Starbucks Celebrates Chinese New Year with “World is China”

“Gong hay fat choy!” said Starbucks.

I learned through Facebook that Starbucks is celebrating Chinese New Year by offering customers World is China, a compilation of Chinese music and films. The feedback on Facebook has been great; almost 5,000 likes in 30 minutes.

In my opinion, (and besides customizing for the occasion), I see this product as a tribute to China’s growing dominance in today’s world. I’m witnessing more companies wanting to establish connections with China or at least with the Chinese community.

I believe the entire world will benefit when East meets West. But this vision is hard to achieve, as culture will always act as a natural barrier. Even as a (Singaporean) Chinese, I still have much to learn.

Prior to this product launch, Starbucks had also previously offered the World is Africa and World is India CDs. This is World is China, as described on Starbucks’s blog post:

“… I came up with was a blend that spanned from the 1940s to the present. Contemporary and vintage recordings that displayed the diversity of China and encompassed a broad range of classic Chinese pop, Beijing opera, hip-hop and electronica East-meets-West selections from Mainland China and Taiwan and Hong Kong.”

Respect is a value, which the Chinese community dearly holds on to. A close friend of mine who had experience dealing with the Chinese government told me over a recent Chinese New Year gathering, “It doesn’t matter how good you or your products are. They wouldn’t buy until they feel you respect them and their culture.” Unlike Westerners who love to dive straight into work details, Chinese value relationship, trust and respect. It makes matter worst when Westerners (including Westernized countries like Singapore) bring arrogance to the table when trying to understand China (catch this post).

Therefore, I feel Starbucks has done a great job by offering the World is China as a form of respect. This CD would at least sell like hot cakes in Starbucks China. Readers, feel free to put in your thoughts too.