They say teachers are the architects of the soul shaping who we become.
On this Teacher's Day, what would you like to say to your favorite teacher?
And from McDonald's to Heidi Lau, why are big food brands turning to street stalls?
Let's dive into the new trend of global giants hitting the streets.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Young.
For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Li Yi, first on today's show.
This September 10th marks the 40th Teacher's Day in China, celebrating the 2300 year tradition
of respecting teachers and education in all culture.
It's a day to honor the incredible individuals who've molded us into the people we are.
And we've asked our listeners to share stories about the teachers who've left a lasting
impact.
Let's hear one of these stories.
Our listener was a little bit shy about sharing their words directly, so here's the email
read by an AI generator.
Dear Roundtable team, on this Teacher's Day, I just want to give a big shout out to all
the amazing teachers out there.
Throughout my academic journey, I have had so many excellent teachers who have not only
helped me in school, but also taught me important life lessons.
One memory that stands out is from my middle school days.
My history teacher, Mr. Jin, was such an inspiring teacher.
His classes were never just about dates and events.
He brought history to life with his amazing storytelling and interactive activities.
His lessons were so engaging that they really sparked my passion for history.
More importantly, Mr. Jin changed the way I see learning and inspired me to be curious
about the world.
He often encouraged us to stay hungry and curious.
Thanks to him, I've pursued a career where I can explore new ideas and learn every day.
I'm deeply grateful for Mr. Jin, as his influence has truly shaped my life.
So, happy Teacher's Day to all the teachers out there.
Thank you for making a lasting impact on so many students.
Bless from our listener who liked to stay anonymous, and now we know about Mr. Jin and
his impact that's been exerted on a student for many years.
I think teachers, I hope teachers remember that, because I think maybe it's easy to forget.
The impact that you can have on a student, not only in the year that you're teaching
them, but for their entire life, they will remember you.
You can inspire a person to become interested in a subject that maybe they otherwise wouldn't
have been interested in, and that can shape their career, that can shape their life path.
And that's really, really powerful, and it's a massive responsibility.
And I think in society, teachers don't get enough respect.
I know that's true in Canada, and where I lived in Korea, they do a great job, they
deserve all their respect in the world, and today is their day.
And also, that just reminds me of my previous interview, when you're talking about how teachers
can be so impactful on their students' lifetime, because that was my interview with a very
famous drama director here in China, and he mentioned, actually, during his college,
he majored in dentistry at first place, and that's a very promising and very popular
major in traditional perspective.
However, for him, his interest is not really here, and all his passion is on drama.
So that's when he shared his worries and concerns with one of his teachers, and surprisingly,
his teachers say that, why not just do drama if you really love drama, and it's okay if
you quit your major.
So that really made him to decide to change his major and pursue his passion in drama,
and there he is, a very famous drama director.
So I think that somehow tells what is a good teacher.
When we talk about, oh, what is the most memorable experience, a story between me and my teacher,
I think it's beyond teaching you something.
They can always teach you something that is valuable for your lifetime lesson.
I think that's even more important, and as this listener has shared, his teacher has
really inspired him to be always curious and hungry in the lifetime.
Right.
And Steve, what is that most memorable teacher or your favorite teacher maybe you can share
with us?
My dad, I think, my father was a high school vice principal for 34 years, and I did not
go to school where he taught me directly, but my sisters did, and they didn't like that
at all.
And I remember one day, my dad and my sisters always came home from school together, right?
And one day, my dad came home and my sisters weren't with him, so I asked him, where are
they?
And he said, oh, they have detention today.
Detention means you have to stay late after school, and I said, who gave them detention?
And he said, I did.
And he said they were misbehaving in class, so they're suffering their punishment right
now.
I lived with a teacher, my father, for much of my, if not all of my childhood, and I learned
a lot from him, so I had a teacher in the house, so it was a great experience for me.
I don't think I would have enjoyed being in the classroom with him like my sisters, but
it was a good experience for me.
All right.
And what about for you, Li Yi?
Well, talking about that, actually, my mom is also a teacher, so I've also got experience
of living with a teacher, so I really know, you know, their job can be really challenging
because, as a teacher, you need to be a good person, and meantime, you also need to have
this authority feeling to regulate your students.
