The Empire Bites Back

An article by Joel Stein in the April 9 issue of Time magazine examines the appearance of foreign-spun American fast food in the United States.

Not long after we invented fast food, we ran out of Americans to serve it to, so we opened McDonald's on the Champs Elysées, in Tokyo's Ginza district and inuatemala City's Zona Viva. Then those countries opened competitors--local fast-food restaurants making burgers, chicken wings and fries. And now those mimeographed restaurants are opening franchises in the U.S.

Jollibee, with more than 1,400 stores in the Philippines and 11 branches in California, makes McDonald's look like a funeral parlor. Its mascot is a jolly bee, and the restaurants are blindingly happy, all giant, shiny yellow blocks, as if they were designed by an architect from Legoland. Even if you gave Walt Disney all the ecstasy in the world, he would not have come up with this. America, according to Jollibee, is clearly a place of childlike optimism. Jollibee's two most popular items are called the Yumburger and the Chickenjoy. The Yumburger has a weird, plasticky dollop of French dressing in the middle. The crisped-up French fries are dry inside and taste as if they weren't just double fried but dunked in oil four or five times. The fried chicken is halfway decent, but the inflated, happy fakeness of Jollibee makes you feel that the only American its Filipino owners have ever seen is Pamela Anderson.

And not a lot of joy involved for the chicken, I imagine.