问答题

Are China and the US Increasingly Similar

Every time I come back to China, what impresses me most is not how different my home country is from the US. Rather, it is how similar they have been getting, at least on the surface.

Only a few years ago, US fast food chains like McDonalds and KFC were considered to be a high-end cuisine in China. But now their place in the food chain is similar: ubiquitous, convenient but visiting is rarely a big cause for celebration.

In many ways, China is leapfrogging ahead of the US. It is not unusual to see someone watching a soap opera as they walk down some steps to a train. The internet and phone service is available in places like the subway. Scan the car of a subway train or the inside of a bus, and you will almost never see anyone reading a physical newspaper or book. One only hopes some are reading e-books and news articles on their phones.

Just about every major brand available in the US is available here now. This is no longer pioneer territory. Quite rightly some questions are being asked: Why does a latte cost more in a Starbucks in Beijing than in many parts of the US It sure cannot be that the labor costs are the same.