Chris Arnade: preference

Transcript context

…Yes, but you should be able to get to Kunming without problems. In Xi’an, try the cherries. They’re fantastic. Now, which is more interesting in a major Chinese city, a McDonald’s or a KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken? Everybody told me KFC, and I stuck with McDonald’s because of my past history with McDonald’s. What struck me about Beijing and China, in both cases was it’s the one time on my trips. I famously have become, online, the McDonald’s guy because I read a lot about McDonald’s in the US and the role of McDonald’s in the US. Whenever I go overseas, people expect me to use McDonald’s, but I just don’t use them because people don’t use them. There’re alternatives. Japan has 7-Elevens and Izakayas, and in other countries there’re other forms of what I would say organic food spaces. In Beijing, it was McDonald’s. [laughs] It was interesting. It served the same role it does in the US for very different reasons, which is, in the US, McDonald’s is the place people go because it’s functional relative to the neighborhood. McDonald’s in Beijing — people go because it’s dysfunctional relative to the neighborhood in terms of regulatory rate. You just can go and relax. I went to a few KFCs to use the bathroom, but I don’t like fried chicken. I just do not like it. [laughs] I don’t like fried foods in general so I didn’t really spend time there. I found myself spending a lot of time in the McDonald’s in China. I find them to be really wonderful places. My favorite McDonald’s in the world is in Auckland, New Zealand, which is the world’s largest Polynesian city. McDonald’s there often serves as the center for Polynesian gatherings, not just Māori —…

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