In front of the Pantheon in Rome, which is the only building from antiquity still in use today, is Piazza della Rotonda, a very pleasant plaza with a water fountain topped by one of the Egyptian obelisks stolen from their rightful owners by plundering Romans during a previous era of globalization. And on the side of Piazza della Rotonda opposite the Pantheon? A McDonald’s fast-food restaurant.

McDonald’s golden arches have sprouted up throughout much of the world. They can be found in Argentina and Aruba, Bahrain and Bolivia, Chile and Costa Rica, Ecuador and Egypt, India and Indonesia, Jamaica and Japan, Korea and Kuwait, Malaysia and Malta, New Zealand and Nicaragua, Pakistan and Paraguay, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, Tahiti and Taiwan, and in scores of other countries, both large and small.

More than 200 McDonald’s restaurants are open for business every day in Beijing, the capital of China. McDonald’s, however, is not the leading fast-food restaurant in China. That honor – if indeed it is an honor – goes to KFC, with entrees such as the “Dragon Twister” specially designed for the Chinese palate. KFC, which in 1987 was the first fast-food restaurant chain to enter China, now has more than 1,600 fast-food restaurants in mainland China, spread out among 350 cities.