JayAtl
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- Nov 18, 2010
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I love social experiments like this and I can tell you that in the US, you would have a flood of people paying more rather than walking away.
Kudos to this gentleman for trying... I think this is pure genius as a social experiment.
People often think that the moral compass of a country is how the govt. acts vs how the citizenry acts.
as example, american people , keeping govt. AID aside , sent $300 million! to haiti. Personal dollars from families. That tells you the more about the moral compass of a country!
A Chinese businessman has launched an unusual battle to remedy his country’s “moral crisis” by opening a restaurant where customers only pay if they want to.
Liu Pengfei, a 51-year-old from Fuzhou in southeast China, opened his “Good One” buffet in August in what he said was a bid to rescue a long-lost sense of trust in Chinese society.
The restaurant’s menu – a blend of Chinese and international cuisine including tofu and chicken curry – is nothing remarkable.
What is unique is Mr Liu’s business model. For customers at “Good One” are given the choice as to how much they pay - or if they pay at all.
Mr Liu said his idea was to build trust by offering diners the choice of doing the correct thing – paying - or taking the dishonest path of leaving without settling the bill.
“I don’t run a business, I run a trust,” he said. “When I trust them [the customers], they will trust me and they will begin to love others.”
“I hope that when people come here they sense that. Then, when they return to their work and family, they will share this idea.”
Mr Liu blamed Mao Tse-tung’s brutal decade-long Cultural Revolution for what he argued was a widespread breakdown of ethics. The 1966-76 campaign, which saw China consumed by violence and children denounce their parents as “counter-revolutionaries”, had “destroyed mutual trust between people,” he said.
“I wish people could leave behind this state of selfishness and teach others to trust.”
Mr Liu is far from alone in worrying about what Chinese often call an intensifying public morality crisis typified by rocketing divorce rates and scandalous levels of corruption.
Earlier this week, Wang Zuoan, the head of China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs, said “moderate” religious believers could help foster “reconciliation, benevolence, tolerance and moderation”.
China is officially an atheist nation and human rights activists accuse Beijing of stifling freedom of religious belief.
Yet Xi Jinping, the president, reportedly believes China is “losing its moral compass” and sees religion as a way to “fill a vacuum created by the country's breakneck growth and rush to get rich”, Reuters reported in September.
Mr Liu, a Christian, shares that belief. Alas, the restaurateur’s attempts to use Chinese stomachs to rescue Chinese morals have got off to a slow start.
His business lost around 100,000 yuan (£10,044) in its first month and has incurred total losses of 250,000 yuan since August.
“There are still many people who don’t pay after the meal,” admitted Mr Liu. So far he has kept the restaurant afloat through a parallel job as an interior designer.
Restaurant confronts China’s moral crisis with free food - Telegraph
Kudos to this gentleman for trying... I think this is pure genius as a social experiment.
People often think that the moral compass of a country is how the govt. acts vs how the citizenry acts.
as example, american people , keeping govt. AID aside , sent $300 million! to haiti. Personal dollars from families. That tells you the more about the moral compass of a country!
A Chinese businessman has launched an unusual battle to remedy his country’s “moral crisis” by opening a restaurant where customers only pay if they want to.
Liu Pengfei, a 51-year-old from Fuzhou in southeast China, opened his “Good One” buffet in August in what he said was a bid to rescue a long-lost sense of trust in Chinese society.
The restaurant’s menu – a blend of Chinese and international cuisine including tofu and chicken curry – is nothing remarkable.
What is unique is Mr Liu’s business model. For customers at “Good One” are given the choice as to how much they pay - or if they pay at all.
Mr Liu said his idea was to build trust by offering diners the choice of doing the correct thing – paying - or taking the dishonest path of leaving without settling the bill.
“I don’t run a business, I run a trust,” he said. “When I trust them [the customers], they will trust me and they will begin to love others.”
“I hope that when people come here they sense that. Then, when they return to their work and family, they will share this idea.”
Mr Liu blamed Mao Tse-tung’s brutal decade-long Cultural Revolution for what he argued was a widespread breakdown of ethics. The 1966-76 campaign, which saw China consumed by violence and children denounce their parents as “counter-revolutionaries”, had “destroyed mutual trust between people,” he said.
“I wish people could leave behind this state of selfishness and teach others to trust.”
Mr Liu is far from alone in worrying about what Chinese often call an intensifying public morality crisis typified by rocketing divorce rates and scandalous levels of corruption.
Earlier this week, Wang Zuoan, the head of China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs, said “moderate” religious believers could help foster “reconciliation, benevolence, tolerance and moderation”.
China is officially an atheist nation and human rights activists accuse Beijing of stifling freedom of religious belief.
Yet Xi Jinping, the president, reportedly believes China is “losing its moral compass” and sees religion as a way to “fill a vacuum created by the country's breakneck growth and rush to get rich”, Reuters reported in September.
Mr Liu, a Christian, shares that belief. Alas, the restaurateur’s attempts to use Chinese stomachs to rescue Chinese morals have got off to a slow start.
His business lost around 100,000 yuan (£10,044) in its first month and has incurred total losses of 250,000 yuan since August.
“There are still many people who don’t pay after the meal,” admitted Mr Liu. So far he has kept the restaurant afloat through a parallel job as an interior designer.
Restaurant confronts China’s moral crisis with free food - Telegraph
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