Would you eat in a McDonald's vegetarian restaurant?

As McDonald's plans to open its first vegetarian restaurants in India, two vegetarians argue for and against the idea

Kavitha Rao v Andrew Tobert

McDonald's has announced it is to open vegetarian-only restaurants in India.

Kavitha Rao: McDon't do it!

As a lifelong vegetarian and as an Indian living in Bangalore, I have been eating cheap fast food all my life. But not the skanky plastic garbage peddled by Maccy D's, KFC and their ilk. Instead, I might have a crisp, lightly browned dosa (rice and lentil crepe) with coconut chutney for breakfast, pav bhaji (bread rolls with a buttery vegetable hash) for lunch and chaat (a spicy mix of potatoes, yoghurt, onions, tomatoes, cilantro and crispy bits) for a snack. Usually, these will cost me about Rs 50 (about 50p), less than a McDonald's veggie burger, which goes for Rs 59. They will be healthier, tastier, fresher.

The recent announcement by McDonald's that it is launching a veggie restaurant in India had me bellowing "What fresh hell is this?" It's the culinary equivalent of selling ice to Inuits. Inuits may not have more than a hundred words for snow – apparently it's an urban myth – but I can assure you that Indians have many more than a hundred varieties of veggie fast food, not just a plain one-size-fits-all potato patty.

Oh, I have tried McDonald's veggie offerings, the ones carefully created for my primitive brown taste buds after years of research. Once. The dull McAloo Tikki burger is not a patch on the infinitely more delicious crispy alu tikkis with tamarind chutney found at any street vendor. Their McSpicy Paneer is a cop-out, falling back on that bland veggie standby: paneer. It's the insipid nut roast of India, the tofu of timidity.

Cleanliness, you say? Nope. Even if you are a foreigner with a stomach like tissue paper, you are better off eating piping hot, fresh dosas from a busy street vendor than you are eating stale fast food. India has always had homegrown chains of veggie fast food joints which are every bit as clean and quality conscious as McDonald's, perhaps even more so. And I'd rather give my money to a small business owner than a McCorporation.

But hey, I am not going to sermonise. Or even tell you, Morgan Spurlock-style, that veggie burgers are killing you slowly. I don't need to. After almost 16 years in India, McDonald's has just over 250 outlets here, which, in such a massive country, is pocket change. I suspect that Indians are smart enough to know which side of their pav bhaji is buttered. Sure, broke students and tubby kids hankering after plastic toys will continue to eat there, but there will also be plenty like me who shun the Golden Arches in favour of a truly happy and tasty meal.

• Kavitha Rao is a Bangalore-based journalist

Andrew Tobert: I'm lovin' it!

There are few more powerful symbols than the Golden Arches. For me, they represent at once the homogenising influence of market forces, the evil of industrialised agriculture, the obesity crisis. And the last time I was truly happy.

McDonald's, from the first time I crossed its air-conditioned threshold, has offered a place of sanctuary and calm. The smell of whatever-that-smell-is wafting through the air and the happy children, joyous with additives swirling around their blood streams. This is where I've had my best thoughts, my most cherished memories. This is where I can truly be me.

And I'm not alone. From Shanghai to Chicago, kids, pensioners, lawyers and students come and are welcome. However much people might not want this to be true, McDonald's is the global restaurant – the place that unites humanity. You might find better, cheaper food elsewhere, but that's not going to convince Parisian school kids or London lawyers coming back for more.

I used to go three times a week (and yes, dear readers, I was a fat child). I wasn't just lovin' it, I was stalking it on Facebook, and naming our soon-to-be-children. But three months ago, my life changed for ever. I became vegetarian (something about climate change and global hunger, but I forget the details). My place of solace was now closed off.

Of course when I walk by a restaurant, it looks as it always has. As I stand on the street corner, I see people laughing, enjoying themselves. I want to go in, and share the things that make us human. But I know I can't, the temptations will be too much. The Chicken Selects, the Big Mac, the fries (I could go on), so delicious and so stunningly cheap. I miss them. A lot. But I made my choice, and I must accept the consequences. So there's me, outside. An outcast in a meat-eating world. But perhaps not for much longer.

