Memories of China: I’ve been rereading Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson’s nanotechnology novel, set in the Shanghai area. One of the wackiest images that’s stayed with me from my trip to Shanghai was of a Kentucky Fried Chicken on a major street behind the shanghai Art Museum (from which we fled for a couple of hours in order to wander free around the city instead of hang out with the tour group). KFC was apparently the biggest American fast food franchise in China, and this particular branch caught my eye not only because of the wide range of chinese food also available within, but also because of the larger-than-life statue of the Colonel out front, smiling benevolently at the passersby.
This passage from Diamond Age made me smile, too:
The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel was what they called it when they were speaking Chinese. Venerable because of his goatee, white as the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. Instrutable because he had gone to his grave without divulging the secret of the Eleven Herbs and Spices. It had been the first fast-food franchise established on the Bund, many decades earlier. Judge Fang had what amounted to a private table in the corner. He had once reduced Chang to a state of catalepsis by describing an avenue in Brooklyn that was lined with fried chicken establishments for miles, all of them rip-offs of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
This reminds me something Mark and I once pondered when we went for some KFC back in our Bushwick days: When you buy spicy crispy strips, are you getting more spices, or are they swapping out some of the original eleven herbs and spices for different ones?