{"id":40339,"date":"2011-10-17T12:35:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T17:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=40339"},"modified":"2015-09-19T23:56:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T04:56:37","slug":"mcweddings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/10\/17\/mcweddings\/","title":{"rendered":"McWeddings"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>Time Magazine (2009) reports that McDonald’s has approximately 32,000 restaurants in 118 countries. Of those, only about 45% were in the United States. The key to success of the American restaurant chain in other countries is to adapt its business to the local culture.<\/p>\n

For example, today McDonald\u2019s operates approximately 1,000 restaurants in China.\u00a0 In the book\u00a0McDonald’s: Behind The Arches<\/a><\/em>, Yunxiang Yun argues that it has been successful in Beijing because it has become a fun place to hang out. While it seems foreign to many Westerners, who think of McDonald\u2019s as a place to buy cheap food quickly, many Chinese people eat there because of the atmosphere and service. More, the food isn\u2019t associated with obesity, as it is in the U.S.<\/p>\n

This perception of McDonald\u2019s has made it a sought out location for weddings. Er, McWeddings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A McDonald\u2019s nuptial package in Hong Kong costs about HK$10,000 (US$1,300). \u00a0\u00a0According to the New York Times, a McWedding…<\/p>\n

\u2026includes food and drinks for 50 people\u2026 a \u201ccake\u201d made of stacked apple pies, gifts for the guests and invitation cards, each with a wedding photo of the couple.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ability to reinvent itself is the key to the Golden Arches\u2019 success in China. \u00a0It also suggests that the associations Americans have with the chain aren’t inevitable, but specific to cultural context. \u00a0Projected to double the number of stores by 2013, it will be interesting to see what other adjustments McDonald\u2019s makes down the road.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sangyoub Park is an assistant\u00a0professor of sociology at Washburn University, where he teaches Social Demography, Generations in the U.S. and Sociology of East Asia. His research interests include social capital, demographic trends, and post-Generation Y.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time Magazine (2009) reports that McDonald’s has approximately 32,000 restaurants in 118 countries. Of those, only about 45% were in the United States. The key to success of the American restaurant chain in other countries is to adapt its business to the local culture. For example, today McDonald\u2019s operates approximately 1,000 restaurants in China.\u00a0 In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,15,2124,1772,293],"class_list":["post-40339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumption","tag-culture","tag-foodagriculture","tag-nation-china","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40339"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67955,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40339\/revisions\/67955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}