The Effect of McDonald's and Starbucks

Everywhere we go we always find something in common: McDonald’s and Starbucks. One could definitely argue that it is harder to find an area without them than it is to find an area with them.


I went to Korea and Japan over the summer this year. It has been two years since I have been to Korea, and four since Japan, and when I first stepped into those two countries, I have noticed that there were more fast food restaurants and quick-serviced to-go food chains than before. But what astonished me was that those eateries were not Mcdonald’s or Starbucks as they were just a few years ago. They were ‘like’ them but not ‘them.’


For example, just until a few years ago, I used to always go to Starbucks in Korea and order green tea frappuccino. This year Starbucks was actually hard to find because the places where Starbucks used to be were supplanted with other local cafes. From this some people might say that the “global chain” is trying to “look local to survive globally” and that it is destroying the culture that the country had before (Simon 370). But these local cafes aren’t Starbucks. How could they be if they sell tea and coffee that taste differently? Some cafes like Ogada sell only tea that include ingredients such as ginseng, jujube, yuzu, and etcetera, which mostly only koreans know and enjoy. Also, the coffee that these cafes sell are made to a taste to which all koreans love. In other words, the local cafes may look like replicas of Starbucks, when really, these cafes are just using the idea of Starbucks to further spread the country’s culture. It is basically the same for all fast food restaurants too in Korea. Burger restaurants sell korean barbeque burgers, kimchi burgers, and even rice burgers. Pizza restaurants sell sweet potato pizza and korean barbeque chicken pizza. Fried chicken restaurants sell honey butter (a seasoning that is a hit right now in Korea) chicken and soy sauce chicken. What do they all have in common? They sell food that are engraved with the korean culture, which not only koreans could savor, but also tourists from other countries in the world and even americans living in cities where these restaurants are located.


The same goes for Japan. The cafes there sell tea and sweets that look and taste totally differently from those in Korea and America. Japan also has a lot of to-go places (an idea used from Mcdonald’s) like takoyaki to-go eateries and fried chicken stick to-go eateries where many different types of seasonings enjoyed by japanese are displayed so that the customer could choose and season their own chicken. All this is viewed as McDonaldization, which Ritzer defines in his essay as, “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurants” are dominating the world (Ritzer 372). Many view McDonaldization as homogenization and homogenization as global sameness which taints the value of diverse cultures. But this homogenization could in fact be a pathway to heterogenization. Uniformity that everyone is familiar with could be slightly altered to familiarize everyone with and preserve the values of diverse cultures. Therefore, the McDonaldization and homogenization that is going on right now should not be frowned upon.