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Shanghaiist has always been miffed by KFC’s roaring success in China. In a country where fine dining is the national pastime, how did something as mundane as fried chicken capture the discerning palettes of 1.4 billion Chinese? Well, thanks to the good people at Yum Brand China’s (KFC’s parent company) marketing department, we now know why -- eating fried chicken makes you smarter and, better yet, helps you get the chicks, too! (No pun intended.)
A few weeks back, KFC began airing a television commercial with three college bound seniors in their final months as highschoolers. This is how Shanghai Daily described the spot:
The disputed ads played out a story of three high school students who were studying for their college entrance exam in a KFC restaurant. One boy, Xiao Dong was quite diligent at his studies, another boy and a girl did nothing but enjoy their KFC fast food. However, the result of their finals turned out twisted. The studious boy failed his exam while the other two friends made their way into universities in Beijing.
Sucks to be Xiao Dong, and the rest of China agrees. BBSs and chatrooms across China are flooded with messages decrying the fate of the young boy and blasting KFC for the ad’s underlying message.
For its part, KFC defended the ad:
The theme of the ad was meant to encourage young people to face up to their failures and to never give up. The young boy's failure was just a coincidence and had nothing to do with whether he was eating at KFC or not.
Yeah, that didn’t make any sense to us either.
But, to show its “Vocal audience respect”, KFC made a few adjustments to the original ad. The new and improved version began airing two days ago with all three kids going on to the school of their dreams. Excellent! So where the old message used to be, “Eating fried chicken makes you smarter and helps you get the girl,” it is now “Eating fried chicken makes you smarter -- not as much as before, but we’ll still help you nail the girl!” Nice recovery. Marketing geniuses at KFC, we salute you!
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Hehe, Chinese fine dining. I met an elder middle Californian fruit farmer couple who had not been exposed to real Chinese food. After visiting many restaurants in Shanghai they were chocked to find that Chinese food is mainly junk food. No fresh/raw vegetables, salads, fruit, no breads, milk products, and what they really eat is just like KFC, cooked in oil. China is the true junk food nation, and that's why everything taste so good.
That's crazy talk. Chinese food is much healthier than what's in the US, and people generally understand nutrition better. That's why you don't see lots of fat fucks, like you do in the US.
The fruit farmer couple sound close-minded, coming to Shanghai and complaining that they can't find enough bread or raw-fruit salads, therefore Chinese food is all junk food.
I agree about the fruit farmer being close-minded, but I'm not sure people understand nutrition better. The Chinese people I talk to certainly don't seem to, at any rate ...
Now, that's funny that "close-minded" popped up, the couple was also saying the same thing: Chinese should stop being close-minded, forget the "wok over open fire" cooking and adapt more of the international cooking and food science the same way the west is blending, Chinese, Indian, French, Mexican etc.
BTW, one major reason Americans are so overweight is that they don't ride bicycles to work. Look at the Chinese who have owned cars for couple of years and u can see what the trend will be.
You need to have an absolute assurance that raw sewage wasn't used to fertilize the any plants eaten raw. I'm afraid China doesn't quite have that. Besides, the raw food movement is only a few years old, and has already been connected to wanking off in public places.
I wish Shanghai had international food worth eating, but as a matter of techniques, I see foods being boiled, steamed, or grilled, all over the place, as well as a bread shops on every block of the city.
I'd guess far less than 50% of Shanghai rides pedal bikes to work, but 0.1% of Shanghai is fat fucks. Obviously there's more to it than just biking.
It's finger licking good.
The Chinese population has the highest percentage of hypertension [high blood preassure]in the world. Enjoy your soya sauce [salt] and everything fried in oil as long as you can. It is excellent food for closing up your arteries [and your minds].
The days of the Buddist style vegatable based food is long gone from the Chinese menu. It is now mostly fat, oil, salt and MSG. Don't blame American fast food for Chinas poor health. Look in our own kitchens and restaraunts.
When I was a young and growing up in Shanghai we had almost no meat in out diet. We waited for the New Year for the family to eat one chicken. Most of what we ate every day was vegetables [cabbage] and rice. We could not get much cooking oil. Eveyone was healthy [albiet hungry]. Nothing was left on the plate at the end of a meal. We did not waste our precious food. I did not eat American fast food then, and still do not eat American fast food. I prefer Chinese food that is my tradition and culture.
Now we seem to eat everything that swims, crawls, walks and flies. We send back most of what we order in the restaraunt to be thrown into barrels to feed the pigs. We fry most foods in large amounts of oil. Everything is flavored with salt and MSG. We are physically bigger but not as health.
I blame our new afluence and arrogance for our declining health, not foreign food habits. It seems that it is easier to blame the Americans for everything that is wrong rather than look at ourselves as the cause of our own problems.