McDonald’s has turned a house where the son of Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek once lived into a restaurant, dividing opinion in China and Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland in 1949 after the Kuomintang was defeated by the communists, retreating to Taiwan where his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, was president from 1978 to 1988.
The McCafe opened on Friday in the former residence of Chiang Ching-kuo near the West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. A side wing of the two-storey wood and brick lakeside villa had already been turned into a Starbucks in October. Chiang, the elder son of the generalissimo, lived in the western-style villa with his family for a short time in 1948.
Local authorities had been trying to rent out the building, which is officially listed as a historical site, for years, according to local reports. “Why haven’t they opened a KFC at Yan’an [the birthplace of the Communist party revolution]?” asked one user of Weibo, China’s microblogging site.
Another said: “The sign [on the building] says it’s a heritage site. It should retain its original history and culture. As it’s historical heritage, it should not be commercialised!” But a Weibo user describing herself as an architecture student in Hangzhou said: “McDonald’s have maintained the old structure and have kept the original Chinese style. It’s not only heritage protection, it’s also convenient for tourists.”
