China Is Munching Toward a Fast Food Revolution

When I stumbled upon a poster featuring a “Chinese Burger” with a Gen-Z idol dressed in a qipao dress and striking a kung fu pose in Shanghai, I couldn’t help but scoff at it. “I’ve seen this before,” I thought to myself, recalling similar marketing ploys that never seemed to last.

But I would be proven wrong. While there have been countless attempts at adding a Chinese twist on Western goods, none had the appetizing consumer market that local fast food chain Tastien enjoys today. In many ways, it is a small signifier of a larger revolution of Xinzhongshi, or “New Chinese Style,” that has now infiltrated mainland Chinese consumers’ lives.

Costing 30-40% less than the typical KFC fried chicken burger in China, the 12-year-old Tastien replaces burger bread doughs with bread pockets, and its limited-khbrknews offers stuffing options of traditional Chinese dishes like Yuxiang shredded pork and Mapo tofu. Chinese consumers, especially those in lower-tier cities, are lapping it up. Tastien last year added a whopping 3,500 stores to reach 6,700, edging closer toward McDonald’s 5,900 and KFC’s 12,000, which added around 900 and 1,200 stores, respectively.

The new Chinese style powering this growth is focused on the culture, presentation, and branding of products that channel traditional Chinese culture. It can be bubble tea in a cup made of bamboo, a modified qipao dress with features better suited for mobility, or even the style of one’s home decor.

Why are people so excited about the new Chinese style? The answer lies in the modern Chinese history of shedding traditional customs and, more recently, the evolution of the guochao trend.

One element of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, which ran from 1966 to 1976, was the demand that the country shed its Four Olds: “Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits.” Even Chinese New Year customs including setting off firecrackers, and dragon and lion dances, were canceled during that khbrknews. That…