Yet again the small Starbucks outlet located within the Forbidden City is the focus of controversy.
The People’s Daily Online quotes a member of parliament as saying:
The Forbidden City is one of the non-tradable products as its value cannot be measured in monetary terms… As long as it stays in the imperial palace, it poses a challenge to our traditional culture.
I understand the store had a sign out front in the past, but even that is gone now. Inside is a small counter serving a limited range of products and seating at a counter for about 6 people. That’s it. You can see from my picture here that a passerby would hardly knows it’s there unless someone told them.
What I actually thought to be much more noticeable was that American Express was the sponsor for all the signs giving explanations of each building’s history. As you can see each sign is marked with, “Made possible by the American Express Company.” So having an unmarked Starbucks in a small corner of one small building is a “challenge” to China’s culture, but having their most important historical treasures “made possible” by AMEX isn’t a problem?! Frankly I thought the AMEX logos on all the signs were a little tacky given that this is China and I was in the Forbidden City. So why is everyone getting so bent out of shape over Starbucks but not AMEX?