That's why a McDonald's veggie restaurant in India fills me with unadulterated joy and hope. Yes, there are haterz, there always are. And to them I say, whatevs. Indians won't all become obese overnight, and their cuisine isn't going to suddenly disappear. Maybe Indian vegetarians, like their meat-eating peers the world over, watch McDonald's ads and think "you know what, that looks cool". And isn't that a wonderful thing? That we live in a world where people can pick and choose the best of global culture, regardless of where they were born? McDonald's is the global emancipator. May its benevolence spread far and wide.

But first, could the veggie outlets spread to London? Say, Hackney, E9. Then I won't feel a stab of jealousy every time I pass a branch. And maybe then I can stop resenting being a vegetarian, and start actually enjoying it. Yes, those really will be the (Mc)Salad days.

• Andrew Tobert is a copywriter, an environmental activist and a lousy vegetarian

Taken from guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 September 2012 11.00 BST, HERE.

Why do we behave so oddly in lifts?

Many of us use them several times a day without really noticing. And yet the way we behave in lifts, or elevators as they are known in the US, reveals a hidden anxiety.

"Most of us sort of shut down.

"We walk in. We press the button. We stand perfectly still."

Taking the lift could be the least memorable part of your journey to work, but Dr Lee Gray of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has made it his business to scrutinise this overlooked form of public transportation. People refer to him as "the Elevator Guy".

"The lift becomes this interesting social space where etiquette is sort of odd," he explains. "They are socially very interesting but often very awkward places."

Conversations that have been struck up in the lobby tend to be extinguished quite quickly in the thick atmosphere of the office elevator. We walk in and usually turn around to face the door.

If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, it has been observed that lift-travellers unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements, as predetermined as a square dance.

On your own, you can do whatever you want - it's your own little box.

If there are two of you, you take different corners. Standing diagonally across from each other creates the greatest distance.

When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle (breaking the analogy that some have made with dots on a dice). And when there is a fourth person it's a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.

Now we are in uncharted territory. New entrants to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the protocol is simple - look down, or examine your phone.

Why are we so awkward in lifts?

"You don't have enough space," says Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin.

"Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm's length of distance between us. And that's not possible in most elevators, so it's a very unusual setting. It's unnatural."

In such a small, enclosed space it becomes vital, she says, to act in a way that cannot be construed as threatening, odd or in any way ambiguous. The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye-contact.

But perhaps there is more to it than just social awkwardness.

"In the back of our minds we are a little anxious," says Nick White, an office worker in New York who was unfortunate enough to be trapped in a lift for 41 hours.

Nick White was trapped in a lift in his office building for 41 hours.

"We don't like to be locked into a place. We want to get out of the elevator as soon as possible, because, you know, it's a creepy place to be."

During his ordeal, he began to think of another enclosed space that lurks at the back of our minds - a tomb.

It would be understandable if White refused ever to step in a lift again. But if you work in a city built on a vertical plane, and if you have aspirations above being a receptionist, that isn't an option.

"I certainly remember what happened to me every time I go in one," he admits. "It's part of the commute, the part you have the least control over."

Elevator Guy Lee Gray agrees that a sense of disempowerment is the main cause of lift anxiety.

"You're in a machine that's moving, over which you have no control. You cannot see the elevator engine, you don't know how it's working," he says.

This sense of passivity in the hands of a machine may become more pronounced as we enter the age of buttonless "smart" elevators.

After swiping through security or touching a central control panel, travellers are directed to a lift that has been programmed to stop at their floor, removing the need for any further commands. The system is designed to cut down on unnecessary stops, but although more efficient, some people find the experience unnerving.

Regardless of the qualms and anxieties associated with lifts, Gray is adamant that they are safer than cars - and significantly safer than escalators.

"It is in in fact of one of the safest forms of transportation, if you look at the billions of miles that lifts travel every year and the very, very small number of accidents."

We all know this, which is why we continue to take lifts every day, despite our anxieties.

"We have learned that we can take an elevator and it is safe to do so," says Renneberg. "So in a way it's a triumph of rationalism over our more animalistic instincts."

This pleasing thought - that we become more sophisticated by travelling in lifts - is perhaps one to ponder next time you get in one.

Just don't, whatever you do, start a conversation about it.

Taken from the BBC HERE.

There is a BBC podcast about this HERE.

