Are China and the US Increasingly Similar?
Every time I come back to China, what impresses me most is not how different my home country is from the US. Rather, it is how similar they have been getting, at least on the surface.
Only a few years ago, US fast food chains like McDonald‟s and KFC were considered to be a high-end cuisine in China. But now their place in the food chain is similar: ubiquitous, convenient but visiting is rarely a big cause for celebration.
In many ways, China is leapfrogging ahead of the US. It is not unusual to see someone watching a soap opera as they walk down some steps to a train. The internet and phone service is available in places like the subway. Scan the car of a subway train or the inside of a bus, and you will almost never see anyone reading a physical newspaper or book. One only hopes some are reading e-books and news articles on their phones.
Just about every major brand available in the US is available here now. This is no longer pioneer territory. Quite rightly some questions are being asked: Why does a latte cost more in a Starbucks in Beijing than in many parts of the US? It sure cannot be that the labor costs are the same.
每次回到中国， 印象最深的不是祖国与美国有多么不同， 而是它们正变得何其相似， 至少表面上来看是这样。
仅仅在几年前， 美国的快餐连锁店如麦当劳和肯德基在中国都被看作高端美食， 而现在他们在食物链中的位置几乎相同： 随处可见， 十分便利， 人们不再只为了举办庆祝活动才会来到这里。
从许多方面来看， 中国都正在超越美国。 踏上火车， 有人在里面看肥皂剧已是常见之事。 地铁等地提供有互联网和电话服务。 扫描一眼地铁车厢或公共汽车，已几乎看不到有人在看报纸或纸质书籍。 人们只希望大家拿着手机是在阅读电子书和新闻社评。
如今几乎所有的美国知名品牌在国内都可以买到， 这里不再是拓荒者的领地。有句话问得好： 为什么拿铁咖啡在北京的星巴克比在美国的许多地方还要贵？ 这当然是两国的劳动力成本不同。