Starbucks and home

Does some one from China feel like home in Chinatown?

To me, the answer is no.

The narrow streets, the smell of restaurant kitchens, the sweet songs of Lijun Deng, the Cantonese dialect-all make me feel like I am in a small town of southern china, or in a Hong Kong movie, but not where I live.

However, there is someplace makes me feel like I am home. That is Starbucks.
Last night when I sat in a Starbucks on the Market Street with a tall cup of mocha in hand, I really feel as if in Beijing.

There is one Starbucks on the Chaoyangmenwai Street, close to my office building. When I am in Beijing I go to Starbucks very often, to interview people, meet my friends, write with my laptop or just hide from piles of works. There is also a wide road in front of me when I look through the window, just like what I saw from the Starbucks at the 12th and Market Streets in Philadelphia.

One difference between the two Starbucks is the one in Beijing is much bigger and noisier. The other difference is that Starbucks in Beijing offers my favorite chocolate cakes and tiramisu, which I never find in Starbucks here.

There is also a Starbucks close to where I live in Beijing. Though it is in a residential area, it is often crowded even on the workdays. Sometimes I go to Starbucks with my book or laptop, sit at an outdoor table, and play computer games or reading. .Then I realize how globalization is changing China and my own life, which I think is good.

But some Chinese don’t think so.

Last year, a Chinese TV anchor found a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, the royal palace in Beijing. He got so angry that he urged in his blog to drive Starbucks out of the Forbidden City, “to protect the Chinese culture”.

He said it is OK to have Starbucks in any other place in Beijing. However, while acknowledging that Starbucks is more comfortable than any of the Chinese food vendors in the Forbidden City, he does not want to see it there. Because as a symbol of tasteless American culture, Starbuck’s presence in the Forbidden City is a culture invasion to China. " It is a laugh stock in western upper-class society,” he said later in a interview.

I am at least as proud as he is of the Forbidden City many times, but I would be glad to see a Starbucks after an exhausting walk in such a large palace, especially in winter or summer. I would rush into the café and I don’t care how the western upper-class society thinks of me at all.

In my view, the point is not if whether Starbucks should be in the Forbidden City. The point is whether any food vendor or commercial site should be in the Forbidden City. If they should, then the question is how to harmonize its existence with the environment as much as possible and at the same time serve tourists well.

But the idea of throwing out the Starbucks and being satisfied with the remaining Chinese food vendors, by itself, is ridiculous.

Actually, Starbucks is very popular in China since it provides a pleasant place for people to meet and have a rest. It doesn’t force people to come in. If you really don’t like it you can just enter a Chinese teahouse or suggest building one in the Forbidden City.

That is the fair play.

The TV anchor’s idea, as many Chinese call patriotism, in my view is a kind of aggressive nationalism or protectionism which may impede a country’s development.
Unfortunately, as a reporter covering trade, I find stronger protectionism in the name of patriotism both in China and the United States in recent years.

Once I saw a red banner in a supermarket in Washington DC which encouraged people to buy a brand of wok because it is made in USA. It said something like: buy the brand and save our jobs.
It will only cost customers money and the jobs in the supermarkets!

I am tired of so much criticism on Chinese goods for trade deficit. China doesn’t force Americans to buy Chinese goods. You buy it because of its low price and good quality.

There is intellectual property right or other problems, but the main reason that China becomes a export machine is because it enjoys real comparative advantage on labor and other key resources. Therefore resisting Chinese goods would not help the American jobs. Open up to Chinese investments, say, to allow CNOOC, a Chinese oil company, to buy Unocal two years ago may help.