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> Walking through the ancient towns another reality hit me: China doesn't need us anymore. These towns were packed with only Chinese tourists, I counted maybe t

by wahern 1y ago

> Walking through the ancient towns another reality hit me: China doesn't need us anymore. These towns were packed with only Chinese tourists, I counted maybe ten Westerners the whole week. No Starbucks, no McDonald's, no Western chains at all. What? New Orlean's French Quarter doesn't have McDonalds or Starbucks, either. And how is it shocking that a historical district in a province not internationally well known would have mostly domestic tourists? > China has built its own enormous internal market—its own tourism, its own brands, its own everything. They've turned inward not from isolation but from self-sufficiency. Is this person completely ignorant about Chinese history? Precisely nothing has changed about China, the culture has always been like this, if only because they've always been so large. There's a reason they've always called themselves the Middle Kingdom (i.e. the center of the universe). Large countries are like this, generally. The USA is like this. Perhaps the author is American and that's why they're so shocked when they begin to see the world through others' eyes.

zknow 1y ago
I don't think many people realize what a historical aberation 20th century China was.
- wahern 1y ago
  I'm not even sure the 20th century was an aberration. Yes, the 19th and 20th centuries saw outside influences (Opium Wars, WWII, Communism) triggering massive domestic changes, but those influences happened at the edges, geographically and figuratively. What was visible from the perspective of the average Chinese person was always, wholly Chinese. I think the anti-colonial movement, like the social justice movement, gives a false impression to people about what it's like to be an "other". These movements bifurcate groups into oppressors and oppressed, and explicitly or implicitly the oppressed are cast as victims beholden to a world in which they have no agency, perennially always outside looking in. They're less than human; their humanity stripped in exchange for being cast as objects of virtue. It turns people into caricatures, so when you see "oppressed" people behaving normally--the same way "normal" people do, e.g. your local community--it can be shocking.
notahacker 1y ago
> The USA is like this. Perhaps the author is American and that's why they're so shocked when they begin to see the world through others' eyes. Yeah, I'm a bit perplexed by this. You'll see local brands and local tourism dominate in many parts of countries like Spain or Thailand or Peru which don't even pretend to be self sufficient. No real surprise that US brands are a footnote somewhere with a different culture, especially when there's a billion people there and they make a lot of the stuff the West uses anyway.
- AuthAuth 1y ago
  no when you go to countries like spain, thailand idk about peru but they are filled with american brands and people. To see no McDonalds in a tourist area is actually shocking.
  - wahern 1y ago
    There are plenty of American tourists and American brands in China, too. But the article mentioned "ancient towns", which is another way of saying old areas, often preserved as historic districts (if an enclave of a larger city) or at least removed from modern expansion; and Yunnan province, which is like Kansas or North Carolina in terms of foreign interest and tourism. Basically, the person was shocked that a place like China could be anything but completely overrun, border-to-border, by foreign cultural influence. And for what it's worth, Google Maps says there are about a dozen or more each of McDonalds, KFCs, and Starbucks in Yunnan province. Predictably they're concentrated in the major metro regions. But like has happened with Europe over the past 30 years, in time they very well might spread out into the hinterland, presuming they can compete with domestic and regional competition. (Chinese culture has one of the longest and richest traditions of eating out, so even were we to assume local entrepreneurs are naifs, ignorant of how to leverage modernity, they still have a leg up in a domestic context. One of the reasons McDonalds became so prominent in US culture is because outside major cities with foreign influences--e.g. Asian or Southern European immigrants--we didn't have a strong tradition of eating out. Until the early-mid 20th century American food culture was very much meat & potatoes prepared at home or at least non-commercially. McDonalds is as much a reflection about how modernity transformed our own culture, not just how we transformed other cultures.)
junar 1y ago
I agree, that part seems like a weak argument. Perhaps a more apt comparison is that China-based Luckin Coffee has far more locations in the country compared to Starbucks. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/12/china-us-branded-coffee-shop https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/12/china-us-br...

by wahern 1y ago

zknow 1y ago

I don't think many people realize what a historical aberation 20th century China was.

wahern 1y ago
I'm not even sure the 20th century was an aberration. Yes, the 19th and 20th centuries saw outside influences (Opium Wars, WWII, Communism) triggering massive domestic changes, but those influences happened at the edges, geographically and figuratively. What was visible from the perspective of the average Chinese person was always, wholly Chinese. I think the anti-colonial movement, like the social justice movement, gives a false impression to people about what it's like to be an "other". These movements bifurcate groups into oppressors and oppressed, and explicitly or implicitly the oppressed are cast as victims beholden to a world in which they have no agency, perennially always outside looking in. They're less than human; their humanity stripped in exchange for being cast as objects of virtue. It turns people into caricatures, so when you see "oppressed" people behaving normally--the same way "normal" people do, e.g. your local community--it can be shocking.

notahacker 1y ago

> The USA is like this. Perhaps the author is American and that's why they're so shocked when they begin to see the world through others' eyes. Yeah, I'm a bit perplexed by this. You'll see local brands and local tourism dominate in many parts of countries like Spain or Thailand or Peru which don't even pretend to be self sufficient. No real surprise that US brands are a footnote somewhere with a different culture, especially when there's a billion people there and they make a lot of the stuff the West uses anyway.

AuthAuth 1y ago
no when you go to countries like spain, thailand idk about peru but they are filled with american brands and people. To see no McDonalds in a tourist area is actually shocking.
- wahern 1y ago
  There are plenty of American tourists and American brands in China, too. But the article mentioned "ancient towns", which is another way of saying old areas, often preserved as historic districts (if an enclave of a larger city) or at least removed from modern expansion; and Yunnan province, which is like Kansas or North Carolina in terms of foreign interest and tourism. Basically, the person was shocked that a place like China could be anything but completely overrun, border-to-border, by foreign cultural influence. And for what it's worth, Google Maps says there are about a dozen or more each of McDonalds, KFCs, and Starbucks in Yunnan province. Predictably they're concentrated in the major metro regions. But like has happened with Europe over the past 30 years, in time they very well might spread out into the hinterland, presuming they can compete with domestic and regional competition. (Chinese culture has one of the longest and richest traditions of eating out, so even were we to assume local entrepreneurs are naifs, ignorant of how to leverage modernity, they still have a leg up in a domestic context. One of the reasons McDonalds became so prominent in US culture is because outside major cities with foreign influences--e.g. Asian or Southern European immigrants--we didn't have a strong tradition of eating out. Until the early-mid 20th century American food culture was very much meat & potatoes prepared at home or at least non-commercially. McDonalds is as much a reflection about how modernity transformed our own culture, not just how we transformed other cultures.)

junar 1y ago

I agree, that part seems like a weak argument. Perhaps a more apt comparison is that China-based Luckin Coffee has far more locations in the country compared to Starbucks. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/12/china-us-branded-coffee-shop https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/12/china-us-br...