Western brands in China

I'm writing this purely because I'm sitting in a McDonalds sheltering from the biblical rain.

In the last few days I've spent time in a Starbucks, Tesco and McDonalds, which I did to kill time, but all these places are new China experiences for me. And bizzarely, except the obvious product ranges suited to the Chinese customer they are exactly the same as they are in the UK and probably everywhere else in the world. I know that's sort of the point of these international brands but it's strange to go half way round the world and discover that Tesco uses exactly the same shelf labels as they do at home. Tesco also are onto a winning name here, they call themselves 乐购 (legou) which translates as Happy Purchase.

McDonald's obviously has it's staples of burgers and chips, which are being devoured all around me alongside the more Chinese-esk bubble tea and black seasame ice cream. I don't go to McDonald's at home so I don't know how it compares to the UK but I ate the chips once and they were awful... Also I think the prices are more or less the same as the west so it's not a cheap meal by Chinese standards. Interestingly, I think I've seen more overweight people in the time I've been in here than I have all year. The future maybe doesn't bode well for the currently, generally lean, Chinese figure.

Starbucks was also a slightly surprising experience for me, when I ordered an iced green tea and ended up with this:

Not a clue what it was, matcha tea maybe, but it was definitely more decadent than I expected (but also quite nice). Also the Starbucks menu is pretty light on the coffee options which are instead replaced with wacky and wondering tea concoctions (as I discovered). China is not the place for coffee lovers...

H&M is also exactly the same as its European counterparts but it's harder to find larger sizes here, but unlike a lot of Chinese stores they exist here. The prices also aren't any cheaper...

G x