And meantime, you also need to handle all those trivial things to take care of your
kids.
I think that's the most challenging thing for being a teacher, so that's why I think
it's really important to, you know, give them respect and really value their hard work.
And talking about my personal memory, memorable story with my teacher, I don't really have
a very special teacher in my life, in my academic journey, but I do remember one lady,
a professor in my college, she's a PhD in English literature, and she teaches intensive
reading this course to us.
And I think she's so special for me because she always encouraged us to be curious and
also sort of encouraged us to challenge and not really obey the traditional societal norms
because she herself is a lady super successful in her own career, and in her 30s, she hasn't
really getting married.
And in certain traditional norm, that can be considered as a problem, quote unquote
problem by some people, but she just encouraged us to be ourselves.
And also, she always, you know, encouraged us to have this debate during classes about
certain topics.
And she tells us that debate is not only about winning, but also to understand different
perspectives and to stand on different perspectives and understand why different people hold their
different values.
That can be so helpful for us, not only in classes, but also I think in a lifetime and
at a workplace.
You've got to understand why there are different people and you need to respect them and to
show your integrity and also mutual respect.
I think that's what this lady has taught me.
So that's what's really made her special for me.
Yeah.
And the reason why I sounded a little bit surprised when I heard that both of you have
grown up living with teachers because we're not that smart.
Now it explains why both of you are so well-researched, well-mannered and very smart because there's
another fellow friend of their show who comes on their show regularly and his mother-in-law
is a teacher as well.
Oh, lie me.
Isn't he?
No.
No, not lie me.
Not lie me.
Let's keep him mysterious.
Lie-ming's a teacher himself.
Living with a teacher is-
Keep his heart work.
Living with a teacher is not easy.
I can tell you that sometimes.
I remember watching television with my dad and some character on the show would say a
word and I didn't know that word.
So I would ask my dad, what does that mean?
Uh-huh.
And he would say, go get the dictionary.
I'd say, oh, come on.
Maybe he doesn't know.
Well, he doesn't know.
He would say, no.
I would say, come on.
You could just tell me.
He said, yeah, I could tell you.
But if I tell you, you're going to forget in 15 minutes.
If you look it up yourself, you'll remember for the rest of your life.
Okay.
Off I would go to get the dictionary.
Everything can be a lesson.
Every time can be a lesson.
All right.
Okay.
Now, that's a glimpse of the good and bad of living with a teacher and having a teacher
so close to you.
My most unforgettable teacher, I had to think about this.
Well, she's Miss Donovan from PS6 in New York City, where she taught me in second grade.
In the US, elementary school teachers cover all subjects.
So that's different from China.
So from English to PE, I had her as my teacher.
And I remember feeling quite scared of her for the first semester because now as an adult,
when I recall my memory, she had kind of black teeth.
So she probably smoked.
And now when I recall my memory, maybe she enjoys wine or whatever it is.
But at the time, I just remember she was very tall and she doesn't look like the most
attractive or sweet person.
And also she was very strict in her class and she's not the lovey-dovey type.
So I remember feeling intimidated for maybe the first few months joining her class.
And I was just a little girl from China.
I knew a limited amount of English at the time.
And my parents were visiting scholars who were practically poor students studying at
Columbia University.
So we were nobodies.
And then I just sort of started class and was a bit scared, going into a new school
and everything.
And there I have Miss Donovan.
And somehow she saw potential in me and encouraged me with her belief that I could excel.
Her attention and faith in my abilities motivated me to work hard when I didn't even know what
working hard meant.
And she even gave me books to take back to China once she found out that we're going
to leave and just so that I could continue studying English.
And back in the day, while this was more than 20 years ago, it wasn't so easy to find English
material everywhere.
Now you just go on the internet, right?
So thanks to her, I kept my spark for learning English alive and I'm forever grateful because
I think it's through this point where my future sort of spawned to a different direction.
And also Miss Donovan taught us a valuable lesson about equality and capability.
She firmly believed that if boys could do something, so could girls.
And there was no room for gender bias in her classroom.
I loved in her PE classes, she taught us how to swing the bat to play baseball.
And everybody just did their best and there was like no boy thing, girl thing, boy stuff,
girl stuff.
You all could excel.
And I love that she instilled this idea that our abilities are defined by our effort and
determination, not our gender.
