Genevieve Ko

he “vacations” felt like pun- From our room windows on the top ishment. I hated spending floor of my dad’s Golden Flower Hotel, my childhood summers in I saw neighborhood kids, all in identi- central China. My dad, a cal underwear, jumping in the front- commercial real-estate archi- entrance fountain. They looked like tect, insisted that my sib- happy grasshoppers. I was so jealous. lings and I would be grateful It was as important to my dad that the for our trips there. From the community’s kids enjoyed the property time my dad left Hong Kong to attend as it was that I stay trapped in it. I was TUC Berkeley, he dreamt of returning to forbidden to walk out the front doors. China to assist in its economic develop- My parents were afraid I’d be kidnapped, ment. So, a year after his homeland’s doors or that I’d shame them by stripping to opened in !"#", he got to work opening a my skivvies to play in the fountain too. luxury Western-style hotel in Xi’an. I had to settle for occasional family On the rocky flights to Xi’an, the day trips for entertainment. We made airplane’s cabin was so thick with cheap an annual visit to the terra-cotta war- cigarette smoke I could barely see out the riors, where, over the years, we saw the windows. But on the minivan ride to the site transformed from a musty, bare- hotel, I got to see plenty. Sword fights— bones facility to a polished attraction real, ready-to-kill brawls—played out with real toilets. But aside from that on the dusty roads choked with hawk- sightseeing excursion and a few others, I ers’ stalls. Bare-butted babies casually mostly amused myself by eating my way lumbered in tra$c while whistle-toting through the hotel. Communist police served as totally inef- There were two main restaurants in fective tra$c lights. the hotel: a Western continental café

!%% | Lucky Peach Photograph by Kevin Van Aelst Lucky Peach | !%& and a Chinese dining room. Both mean the chicken’s overcooked. travelers can find Colonel Sand- were just o' the lobby, beyond The hotel’s chicken wasn’t an ers’s goateed smile plastered on the the central winding staircase. And exact replica of American chicken same red KFC logo from the north- both were good—a Guangzhou chef either. It reminded me most of ern deserts to the southern islands, helmed one side; a Swedish chef, Northern Chinese salt-and-pepper from the cosmopolitan coast all the the other. Back then, the Chinese pork chops. The meat was dusted in way inland, with hundreds of shops restaurant catered to Chinese visi- cornstarch and lightly spiced, then in bigger cities and dominance in the tors, and the Western one to West- fried. The skin of the fried chicken emerging markets of smaller cities. erners. My dad says, “Food in China was what really got me. It had the KFC is the poster child for multina- was notorious for being unpalatable light shatter of a Lay’s original tional expansion in China. Last year, to Westerners. Some places would potato chip in a superthin, savory ** percent of Yum!’s +*.!, billion westernize local dishes while not crust that hovered between Ameri- revenue came from China. making them fully American. But can craggy breading and the batter- Localization means that while you we made everything exactly the less oil-lacquered skin of Canton- can get a taste of the Colonel’s origi- way it would be made in America. ese wok-fried chicken. Given the nal anywhere in China, you shouldn’t We made it critical to have West- foot-in-both-worlds appeal of the expect a side of slaw. As soon as the ern food served to Western-food restaurant’s fried chicken, I wonder leadership team saw that the product standards, all the way down to the if the two chefs borrowed from one wasn’t selling, they dropped it. The ketchup. It had to be Heinz.” Sure another even if they didn’t speak Chinese executives noted that veg- enough, tourists loved the Western the same language. etables traditionally aren’t eaten raw place. As the only real American Of course, the American tourists in China. Chinese consumers prefer food option in Xi’an—heck, in the didn’t recognize it as fried chicken, their produce cooked, and salad was whole Shaanxi region in the early which is why it got pulled from the a horrifyingly foreign concept in !"()s—it was an oasis for weary menu in a matter of weeks. No more the early open-door days. Slaw was Western travelers. fried chicken for me. But that was shown the door, together with other Though I didn’t prefer one place then. It’s much easier for tourists American items that Chinese didn’t over the other, my favorite dish, to find fried chicken in China these want, replaced by classic Chinese the fried chicken, came from the days, due largely to one fact: there side dishes like rice. Western menu. There’s no dish in are now more than *,%)) Kentucky Much of the menu in Chinese Chinese cuisine that tastes anything Fried Chicken outlets throughout KFCs is devoted to Chinese dishes like American fried chicken. For the country. Like my dad, KFC got that range from traditional to fast- starters, the bird is usually butch- in early. In !"(#, it was the first food fusion. (This season, they’re ered di'erently, either cut right American fast-food chain to plant promoting new dishes like noo- through the bones, finely sliced, or a shop in the Middle Kingdom. But dle soup with a choice of a dozen diced boneless. The closest thing the secret to its success was going shrimp or a tomato-beef combo.) in appearance to American fried in a direction that was opposite to From the outset, KFC has been tai- chicken is a version in which the the one my dad had taken. Rather loring the menu to Chinese tastes whole bird is bathed repeatedly in than cater to American visitors by under the leadership of Sam Su, hot oil until the skin’s burnished faithfully reproducing the home- head of Yum! in China. and crispy. Cooking preferences town model, they created restau- A native of Taiwan, Su got his di'er greatly too. In the Southern rants locals would love. MBA at Wharton before joining Chinese “velveting” technique, the It’s worked: last year, KFC’s par- Yum! in !"(". He arrived after KFC process is closer to blanching than ent company, Yum! Brands, which flopped in Hong Kong and Taiwan to frying. Egg-white-coated pieces also owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, in the preceding two decades and of chicken are dropped in not-very- opened ((" new stores, cement- just after the successful launch of hot oil and cooked until just glossy ing close to a *) percent share of China’s first KFC in Tiananmen white. Any hint of brown would China’s fast-food market. American Square. He got together a team of

