen their sat-tv)
Tom and Jerry!

Welcome to Amearth,Martin from the Mars.

[Brian]

Feel sick upon the case...

[SHANE]

I BELIEVE THAT IT IS IMPORTANT TO PERSERVE ONE CULTURE, HOWEVER I DON'T THINK THAT YOU CAN PICK AND CHOOSE WHOSE CULTURE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANOTHERS AS THOSE WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE STARK BUCKS IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY, WHEN ITS THEIR VERY CULTURE WHOSE WIPING THE TIBETAN CULTURE FROM WORLD HISTORY, FOR WHAT, THEIR OWN CULTURAL AND ECONOMICAL GAIN. LETS PUT IT IN PERSPECTIVE. STAR BUKS EQUALS THE CHINESE CULTURE AND THE FORBIDEN CITY EQUAL THE TIBETAN CULTURE. CHEW ON THAT ALL YOU HYPOCRITS.

[Tet]

Dr. Babcock must be a little surprised about the increasing traffic coming to this page recently. And he might have found that many of the visitors are actually from China.

Here is why. A news anchor on CCTV, China's National TV, wrote something about Starbucks in the Forbidden City in his blog. Rui Chenggang, who hosts an English news program on CCTV, said that "the symbol and vector" of the low-class, no-taste American food culture should not be allowed in the FC. It ruined the Chinese culture.

In order to show that his point of views is also consensus among the Westerners, he gave an evidence to show how Americans hate to see SB in the FC. Guess what? Rui cited this page, the page in which Dr. Babcock wrote "I celebrate the Starbucks in the Forbidden City."

I don't want to comment on whether SB should keep staying in the FC or not. But I found it's a little amusement that Mr. Rui used Dr. Babcock's blog as an example to support his argument. He is anchoring an English news program on national TV, and I suppose he can read and understand English. I don't know what to say. Well. Whatever.

Peace!

[little Alex]

Well, the moment the American people welcomes a Panda Express (however chop suey-ish it is) in the White House is the moment that we'll welcome a Starbucks in the Forbidden City.

[zero]

i know the starbuck was put the forbidden city six years ago.why did nobody complained the thing for so long time? only a reporter begins to against it and then so many people followed him, i don't know why really.

[King of U.S.A]

Do you like my name?
I'm a Chinese. I do not think that STARBUCKS is suitable Forbiden City!

[lintao]

勉勉强强看得懂

[hehaidong]

I am a Chinese,a modern and tradational Chinese."Forbidden city" means that pepole should not do every thing in it,for it is "forbidden".Forbidden city is a symbol of Chinese Culture,I think the protection of this culture is the duty of everyone in the world, not only Chinese.

[nightgooglej]

a young that the my days little we watched it is a other things