No Starbucks in Cambodia?
A fair number of emails floating around sparked by this quote: "There's no Starbucks."
For my Khmer readers, Starbucks is a popular coffee shop that began in the USA. The furniture and food is exactly the same in each one. Walk into the store, and you will feel like you are in the States, even if you are in Bangkok! I sometimes feel that way at Caltex. It also is a chain store much like a USA one.
Actually if you look in Cambodia, you can find Starbucks coffee at Cafe Yeji, an enterprise founded by a Christian based NGO. I used to study French in the mornings next door, at Rajana's Cafe. They had Ratanakiri-grown coffee, but no food.
After about a year of beginning my mornings at Rajana, Cafe Yeji set up shop. They opened earlier and with a full menu of food as well as local and foreign coffees. I'm all for growth and development, but I came to Cambodia for new food, fun and ideas. What's a caffeine-loving expat to do?
Cambodians? My Khmer friends love BB World, one of several burger places that riff on the familiar yellow and red logo. A mall is pretty bland and boring for a Westerner, but here it's a novelty. Soriya Center is one of the most popular places for young people with the only escalator in Phnom Penh. Meanwhile, Monument Books is beginning to look a lot more like Borders Books, another huge 'chain' store.
Me? I won't turn down a good mocha latte or a cheeseburger. But I don't want it every day.
There is a place in the world for Starbucks, McDonalds and Borders, I just would prefer that they are not everywhere. Often they use their immense corporate clout to squeeze out independent restaurants and bookstores. Last December I was in San Francisco, and it seemed like there was a Starbucks on every corner, often two within the same line of sight.
Why no chain stores in Cambodia? Here schools, banks and businesses can disappear overnight. Once the business environment is more stable, chains will move in and we'll have 'Pizza Hut' instead of 'Pizza House'. Already
'The Pizza Company' has announced they will open shop here.
Westerners will roll their eyes and groan. Cambodians will be pleased at the novelty of new food and jobs with a stable employer.
What I wouldn't mind seeing is a Cambodian chain store, like say Vietnam's 'Trung Nguyen' coffee.
And more importantly, a campaign to 'Buy Local, buy Cambodian'. In a country that's been cut off from the world for so long, people ascribe too much value to foreign products, ideas and people.