!%* | Lucky Peach fellow ethnic Chinese businessmen the pricey side. The atmosphere of recover from this food-safety and who understood the culture as inti- the store is nice: there’s an area for media debacle. They’ve launched mately as he did to fashion a KFC kids to play and an area for parents. a social media blitz, responding to concept for China. They understood It’s much nicer there, much more comments, sharing news releases, the importance and novelty of a customer friendly. It’s a very happy and even holding a poetry contest. recognizable American restaurant place! It feels more like an Ameri- The best poem that includes the in China, but they wanted to appeal can Starbucks.” phrase “The chickens are innocent,” to Chinese tastes, customizing There’s no denying that it’s still wins an iPad mini. All this rallying the menus not only to the whole fast food. But KFC has changed its came just in time for another SARS country but to regions within the formula to meet its market: you can scare this March. country. Steaming bowls of congee pick up a quick breakfast of soy milk Both of these setbacks symbol- may be the same outlet to outlet, and savory Chinese crullers or a ize a shift in the East-West dance but spicy dishes are far more fiery sandwich in flaky sesame bread, stop between China and KFC. When in Sichuan than in Shanghai. in for tea and an egg-custard tart, or KFC first arrived, there was nothing When traveling through the order a full fried-chicken meal with a like it. Now Yum! is dependent on country, you can get a portrait of this side of wood ear mushrooms online China’s constantly expanding ros- customized corporate cuisine on a and have it delivered. ter of outlets as its primary source local level. The menus are huge com- Another reason Western tourists of revenues, while the native KFC pared to those of American KFCs, and Chinese locals first flocked to brand has only recently reversed with an average of fifty choices on KFC was the value placed on brand four years of “negative same-store o'er. Su’s management team aggres- “trustworthiness.” No matter how sales growth.” sively opens stores and also pushes Chinese its o'erings, it was still Let China have KFC. It’ll get past product development, introducing perceived as a safe, clean Ameri- these food-safety and SARS epi- about fifty new items a year, includ- can export. But last November and sodes. The Colonel’s Original Recipe ing temporary specials. Right now, December, government news agen- will live on in a population that’s you can try the cheesy shrimp egg cies reported that KFC’s chicken developed a taste for it. Even though rolls being sold under the name chury farmers and suppliers were inject- KFC is still a luxury product for chury pang, loosely translated as ing animals with illegal chemicals much of the country, it’s transitioned “crunchy, crunchy pops.” and excessive hormones, including from a special-occasion Western Su and his team have also tweaked cocktails to make the birds grow novelty to a regular habit among the the formula for building the restau- faster. That prompted an o$- new middle class. They treat it the rants: they are twice as big as Ameri- cial food-safety probe and outrage way we do: reliable cheap eats in a can ones, mindful of the Chinese among consumers on social media. clean spot, albeit much nicer than habit of dining with large groups of The management team was slow to most KFCs stateside. I couldn’t have family and friends. The restaurants respond to the lightning-fast stream imagined, as an American-born kid are intended to be sit-down destina- of criticism on Weibo, China’s visiting China before much of the tions special enough for celebrations. Twitter equivalent, and sales in country had indoor plumbing, that Some stores even employ cheery January plummeted about *) per- their version of one of our restau- workers to entertain kids. cent. Even as Su and Yum! CEO rants would end up feeling far more Fei Fei Long, twenty-three, was David Novak belatedly apologized, modern and “Western.” Popping into a KFC regular with her high school they also acknowledged that %)!& a KFC in China feels both familiar friends in the southern Chinese earnings might end up significantly and foreign and slightly jarring. Sure, city of Hainan. When she moved lower than expected. you can find better food in most to Texas for school six years ago, In %)!), KFC’s profits from Chinese cities, but where else can she decided to try El Paso’s KFC. “It China surpassed its earnings from you sit back in a comfy plastic chair didn’t compare,” she says. “In the America for the first time, and with a bucket of chicken and taste Chinese market, the branding is on the company is now desperate to China’s ascendency?

Lucky Peach | !%,