And she really empowered us to believe in our potential and strive for excellence no
matter what.
And I did go on the internet to look her up, but maybe she's of a different generation
and I couldn't find any trace of her, but I'll keep looking.
So that's my favorite teacher of all time.
You got lucky.
My second grade teacher wore about four bottles of perfume to class every single day.
You could smell her and see her coming at the same time.
She was nice too though.
Alright.
And it's amazing that teachers have really different characters.
And yeah, with Miss Donovan, I learned that you can't judge a book by its cover and she
turned out to be such a great person.
But at first glance, I was a little intimidated.
And today is Teachers Day.
There are some, are we talking about maybe more than 17 million teachers that we have
in this country?
Yeah.
I think China now there are about 18 million teachers, actually nearly 19 million teachers.
And among them, about 80% of them are primary school teachers and also 93% of junior middle
school and teachers hold a bachelor's degree or above.
So you can see an increasing or increased the quality of the overall teacher faculty
team here in China.
And also this year marks the 40th Teachers Day here in China and also ahead of Teachers
Day.
And awarding a ceremony was really held on September 8th in Beijing to honor model teachers
and outstanding educational institutions.
And this year, about 1,600 teachers were awarded for their excellent work.
And I think this sort of awarding thing is going on every year here in China to really
give the recognition for their hard work.
And they very much deserve it.
To all the dedicated educators out there, we appreciate you.
Happy Teachers Day.
Up next, why are major food chains such as KFC and Mijie Bingcheng embracing street food
culture?
What's driving this move from storefronts to sidewalks?
Stay tuned.
Looking for passion?
How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm He Yang, here with Steve Hatherly and Li Yi in the studio.
Big food brands such as McDonald's, Starbucks, domestic hotpot giant Heidi Lau, and beverage
heavyweight Mijie Bingcheng are all making a bold move, swapping their sleek restaurants
for buzzing street stalls.
Their signature menu items are now popping up at night markets and city sidewalks across
China.
Ready to dive into this street food adventure?
What's behind this new trend of big food brands hitting the streets?
Well, I think a notable trend is that you can see many major food giants like McDonald's,
KFC, and also hotpot retail brand Heidi Lau.
They're doing this, trying to move their kitchen and counter outside of their stores and restaurants.
They're setting up the street vending models and having the stalls in places like night
markets and even inside the shopping mall or food streets to offer affordable, convenient
meal options.
One example is McDonald's, and recently it made headlines with its venture into street
vending.
A location in Shenxi province set up a stall near a subway station, and they're offering
breakfast and promotional meal deals in discounts.
For example, there's a Tenyuan blind box breakfast meal deal, including soybean milk with fried
dough sticks, and also there are some classic combos for afternoon tea time.
So Tenyuan, that's about $2, American dollars, so that's a reasonably priced breakfast, right?
It's really affordable even compared with all kinds of options out there.
Yeah, I think they're also offering some easy to-go or ready-to-go meals so that you can
really, as a customer, the whole process is really quick.
You can just come to the stall and pick up maybe a package and then you can go, which
is the whole dining or purchase experience is much faster and more convenient than what
you got in stores.
Right, and also there's the hot pot experience.
Yeah, we were looking at pictures of that before the show today online.
Yes, I mean, it's really hard for you to imagine for a hot pot restaurant to have this straight
stall, right?
But actually they're offering some typical and very iconic snacks being offered in the
restaurant.
For example, like fried snacks and spicy, skewed meat or vegetable, these are something
that are also popular when customers are going for hot pot in the restaurant.
And also some like popular Chinese beverage chain like michie, they're offering their
ice cream and tea products and also Starbucks.
They're also introducing this new straight pickup service in collaboration with Galdon
Maps to cater to busy drivers.
Starbucks, talking about that company as an example, I was looking at an article from
CNN from earlier this year.
And I was surprised to find out that mobile app and drive-through orders for Starbucks
make up more than 70% of their entire sales.
They have about 9,500 stores in the United States and 70% of their sales comes from mobile
orders and drive-throughs.
I think we're seeing a shift now.
I was reading a story because I was curious, Starbucks hasn't always been that way, right?
Back when they started, the idea was big stores, comfortable chairs where people would stay
for hours and hours.