The decline of Asian marriage

The Economist: LEADER COLUMN

Asia's lonely hearts

Women are rejecting marriage in Asia. The social implications are serious

Aug 20th 2011 | from the print edition of The Economist

Twenty years ago a debate erupted about whether there were specific “Asian values”. Most attention focused on dubious claims by autocrats that democracy was not among them. But a more intriguing, if less noticed, argument was that traditional family values were stronger in Asia than in America and Europe, and that this partly accounted for Asia's economic success. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore and a keen advocate of Asian values, the Chinese family encouraged “scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain”.

On the face of it his claim appears persuasive still. In most of Asia, marriage is widespread and illegitimacy almost unknown. In contrast, half of marriages in some Western countries end in divorce, and half of all children are born outside wedlock. The recent riots across Britain, whose origins many believe lie in an absence of either parental guidance or filial respect, seem to underline a profound difference between East and West.

Yet marriage is changing fast in East, South-East and South Asia, even though each region has different traditions. The changes are different from those that took place in the West in the second half of the 20th century. Divorce, though rising in some countries, remains comparatively rare. What's happening in Asia is a flight from marriage (see article).

Marriage rates are falling partly because people are postponing getting hitched. Marriage ages have risen all over the world, but the increase is particularly marked in Asia. People there now marry even later than they do in the West. The mean age of marriage in the richest places—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong—has risen sharply in the past few decades, to reach 29-30 for women and 31-33 for men.

A lot of Asians are not marrying later. They are not marrying at all. Almost a third of Japanese women in their early 30s are unmarried; probably half of those will always be. Over one-fifth of Taiwanese women in their late 30s are single; most will never marry. In some places, rates of non-marriage are especially striking: in Bangkok, 20% of 40-44-year old women are not married; in Tokyo, 21%; among university graduates of that age in Singapore, 27%. So far, the trend has not affected Asia's two giants, China and India. But it is likely to, as the economic factors that have driven it elsewhere in Asia sweep through those two countries as well; and its consequences will be exacerbated by the sex-selective abortion practised for a generation there. By 2050, there will be 60m more men of marriageable age than women in China and India.

The joy of staying single

Women are retreating from marriage as they go into the workplace. That's partly because, for a woman, being both employed and married is tough in Asia. Women there are the primary caregivers for husbands, children and, often, for ageing parents; and even when in full-time employment, they are expected to continue to play this role. This is true elsewhere in the world, but the burden that Asian women carry is particularly heavy. Japanese women, who typically work 40 hours a week in the office, then do, on average, another 30 hours of housework. Their husbands, on average, do three hours. And Asian women who give up work to look after children find it hard to return when the offspring are grown. Not surprisingly, Asian women have an unusually pessimistic view of marriage. According to a survey carried out this year, many fewer Japanese women felt positive about their marriage than did Japanese men, or American women or men.

At the same time as employment makes marriage tougher for women, it offers them an alternative. More women are financially independent, so more of them can pursue a single life that may appeal more than the drudgery of a traditional marriage. More education has also contributed to the decline of marriage, because Asian women with the most education have always been the most reluctant to wed—and there are now many more highly educated women.

No marriage, no babies

The flight from marriage in Asia is thus the result of the greater freedom that women enjoy these days, which is to be celebrated. But it is also creating social problems. Compared with the West, Asian countries have invested less in pensions and other forms of social protection, on the assumption that the family will look after ageing or ill relatives. That can no longer be taken for granted. The decline of marriage is also contributing to the collapse in the birth rate. Fertility in East Asia has fallen from 5.3 children per woman in the late 1960s to 1.6 now. In countries with the lowest marriage rates, the fertility rate is nearer 1.0. That is beginning to cause huge demographic problems, as populations age with startling speed. And there are other, less obvious issues. Marriage socialises men: it is associated with lower levels of testosterone and less criminal behaviour. Less marriage might mean more crime.

Can marriage be revived in Asia? Maybe, if expectations of those roles of both sexes change; but shifting traditional attitudes is hard. Governments cannot legislate away popular prejudices. They can, though, encourage change. Relaxing divorce laws might, paradoxically, boost marriage. Women who now steer clear of wedlock might be more willing to tie the knot if they know it can be untied—not just because they can get out of the marriage if it doesn't work, but also because their freedom to leave might keep their husbands on their toes. Family law should give divorced women a more generous share of the couple's assets. Governments should also legislate to get employers to offer both maternal and paternal leave, and provide or subsidise child care. If taking on such expenses helped promote family life, it might reduce the burden on the state of looking after the old.

