“Fast Food” Culture in Hong Kong

I had a busy day on last Friday, first I needed to go back to school, once I got off, the first thing I did was to have a fast lunch because I was like starving, and then I went to HKU to return the book which I borrowed a few months ago since I was totally forgot it. After paid back the fine due to the library, I rushed back to Causeway Bay to have a fast tea with my old friend. We just randomly picked a fast food restaurant since I needed to attend the Orientation Night which held by SAA at 6pm.

All these rushing moments made me to think of our food culture somehow, all we need is “fast” today. In my case, first I had a fast lunch, and then I had a fast tea. We have fast food is because we are busy, and the only way to save time is to have fast food. The truth is “We don’t have time to enjoy food leisurely.”, at least not in weekdays. If someone asks me what I think about Hong Kong food culture, I probably won’t give him/her an answer like “dim sum” but it will be “fast food” like Fairwood, McDonald and KFC. Every time we go to such fast restaurant during lunch hour, it’s terribly crowded, and people need to wait for seat next to every table. They are just too popular, but it’s not because they serve the most tasty foods. People eat fast and staffs work fast in the restaurant. I have been to McDonald in Australia, the picture was completely different. People weren’t work so fast and rush there, and it’s very obvious that they ate much slower than Hong Kong people, at least they would not give me a feeling of “rushing” even in weekdays. The fast food culture is very common in Hong Kong, we can also see it in the menu in most of the Chinese restaurant like (茶餐廳), there are some food set called “fast set” (快餐), i believe you guys should have the idea of it from its name, it provides all day long, and something like they have prepared already and when you order it, they will just take out from the kitchen so that you can quickly finish it then leave the restaurant. And frankly I always eat that too. Actually I think fast food made us forgot eating somehow is a kind of leisure. Someone told me French spend three hour to finish lunch, when I heard about that I was shocked because normally I will just spend 30 minutes to finish both lunch and dinner, even at home. We can see nowaday people love “fast culture” not only by counting how many fast food restaurants we have, but also convenience stores (like 7-11 and circle k) as well, like we can see 1 convenience store by every 20 steps, and the same reason again, we need to make it fast. Going to supermarket for buying a drink is time consuming, that’s why convenience store distributed everywhere. And that’s why i will choose to go to 7-11 in stead of supermaket if just buy some little thing.

We are just affected by today’s fast food culture too much.

by Karen