JOIN USFast food and quick weddings
Their engagement party on Valentine’s Day was the inaugural event of a new and aggressively hyped nuptial service at McDonald’s restaurants in Hong Kong, the first in the world to offer McWeddings.
About a week later, the first wedding ceremony in a McDonald’s was held with a different couple, though they, perhaps understandably, decided not to invite the news media.
In 2006, Hong Kong changed a law to allow for weddings held outside of churches or City Hall. Entrepreneurs quickly offered ceremonies on boats, in shopping malls and even underwater in the aquarium of the Ocean Park theme park. McDonald’s, which has been in Hong Kong since 1975, is the first fast-food chain to get in on the lucrative trade.
The local wedding industry is worth about 10.7 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $1.37 billion, a year, according to ESD Life, an online media outlet. An ESD poll of 1,781 individuals found that the average couple spent 2,26,000 dollars, mostly to give face to families with lavish banquets, multiple outfit changes and even dowries, which are still paid in this otherwise modern city.
Given that the average monthly household income is 17,500 dollars, it is not uncommon for young couples — or, frequently, the groom’s family — to save for years or to go into debt to pull off a wedding.
By contrast, a McWedding starts at a reasonable 9,999 dollars, which includes food and drinks for 50 people. The package includes a budget version of all the usual trappings: a ‘cake’ made of stacked apple pies, gifts for the guests and invitation cards imbedded with a wedding photo of the couple.
McDonald’s employees dressed in proper black suits mimic the actions of hostesses at upscale hotels: They greet guests at the entrance, usher them to the signature book and deliver food to guests, even if it is just a Big Mac and fries.
Fusion
Before the engagement party started, Shirley Chang, managing director of the 226 McDonald’s outlets in Hong Kong, sat beneath a display of pink balloons, in a fuchsia Chinese-style top with traditional butterfly clasps and a decidedly nontraditional Golden Arches logo.
She explained that McWeddings were designed in line with local customs, particularly Chinese numerology beliefs that determine the best dates for weddings or other important events. The engaged couple were given a photo frame shaped like Ronald McDonald and marked with the ‘limited edition number’ 138, which is an auspicious figure.
The lack of alcohol has not seemed to bother anyone, and Shirley said they had had no requests for it so far. Instead, couples toast with something sugary, because of the implications of ‘sweetness’ in Chinese culture. “That’s why we toast with sundaes,” she said. “You can have a lot of fun with soft drinks.”
“Everyone wants a tailor-made wedding, and everyone is working on picking the best dates based on the lunar calendar,” said Shirley, who started working for McDonald’s in 1984 in her native Taiwan.
Gordon Mathews, an anthropologist at Chinese University of Hong Kong, explained the appeal of a McWedding. “The generation getting married today grew up doing their studying at McDonald’s,” said Mathews. “That was one of the chain’s prominent roles in the 1980s and 1990s — as a safe haven where students could study and stay off the streets.”
“In the US and other places, middle-class or upper-middle-class people look down on McDonald’s,” he said. “But Hong Kong is different. A McDonald’s wedding wouldn’t be seen as tacky here.”
Mathews is also the editor of ‘Consuming Hong Kong,’ a book on the city’s spending habits. One essay examines the phenomenon known as the McDonald’s Snoopy Craze of 1998, when the chain offered Snoopy dolls dressed in 28 national costumes.
McDonald’s gave the collectibles an aura of rarity, even though the toys themselves were inexpensive. A limited number of each doll would be available each day, and only with the purchase of a Value Meal. It meant that serious collectors would have to eat at McDonald’s every day for 28 days straight.
“I never localised anything,” said Ng, who at 73 is still involved with the Ronald McDonald House charity. “I kept the food exactly the same. I worked my butt off to keep things to US standards, even the cleanliness of the floors. That’s what differentiated us at the time — we offered American quality, service and hygiene.
The success that McDonald’s has had in blending into this social landscape may foretell how it will fare long-term in the mainland Chinese market, which it entered in 1990 with an outlet in Shenzhen, next door to Hong Kong. There are 1,300 McDonald’s outlets on the mainland, and the company hopes to expand to 2,000 by 2013.
The company’s Hong Kong operations have been largely exempt from the anti-McDonald’s protests of other places, partly because anti-globalisation and anti-obesity movements are not as strong here as they are in the West.
Fast-food culture
“Internationally, McDonald’s has become an icon of fast-food culture and there may be a stigma,” said Francis Chow, president of the Hong Kong Association for the Study of Obesity “But while we do have issues with fast-food culture, it’s not just McDonald’s.”
“It’s a matter of proportion,” said Chow. “Chinese foods like mooncakes or fatty pork are not healthy either and should not be eaten every day.”
Mathews of Chinese University said: “There is anti-McDonald’s sentiment in places like Korea. But not in Hong Kong, which is a very corporate, capitalist environment. If there’s any resentment it would be probably be toward China or local tycoons. Here, McDonald’s is not as a sign of American cultural imperialism.”
If anything, McDonald’s is seen as a relief from strict cultural rules. In Golden Arches East, a 1997 a study of McDonald’s in Asia, James Watson, an anthropologist at Harvard, described the chain’s ‘egalitarian environment’ as a selling point — nobody had to be embarrassed they were not ordering the same expensive dishes at the next banquet table, and people of all classes could participate.
“I had a traditional Chinese wedding myself,” said Shirley, the managing director. “It was so formal and it seemed like everyone was so happy except for me. I was dressed so beautifully, but I couldn’t even eat. Now, the focus is on the couple having fun.”
Back at Kwong’s and Tse’s party, the hostess was leading the guests through a rowdy game involving balloons. They seemed genuinely happy and not self-conscious at all, and repeatedly raised their milkshakes to toast the couple, the McDonald’s management representatives and even the journalists covering the event.
But when asked if he would have his actual wedding at the same venue, Kwong balked. “I heard that some people get married on the beach,” he said.