Asian governments have long taken the view that the superiority of their family life was one of their big advantages over the West. That confidence is no longer warranted. They need to wake up to the huge social changes happening in their countries and think about how to cope with the consequences.

If you find this topic interesting, this article HERE goes into more detail. It is taken from the same edition of The Economist.

Exchange Student: Reflections On Yogya

I have now been in this country for three and a half months. It occurred to me today that there are loads of crazy things that happen around me, some not so crazy but still pretty weird, whose impact have been dulled by the passing of time. With about five weeks left in Yogya before I move on to Jakarta, I have been reflecting once more on the many peculiar phenomena which are inherent features of daily life in Indonesia and in the life of foreign students generally.

For a start, there's the fact that I have friends from many countries here including Japan, Germany, Korea, Turkey, New Zealand. The peculiar thing about our friendships however is that, excluding obviously the English speakers, we all speak to each other in Indonesian. Of course, that is probably rather an obvious thing to most of you, however picture this scenario: a bunch of Australians, Japanese, Koreans and a German go out for dinner and spend the whole evening speaking Indonesian. White people and foreigners generally already get stared at anyway by Indonesians without needing to draw further attention to ourselves by speaking their language in their absence! They seem to find that scenario rather hilarious, but in a nice way.

Another dominant lifestyle-affecting characteristic of this place is the weather. I wake up in the morning usually to a clear blue sky and it feels about 30 degrees by about 9am. However, more often than not, I get out of class in mid-afternoon and it is torrentially down-pouring which inevitably means - in a country with an average sewerage system, motorbikes as the dominant form of transport, and a generally, erm, flexible attitude to time - the only way to deal with such conditions is to either make friends with someone who has a car, or wait.

An example: on the way to the movies the other day, in a period of five minutes, a massive storm developed and purged itself with equally impressive speed. We were on motorbikes at the time and had no option but to park them in the middle of nowhere and huddle under the eaves of a translation shop and plough through the usual questions (Where are you from? Why are you here? etc, etc) with the owner. We waited for an hour and when we eventually decided to resume our journey, still ended up quite soaked. You have no choice but to wait. I am developing remarkable patience in this country.

Other circumstances that require patience...

The bus continues to provide me with great amusement. A new phenomena that I have observed is the proclivity of the driver to just randomly stop for a rest and drink a cup of tea or chat to his fellow bus-driving mates for as long as he sees fit. This seldom occurs when I am on the way to campus (thankfully, because I rarely allocate enough time for such unexpected occurrences in my morning schedule) but often happens on the way home when I am about 1km from the kos. I always have to toss up whether to just get off and walk or hope that his conversation is sufficiently boring that he drinks his tea quickly and gets moving!

It occurred to me the other day also that when we all go home to Australia we are quite likely to develop psychological paranoia about being ignored by the people around us, because we will be able to once more walk down the street and not have anyone care less about where we have come from (Dari mana?), where we are going (Mau ke mana?), are we studying in Yogya (Kuliah di sini?) and why we are walking alone (Kok sendirian?). It is absolutely mustahil, impossible, to go anywhere incognito in this place.

I went down to the bakery near my kos today, "Parsley", to buy some bread and realized how that although I used to find it weird to see cheese and chocolate used in the same baked good or to see for example cheese as a topping on cake, I hadn't even thought about it for two months as being anything other than normal. In Bandung, where Brownies are apparently a specialty, they make a cheese version (eww). The absolute over-sweetness of everything here would also be normal if it wasn't for the fact that I am constantly reminded when I smile at myself in the mirror how bad my teeth will be when I get home. The default taste of hot drinks here (Milo, coffee, tea, green tea) is hyper-sweet. Out of control, cavity-inducing, stomach-churning sweet. Alas, being an adaptable creature and one who is not prone to being fussy, I have learnt to accept it. This is in lieu of other options other than the rather unpalatable "don't have a drink" option.

Oh and by the way, I eat rice and sambal (chilli sauce) for breakfast. The girls in the kos think it's hilarious. But they all do it too. Anyway, that's a pot pourri of random tidbits.

By Adelle Neary s22, Adelaide University [taken from http://www.acicis.murdoch.edu.au/]