Forbidden City Starbucks not so obvious
Posted: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:09 AM
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Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
With all the media hoopla over the existence of Starbucks in China’s Forbidden City, we reckoned it would be easy to find it.
We turned out to be wrong.
Cameraman Maurice Roper, researcher Ed Flanagan, and I had read up on the Starbucks site. We had to. The Forbidden City – one of China’s great national treasures that dates back to 1420 – covers over 2 million square feet.
But we knew the Starbucks kiosk was somewhere around the Hall of Preserving Harmony, near a gift shop, and news reports spoke of crowds of foreign media staked out outside.
Even if we got lost, surely, we thought, there would be a readily identifiable green circular logo.
Locating the Hall of Preserving Harmony was straightforward. Being a World Heritage site that draws nearly 9 million visitors a year, the Forbidden City is well signposted in Chinese and English.
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| Peter Parks / AFP - Getty Images |
| Tourists drink coffee in the Starbucks coffee shop in Beijing's Forbidden City on Jan. 19. |
But nowhere was there Starbucks or a tell-tale crowd of journalists. Signs indicating a "coffee shop" in the general vicinity led us to two stands: one was shut, the other bore none of the familiar green and white hallmarks.
It wasn't until Ed spotted a Starbucks paper cup through a dusty window that we realized we were in fact standing right outside the kiosk.
No trademark green sign posts here
The Starbucks that some Chinese have been decrying so loudly as "trampling Chinese culture" is indiscernible – especially to untrained eyes likes ours – from the many restored buildings around the Imperial courtyard. It's housed inside the Palace Museum Gift Shop and lacks any Starbucks signage.
"Starbucks's existence doesn't affect the Forbidden City's features or style," says Chen Yu.
He should know; he works at the National Museum. And because of the proximity of his office to the Forbidden City, sometimes walks past the Starbucks kiosk. "I think Starbucks gives people another choice, and Starbucks never hurt the Forbidden City so why don't we give Starbucks a little place in the Forbidden City."
Of course, many Chinese believe differently. For instance, Annie Wei – a recent college graduate – says the Starbucks inside the Forbidden City should be replaced with a Chinese-run teahouse.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| This building houses not only the well-signposted official gift shop inside China's legendary Forbidden City, but also a not-so-visible Starbucks coffee shop. |
But columnist Raymond Zhou, an observer of social change in China, argues, "The Chinese culture is strong enough, rich enough to incorporate what is good, beneficial to us and to…humankind."
Apparently so. As Chen from the National Museum prepared to leave our bureau after our interview, we offered to take him back home. But he said that he was meeting a friend nearby. Where? At the Starbucks just across the road.
