CRI听力:McDonald's Brings a Taste of Service

The first McDonald's in China opened 22 years ago in the port city of Shenzhen.

The restaurant is located at Laojie, the most prosperous area in the southern Chinese city.
 
Tracy Liang, Director of Operations for McDonald's and one of the early founders of the first McDonald's in Shenzhen, recalls the opening day in 1990.

"At about 11 o'clock that morning, there were so many people waiting in long queues outside the door. I remember the prices were tagged in Hong Kong dollars. Some customers waved 1,000 Hong Kong-dollar notes, shouting, "Give me a hamburger." They had never seen this kind of food before."

For many Chinese who had never been abroad, McDonald's was a fancy thing. A hamburger was about 11 yuan at that time.

A 50-year-old customer says not everyone could afford to go to McDonald's then.

"Back in those years, McDonald's was a high-end restaurant for us working class. We used to bring our kid with us and watched her eat, while we only had a few chips. We had never had food like this before. We were curious about this foreign restaurant. The wait staff was all smiles and wore the same uniforms, and the floor was always clean."

It has been viewed as the initial concept of the service industry, which later became Shenzhen's mainstay industry.

Now hospitality, a sincere and professional attitude, and efficiency can be seen almost everywhere in Shenzhen's service sector.

Phyllis Cheung, Vice President and General Manager of the Southern Region for McDonald's South China, says Shenzhen's service industry has in turn boosted McDonald's development in the rest of China.

"Shenzhen is actually dominated by the service industry. If you think about logistics as an industry, financing as an industry, and the entire retail (sector) as an industry, you can also recognize Shenzhen for being one of the role models, one of the growing grounds for service talent. So that also helps us to reinforce some higher hospitality culture for McDonald's. "

Besides the rich human resources brought by the market economy, Cheung says the Shenzhen government has also provided assistance for foreign companies like McDonald's that want to start businesses in the city.

"We did get some help from the government. They helped us with guidance about what the necessary procedures were that we had to go through in terms of how to do it and what to do, and we are in a much better position (now because of it)."

Today, McDonald's has more than 100 restaurants in Shenzhen and about 1,500 outlets across China. It has been constantly introducing new services, including a delivery service, 24-hour service in select restaurants, and drive-thru restaurants, injecting fresh ideas into the service sector in Shenzhen.

For CRI, I'm Zeng Liang.