Not Just Hungry; Obnoxious Too

Reading last week's issue of Time (the one with the penguin), an article struck me and it struck me hard, right between my peep-holes. I refer you to page 84, the an article called "The Hungry American".

For those without Time (pun), I'll copy and paste excerpts:

"After its first lap, globalization gets really interesting. The stuff you invented--in this culinary case, fast-food hamburgers, fried chicken, pizza and doughnuts--gets sent out into the world, is replicated by other countries and then comes back to you all crazied up, like a giant game of telephone. And if you hold that piece of Filipino fried chicken up to your ear and are really quiet, you can hear what the rest of the world thinks about us."

"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."

From: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1604946,00.html

Firstly, to the journalist who pulled this shyte out of his ass...SCREW YOU. I can't speak for the other franchines mentioned in the article, but I can defend Jollibee. I am Filipino after all.

I have to admit that Jollibee did copy western ideas of fast-food. But they NEVER...NOT ONCE did try to emulate the tastes of Americans. Jollibee, and all its products are not TARGETTED at Americans. When coming up with the products...Jollibee had the tastebuds of Filipinos in mind. What kind of idiots will target a consumer...which isn't even there in the first place? Jollibee shaped their brand based on Filipino tastes, and when they shifted to America, their main target was the Filipinos over there, and thus, carried over the "Filipino" style...not the freaking American.

If you look at Philippines, it's a pretty miserable place. We're called the kidnap capital of the world; traffic is horrible, and the air, nearly toxic. We've got children in the streets selling cigarettes, and beggars go ignored. This is the precise reason why Jollibee is so, well, jolly. We needed a reason to smile...and what better reason than a paradise of happiness in the middle of the land of trash-heaps and empty pockets? Jollibee is fake, it is filled with false happiness, but that's what we, in the Philippines need.

Nope, dear American journalist, you're not our target consumer. We never intended Jollibee to land in your hands. We just want to expand and make money.

Now, dear Obnoxious American Journalist, take your article, and shove it up your nose.