It was like you're home away from home for a lot of people and for a lot of office workers.
And now, in some cases, customers are complaining that they've pulled out their comfortable
chairs, they've replaced them with hard wooden stools.
The stores maybe are getting smaller and the orders where they're coming from, that's reflected.
I'm wondering, and the reason I say all that, we're seeing McDonald's, we're seeing the
Hot Pup brands, we're seeing Starbucks, we're seeing KFC, go to the streets now.
This is a unique move for big brands like this.
And perhaps it's because I was reading, and I think I agree, post-pandemic, a lot of customers
aren't eating in the stores like they used to, and this could be reflected here.
Yeah, I think the major reason besides the post-pandemic concerns is that I think these
straight vendors or vending stalls are really more flexible in terms of offering this dining
experience for customers.
And according to Forbes, actually more and more customers, they do value experiences over
products when they're making purchases, especially for Gen Z and the millennials.
I mean, they love the flexible, vibrant and convenient shopping experience compared to
what they can actually get in the same order.
So these sort of demonstrate vending stalls really can be, first of all, flexible for
business operators to choose different locations.
And in the meantime, for customers, it's also more convenient because if you're just in
the rush, maybe to your company, or you're just very eager to get back to home, and I
think to on the way, either home or to workplace, it's super convenient for you.
Right.
I suppose maybe the, yes, we've heard that Gen Z, well, especially also millennials love
the experience they would pay for the experience rather than maybe inconspicuous shopping,
you're paying for the possession.
But here, maybe it's all thanks to a different group of consumers in the sense that now they're
maybe targeting those who either want to wander in a night market or the very busy city dwellers.
Give you an example, the other day when I came up from the subway, I was feeling quite peckish
after a long day at work.
And then there was one of these McDonald's stalls.
And then you can just grab their almost iconic paper bag, brown paper bag with a set meal
and go.
And it's just so fast, so easy.
And the employees have their friendly smile.
Everything's very much associated with the golden arches.
And then it's just so easy to do.
And I thought, oh, great, I don't have time, sorry, to go into your store.
And I can't be bothered.
But if I can just pick up and grab and go, and this sounds really good to me.
Yeah, and that's the upside of a business move like this for massive global brands.
The potential downside is a damaged image.
When we think of Starbucks, when we think of KFC, when we think of massive Chinese brands
in food and beverage, we think of their nice big stores that are located almost everywhere.
But what we don't think is street food.
And there's a negative, I think, still, let me rephrase that.
There's potentially a negative connotation with street food, cheap, maybe low quality.
For these big brands, global brands, for them to move into the street food market,
it could potentially be a bad move if their brand image ends up being hurt.
And also, there are some city rules that they'll all need to abide to,
because you can't just set up stall anywhere.
And then I assume that they must have gotten the approval and permit to set up shop,
or set up the stall the way they do.
And do you think that this kind of arrangement is just a flash in the pan,
or possibly a long term strategy for the future?
I think it's a potentially long term strategy,
because I just mentioned one downside.
But one big upside is increased brand awareness and visibility.
These are like advertisements.
These are like billboards, even if they don't sell a lot of product,
even if, Huyang, you came out of the subway and you didn't buy anything
from that little McDonald's stall, you still saw the brand logo.
You were still reminded that the brand exists.
And next time you want to buy a hamburger, maybe that'll influence you.
That's a big upside there.
I see legs for this kind of project.
Yeah, I'm also quite super optimistic about this mode,
because I think for restaurants, it can be super smart for them to take this initiative,
to reach out to new and different audiences and customers out there,
because they don't already have to wait for customers to walk in.
And now they're just approaching the customers.
And maybe during this process, they can just reach out to a new group of customer base,
which are not really the traditional target customers for them.
So I think it's a very smart way.
In the meantime, I think it's always the cost-effective way
to have this marketing strategy, to have this straight stalls.
It can be more cheaper.
Yes, and also I think it's kind of sending the message.
If customers aren't coming to you immediately,
then take the store to the customers.
And I think that's kind of a good message to send to your consumers.
And no matter if you're a coffee giant, fast food titan, Chinese hot pot leader,
this is a highly competitive market.
So no wonder the businesses are pulling out all the stops to cater to our taste.
