Chinese talking turkey at Shanghai Disneyland

FOR nearly a century Disney has exported US culture across the globe, but the company was astonished to find one slice of Americana wildly popular in China – the turkey leg.

The entertainment giant opened its $5.5-billion (R73-billion) theme park in Shanghai in June last year, expecting to shift mainly bok choy, Mickey Pork Buns and Minnie Red Bean Buns to hungry customers.

“If you go to Disneyland or Disney World, we sell gigantic turkey legs – they’re like the size of my arm,” Walt Disney Company chairman and chief executive Bob Iger said yesterday.

“And when I heard we were putting them on the menu in Shanghai I thought our group was crazy. Why are we selling turkey legs in China?”

Iger was quickly proved wrong, however.

Glazed in a special Disney-recipe hoisin sauce, thousands of the legs began selling every day.

“We were there a few weeks ago for the anniversary and we sold 4 500 in one day. We couldn’t buy enough of them,” Iger said.

Demand quickly grew to 4 000 units a day in Shanghai alone – more than Disney’s Polish supplier could manage – and buyers were sent to track down more of the poultry legs in South America.

“That surprised us, and there were other things about food that surprised us – not bad, just things that we had to adjust to,” Iger said.

Incorrect rumours that the turkey legs sold at its theme parks are actually emu meat have circulated online for years, boosted most recently by a March 9 segment on TBS’s Conan talk show.

In fact, they look bigger than normal turkey legs simply because they are from the male and not the female Americans are used to seeing in their traditional Thanksgiving meals.

Shanghai Disneyland – Disney’s sixth theme park and third in Asia – pulled in nearly a million visitors in its first month of operation.