About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

Complaints about poor service in China are common, especially amongst foreigners with both a language gap and a different set of expectations. Some manage to lower their expectations and work with what they have. Others will complain, fail, fume, and live to bad-mouth the Chinese another day. Yet others will go to incredible lengths to prove just how big of an douchebag they are, engendering yet additional cross-cultural friction.

Unfortunately, it equally common for such complaints to be woefully handled or outright ignored. While the standards of China’s service industry will improve over time, especially with continued international cross-pollinating influence, I want to share a success story with one of China’s expat mainstays: Subway Restaurants (赛百味).

I haven’t had Subway in years, but I do remember their delicious Meatball Marinara Sub, on fresh white bread, with extra cheese. Despite Subway having been available in Shanghai here for quite some time, I never dined there. However, a few weeks ago,  while stereotypically grocery-shopping at the Carrefour in Shanghai Pudong’s Big Thumb Plaza, I decided I’d finally pop my China-Subway cherry. After all, they went through all the trouble of opening not one but TWO restaurants in that plaza. How could I not oblige them?

The specially priced 6″ sub-of-the-day for Sunday was the Meatball Marinara…and it was Sunday. Fantastic. However, as the kind girl brought my ready-for-toppings sub to the toppings counter, I was incredibly dismayed to see three naked meatballs in all their greyish boiled loneliness, completely devoid of any red marinara love juice.

My head spun. I looked at her and kindly asked, in Chinese: “Um, is that correct? Shouldn’t there be more ‘Italian’ sauce?” She stared back, blankly, and then asked if I wanted toppings. I tried explaining a bit further to no avail, and just as I felt defeated after opting for lettuce, bell peppers, and onions, she suddenly offered to add more sauce.

That brief promise of salvation was lost the moment I saw her spooning a bit of watery red “sauce” onto my sub before wrapping it up and sending me on my way.

One of my biggest pet-peeves is not just wasting money on unsatisfactory food, but still having to eat that unsatisfactory food to avoid wasting money. You ultimately feel like you wasted a meal, regretting yet another moment of your life you can never get back. That sub wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t a Meatball Marinara. Spurred by this dissatisfaction, I went through the trouble of finding Subway’s website in China so I could submit my feedback on this experience.

I received a reply from an Evan Chase several days later, personally apologizing on behalf of Subway, confirming that a Meatball Marinara in China should be the same as it is in the States, thanking my feedback for helping them improve their operations, and offering two Subway meals for a friend and myself as a gesture of goodwill for the mistake. Having lived in China for so long, this pleasant outcome was like dividing by zero.

I regained consciousness about six days later to take Evan up on the offer, who then asked for my details and the exact time I would like my “complimentary meal” to be delivered “with the service and standards [I] expect from Subway.” 7:00pm please. When the delivery boy got lost, he called at 6:55pm to ask for directions. He arrived at 7:00pm, apologized profusely for my past experience and for being late. Then he handed me two foot-long Meatball Marinara subs, two bags of chips, and two cans of Coke.

Wow.

While I felt it took a few days too long for Subway to respond to my initial online complaint, the way Evan Chase handled the matter was very professional and reassuring. Moreover, the goodwill gesture went the extra mile and, as a customer, I feel warm and fuzzy inside because of it, with meatballs, cheese, and marinara.

Thank you, Evan and Subway, for the excellent customer service.

Links:

• Subway of China official website
• Subway of China’s customer feedback form

Last night at the Beijing Bookworm, British author Lorraine Clissold gave a brief talk on her new book, Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories.  Something of a riposte to international bestseller Why French Women Don’t Get Fat, this awkwardly titled book joins the growing literature on how traditional cuisines are better than dieting fads.

So just what is healthy about Chinese food?  While it has a reputation for being greasy and fattening in the West, the orange chicken and “beef and broccoli in brown sauce” of Chinese take-away is definitely not part of a traditional Chinese diet.  Instead, Chinese cuisine incorporates a more holistic approach that does away with counting calories and guilt for having ingested too many calories.  One startling fact stood out in her talk–the Chinese actually eat 30% more than Americans, yet remain 20% lighter–something that is supported in The China Study.

While much of the lecture was undoubtedly old news for anyone who was brought up in a Chinese family or just plain common sense, here are some of the more memorable points that Clissold made in her talk on why how their traditional cuisine keeps the Chinese thin:

1.  Strong cultural and culinary identities.  Traditional cuisines pass on the collected food wisdom of a culture from generation to generation, and China is no different.  As scientists begin to learn more about nutrition and how nutrients work in tandem with each other, much of what is passed on in Chinese cuisine is backed up by modern nutrition.   The Chinese also talk about food as being determinative of a regional identity–like the strereotype of Sichuan people having fiery tempers because of all the spicy food they eat.  By way of contrast, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan makes the point that because Americans do not have a unifying food culture, Americans tend to be particularly vulnerable to savvy food marketers and diet fads (think Atkins, South Beach diet, etc).

2.  Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables! Chinese cuisines tend to make vegetables the star of the show, with meat as a flavouring or compliment. Part of this is because of historical patterns of consumption, until very recently the average Chinese person simply could not afford vast amounts of meat.  Contrast this to an American or British diet which relegates vegetables to limp supporting roles for meat.

3.   Balance is key. Clissold invokes the Chinese concepts of yin and yang. A properly balanced meal includes both yin foods (cooling foods) like cucumbers and lettuce and yang foods (heating foods) like spicy foods and meats.  If you eat too much of either one, then your body will become unbalanced. The Chinese way of eating family-style with shared plates also allow for greater opportunities to balance yin and yang versus a Western-style one-plate meal.

4.  Eat with all five flavors in mind.  On a related note, the five flavors are bitter, sweet, pungent, salty, and sour.  Each of these flavors addresses a specific part of the body.  For instance, a bitter food like bitter melon feeds the heart, while a sour food will nourish the liver.  Again, balance is important–if you eat too much of one flavor then you are only feeding one part of the body.

5.  Eat until you are full, and enjoy your meal.   This seems like a no-brainer, but Clissold is specifically addressing the different attitudes that Chinese and Americans and the British have regarding food.  While Americans and the British food cultures often incorporate guilt and unhealthy cycles of binging and purging, Chinese people just plain enjoy their food.  They talk about food all the time, and a common Chinese greeting is “Have you eaten yet?”  Make eating a pleasurable activity, instead of one that induces guilt.

The end message is that it’s not about dieting, because there is no quick fix to losing weight, but about a lifestyle that is balanced and about pleasure.  It’s not very different from the conclusions made in Why French Women Don’t Get Fat or in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

The Independent also took a look at Clissold’s book and asked two nutritionists to examine some of its claims.

One irony is that China itself is moving away from its tranditional diet.  As China becomes more industrialized, obesity, cancer and diabetes–the diseases of the Western world–are also on the rise.

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing.  She loves MSG and misses good old-fashioned American-style Chinese food. She blogs at quirkyBeijing.