The Golden Arches landed in HK in on January 8th, 1975 and they’ve pretty much enjoyed a city-wide monopoly ever since. The original American grease-pushers are not so much a fast-food outlet as an institution here, being, as they are, so ubiquitous as the sole cheap, 24-7 Western food option for Hong Kongers.

Here is a glimpse of their 1980s menu and prices…

In HK… “McDonald’s was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same of other restaurants and institutions.” (Indeed, this gave rise to the pheneomena of the ‘McShit and lies’, whereby one enters a restaurant and informs the staff that you’ll make a purchase after using the facilities.)

They also spearheaded other changes in local culture – before their arrival, it was somewhat of a taboo to eat in public, especially on the streets of conservative HK. Plus, it apparently whipped people into shape with regards to the civilised notion of queuing.

Despite the relatively late arrival of KFC and Burger King to the territory, Ronald’s monopoly has meant the chain has not had to innovate or ‘reinvent’ itself in the same way it has in waning Western markets. In Britain and the US particularly, McDonald’s is trying to re-brand itself with a healthier image in line with changing attitudes to food.

HK branches have not been totally immune to evolving attitudes. They do offer salads in HK (though they’re rarely advertised). Also, there have been some highly tokenistic efforts to appear environmentally friendly, such as their laughable, short-lived and largely-ignored ‘No Straw Day’…

There are many reasons behind the love affair with a chain which still remains an exclusive novelty in other parts of China. Like Ocean Park, McDonald’s is a nostalgic brand which people associate with their childhoods. But most of its local success stems from our existing addiction to fast food outright…

Furthermore, it remains so popular because it’s so affordable. The Economist rates the HK menu as the 2nd cheapest in the world. Their ‘Big Mac Index’ is “an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries.”

This affordability is, in turn, partly down to the availability of cheap labour. McD’s were rightly held up as the poster-child for the city’s long-standing lack of minimum wage law.

In the years preceding 2011, they were notorious for paying workers less than $20 an hour. In 2006, activists hit the front page of the Ming Pao on International Worker’s Rights Day to highlight the exploitative plight of fast food workers…

It is unfortunate that the consumption of such ‘faux food’ is normalised in HK and that – unlike in other countries – they are allowed to advertise to children, set up where-ever they wish and even build direct relationships with schools.

But even visitors and expats who’d normally avoid Macky D’s back home, find themselves succumbing to the instantly available, cheap cheerfulness of “Mak Kee”. You can even get McMarried, as so colourfully illustrated here by the bastions of journalism, Apple Action News…