The East Asian Fast Food Beverage Bag
It really is the little differences that you notice the most.
The first time I ordered takeout in one of China’s ubiquitous KFCs, I received something a little unusual. I received a fountain drink as one usually does, but rather than carrying it out myself, the person at the counter gave me the cup in a small, thin plastic bag.
It was a minor oddity, a quirk that I wouldn’t have thought too much about had I not seen it on a regular basis for six years in two different countries.
Yes, any time you get takeout in this part of the world, you are likely to get the drink in a bag just like in the picture at the top. This is even true for South Korean chains that give out drinks in cans rather than in a disposable cup. And you know what? At least for China, this always made a certain amount of sense to me.
As I’ve said before, ice is a rarity in China:
In many places — especially the smaller no-name fast food places that you find in places foreigners rarely go — you might receive no ice at all. Even in a large chain, you won’t get much, merely a sprinkling of ice chips that might melt before you know that they’re even present. Thus, the bag serves the small but important function of keeping your hand, and thus body heat, away from a beverage that is already rising toward air temperature.
That’s presumably why they do this in China, but why South Korea? Beverages in this country are straight out of the cooler and fountain drinks have all the ice that you want. The need to insulate them from body heat isn’t nearly as critical here.
That’s before we even get into how wasteful this is. The tiny, thin plastic bags are all but useless except to transport a beverage or a small food item. Once you get home, you’re going to throw it away because there are very few options to reuse them. I suppose one could wrap a sandwich in one, but the poor quality of the plastic means that it wouldn’t be very good for that.
Wastefulness aside, I can’t deny that there is a certain bottom-tier luxury to the beverage bag. Ice or not, it really does keep the drink colder than if you have to carry it in your hand (remembering, of course, that rates of car ownership are lower in these countries than in the States — you are likely walking home). It’s even nicer in cold weather. I don’t know if you’ve ever walked home in winter while carrying a fountain drink, but it quickly crosses the threshold from uncomfortable to painful.
I’m not sure that the beverage bag speaks to any deeper cultural point, and I honestly am a little confused to see it here — again, it makes a lot more sense in China. Not every difference between daily life in two countries has any deeper meaning. Sometimes, it’s just a trivial convenience that you weren’t used to.
Watch the video podcast that inspired this post:
