McDonald's in Japan

From Big Mac to Rice Burger — McDonalds in Japan
December 10, 2009
The first McDonald’s in Los Angeles in 1954 was not more than an ordinary looking drive-in where people could get cheap hamburgers and did not need to tip the waitresses. At the time it was Ray Kroc, a salesmen of paper cups and mixers, who signed a contract with it’s owners, Dick and Mac McDonald, to further spread the McDonald’s concept. In 1974, the analysis of the McDonald’s company was the following:

The basis of McDonald’s success is serving a low-priced, value-oriented product fast and efficiently in clean and pleasant surroundings. While the Company’s menu is limited, it contains food staples that are widely accepted in North America.

Ray Kroc was a risk taker who believed in the simple formula of the clean and cheap McDonald’s restaurants. The Big Mac was introduced in 1968. In 1976, the 4000th restaurant was opened in America. Right now, McDonald’s has globally spread to 118 different countries.














McDonald’s has gone a long way from being just a simple drive-in. In 1971 the chain reached Japan and it immediately was a huge success. McDonald’s Japan was the same concept as McDonald’s America, but they did adjust the menu a bit to suit the Japanese taste. For example, McDonald’s introduced the Teriyaki Burger, the Rice Burger and the Green Tea Ice-cream.
Except for the slight changes in menu, there are other differences between McDonald’s America and Japan as well. This has to do with the way McDonald’s was received by the Japanese consumer. In Japan, McDonald’s food is actually considered a snack instead of a meal, and therefore has never posed a serious challenge to the Japanese lunch or dinner market. There are several ways to explain this conception of McDonald’s food as a snack. First of all, McDonald’s food cannot be shared: sharing is an important part of the Japanese dinner or lunch time because it brings a sense of community.

Secondly, McDonald’s food consists mostly of meat and bread. To the Japanese, meat has always been a part of the Western diet and not of their own traditional lifestyle. Therefore, the combination of meat and bread is in fact quite alien to the Japanese. In addition, the fact that McDonald’s food lacks rice makes it unsuitable for a proper dinner or lunch: according to Japanese, a real meal always includes rice, which is not only seen as good nutrition but also as a metaphor for Japanese national identity.

McDonald’s did not only introduce a new type of food to Japan, it also introduced a new way to eat. These table manners are actually the opposite of the Japanese way to eat. At McDonald’s, you eat whilst standing instead of sitting, and you use your hands instead of chopsticks. Also, McDonald’s made it more common to drink soda’s directly out of the bottle and to eat ice-cream. Although all these things were previously considered very negative, McDonald’s gave a positive twist to to them. But in the public sphere the “new” forms of etiquette gradually became the norm; the fashionableness of eating fast food wore thin as the restaurants became a routine feature of everyday, working life. McDonald’s became an ordinary feature within Japanese society.

McDonald’s was initially a symbol of America; or, a symbol of America as perceived by the Japanese. It gave people a chic and exotic feeling. Nowadays, McDonald’s has actually become ‘local’ in a certain way.

McDonald’s is indigenised by the Japanese. Japan adapted McDonald’s to suit it’s own society. McDonald’s is a place to have a quick snack. Japanese can eat a Teriyaki or Rice Burger, drink Oolong tea, and read the Japanese McJoy magazine. McDonald’s is embedded in Japanese culture now, and the concept of McDonald’s is not interpreted the same way all over the world: each culture, like Japan, fits this into society the way they find appropriate. In the end, it cannot be denied that there is a difference between a Big Mac and a Rice Burger.