LOL! Perhaps they didn't complain because it was simply the best they'd eaten at "the lab" in months...
Posted on 07/14/2007 12:06:30 AM PDT by chaos_5
A Starbucks coffee shop operating on the historic site of Beijing's Forbidden City has closed down after huge protests. An online campaign arguing that the shop was trampling on Chinese culture had drawn more than 500,000 signatures.
The Starbucks branch was told it could stay open if it sold other brands but has declined.
The Forbidden City was built in 1420 and was home to 24 emperors until the end of imperial rule in 1911.
It attracted nearly nine million visitors last year, is China's top tourist attraction and a Unesco World Heritage site.
Seattle-based Starbucks said the decision was "very congenial" and it respected the site's motives.
Starbucks's vice-president for Greater China Eden Woon said: "There were several choices, one of which was to continue, but it would not carry the Starbucks name any more.
"We decided at the end that it is not our custom worldwide to have stores that have any other name, so therefore we decided the choice would be to leave."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I go to the opening of new Starbucks all the time. Moonbats on parade!!!
The shop could have stayed, without protest, if it changed it’s name and sold other brands of coffee?
So this was a protest about an American company, rather than commerce being the problem?
They offered “flat-rate discounts to students” — doesn’t translate well into chinese — they thought it was “flat student discounts”.
The Chinese fascists don’t approve of references to Tiananmen.
I doubt it has anything much to do with capitalism and everything to do with the association with America.
China is well saturated with euro-born anti-Americansim, as well as the vestiges of the Maoist brand which also spawned more from euro sources, rather than China’s interaction with America.
Well, I would assume that it’s the fact that it’s an AMERICAN company. The Forbidden City was the heart of Chinese society for centuries and is still a site that many Chinese hold some reverence for today. How would American’s react if we heard some Chinese retailer was opening a store right on the Capitol Mall? For that matter, how would most of us react if Starbucks tried to open a store there? Most of us would consider it tacky and out of place.
You been there lately?
Tragic!
Their coffee was made out of...*gasp*...coffee and quality standards were inherently in conflict with Chinese standards?
LOL. I think you got it in one. Independent Chinese laboratory testing confirmed the absence of cardboard, toxins, and other non-coffee materials.
There are three and two down the street from the Whitehouse. don’t forget the McDonald’s across the street from the Whitehouse either. I wonder if that is the one that Bubba always frequented.
LOL! Perhaps they didn't complain because it was simply the best they'd eaten at "the lab" in months...
The Starbucks in question has been open 7 years without incident. Something else is going on.
Let’s close a Wal-mart in retaliation. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.