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This reads like something right out of the Onion.

My sincere sympathies from WA State/Starbucks Country (where Starbucks spring up like mushrooms overnight and are soooo convenient you may choose from one on your corner, or across the street, or diagonal from your corner, or connected to your bank lobby, or at your book store, or ........). It's reached a point where I looked forward traveling afar and NOT seeing a Starbucks - now they will literally be everywhere. Sigh..........

so..... i used to be one of those Americans who, with the fury of 1,000 suns, cried out vehemently against the insidious spread of American food chains and cultural cross breading...... then i spent a great deal of time living-working abroad and found myself L-O-V-I-N-G it....
Last year during a 6 week stint on a chinese TV show in Beijing, I encountered a Starbucks in, get this, China's legendary and Holy- Forbidden City (my fellow actors and I quickly named it the 'Forbidden Starbucks')....and i gotta tell you, the coffee in China Sucks, and God forbid you want a soy latte, foget about it.... So, Starbucks' insidiously blapheming of China's holiest of holies turned out to be kind of nice.... and damn those Chinese people were eating it up... I saw one lady walking out double fisted, can't blame her, the coffee everywhere else sucked....
The thing is, if you can put a chinese take out place in Washington DC, why can't you put a Starbucks in the Forbidden City?
That'a a really long response, but I had to post it. Have a nice day, I am currently sitting in Frankfurt and dreaming of the soy latte I will probably search out tomorrow.

Yeah, we had a similar experience in London--there was no good coffee there except at Starbucks.

A site to find independent coffeehouses by zipcode (I haven't thoroughly searched the site, but I think this is just U.S.):

http://www.delocator.ne

That should be:

http://www.delocator.net

(but you knew that...)

There is a Starbucks at the Great Wall. And there are wonderful Chinese restaurants in places like our nation's capitol. Um, big whoop.

Plus, the Great Wall is HUGE, so I am guessing there are still many places to experience it unadulterated by commerce. But according to someone I know whose been to the Great Wall, over-commercialization of parts of it is not a new (or stictly American-imported) phenomenom.

Also find it funny that, when the subject is coffee (as opposed to fast food) people seem just a tad more forgiving of global franchization...

Someone oughtta google earth it, haha.

I love my triple grande cappucinos, but the difference between a Starbucks at the Great Wall and a Chinese restaurant in DC is the the Chinese restaurant is owner-operated and the Starbucks is owned and run by an enormous company.

Gee, do you think that the locally-owned Chinese restaurant is any more fair and equitable and well-paying and insurance benefitting to its workers than the local Starbucks? I kind of doubt it.

Personally, I'm tired of Starbucks. I agree that it is sometimes great to spot one when I'm craving my extra-hot-soy-chai-tea-latte because I don't have to wonder if they have the soy and all - but the coffee still tastes sort of burnt to me. Being in a place where you don't see a Starbucks everywhere makes trying something new sometimes a very pleasant experience. I think that's how I got hooked on Illy and LaVazza for a while. Now I'm getting into our local coffee roaster's assortment - yum to Batdorf & Bronson!