Le Wai (thaï : ไหว้) est un geste de salutation adressé à une ou plusieurs personnes, emblématique de la culture thaïlandaise. On le retrouve aussi dans d'autres pays d'Asie du Sud-Est car il est typiquement lié à la culture bouddhique. Le Wai est le mode traditionnel de salutation et de remerciement thaïlandais. Il reste majoritairement pratiqué, même si dans les milieux occidentalisés il est souvent suivi d'une poignée de main. Le geste de base est de joindre les deux paumes de mains devant la poitrine, doigts tendus, en esquissant une légère flexion du buste ou de la tête. Le Wai possède une gradation de postures qui permet de respecter les différents niveaux sociaux des personnes qui l'exécutent ou y répondent. Exécuté aussi en marque de remerciement, la personne d'un rang supérieur ne devrait pas l'exécuter envers une personne de rang inférieur, par exemple un client qui remercie un employé.

Ronald McDonald est un personnage imaginaire habillé en clown et un des symboles de la compagnie de restauration rapide McDonald's. En 1962, afin de fidéliser les familles et en particulier les enfants, un franchisé de Washington D.C. commandita un spectacle pour enfants baptisé Bozo's Circus (le cirque de Bozo). Bozo était un personnage franchisé, joué à Los Angeles par Willard Scott. Lorsque le spectacle fut annulé, Scott fut embauché pour représenter la nouvelle mascotte de McDonald's, Ronald McDonald, dans les trois premières publicités télévisuelles incluant le personnage, en 1963. Le personnage sera finalement diffusé sur le reste des États-Unis par une campagne de publicité. Une troupe entière de personnages issus du « McDonaldland » a été développée, pour accompagner Ronald : on a pu voir des personnages ressemblant à des hamburgers et d'autres sans forme particulière. Couplé avec la formule du Happy meal/Joyeux festin qui offre des figurines en plastique, le clown Ronald a réussi à attirer et à fidéliser de nombreuses générations d'enfants, qui reviennent une fois adulte consommer dans les restaurants McDonald's. Aux États-Unis, près de 96 % des enfants connaissent le personnage de Ronald McDonald, ce qui le rend aussi populaire que le père Noël.

McDonald's Corporation (NYSE : MCD) est la plus grande chaîne de restauration rapide au monde, servant autour de 64 millions de clients chaque jour (2010)2. Basée aux États-Unis, la société a été fondée par l'homme d'affaires Ray Kroc en 1952 (le symbole du célèbre «M» est mis en place en 1955) après avoir acheté les droits à une petite chaîne de hamburger exploitée à partir de 1937 par Richard et Maurice McDonald. Un restaurant McDonald's est exploité par un réseau commercial, par un affilié ou par la société elle-même. Les revenus de la société proviennent de la location, des redevances et des honoraires versés par les réseaux commerciaux, ainsi que les ventes dans les restaurants exploités par la compagnie. Les revenus de McDonald's ont augmenté de 5,5 % au cours des deux années se terminant en 2007 à 21,6 milliards de dollars accompagnés d'une croissance des bénéfices de 36,2 % du revenu d'exploitation à 3,5 milliards de dollars. McDonald's vend principalement des burgers de bœuf, poulet et poisson ainsi que des frites, menus pour le petit déjeuner, sodas, milkshakes et desserts. La société a élargi l'offre avec des salades, wraps et fruits.

En 1937, les frères Richard et Maurice McDonald ouvrent un stand de hot-dogs appelé «Airdome» à Arcadia, en Californie. Les deux frères déménagent leur Airdome (bâtiment compris) en 1940 à San Bernardino, en Californie, et le renomment «restaurant McDonald's» le 15 mai. Le menu consiste en 25 articles, principalement cuisinés au grill. Et comme il était courant à l’époque, ils emploient environ 20 voituriers. Il devint un lieu de rendez-vous très populaire pour les jeunes, et très profitable pour ses propriétaires. Huit années plus tard, après avoir remarqué que la plupart de leurs revenus provenait des hamburgers, les deux frères fermèrent leur «restaurant» pour plusieurs mois afin de développer un système innovant le système de service rapide (Speedee Service System), une ligne de préparation «aérodynamique» pour hamburgers. La carte est réduite à l’offre que 80 % des consommateurs ont l’habitude de commander (hamburgers, soda, lait, café, frites et gâteau), tandis que la taille du hamburger est diminuée mais pour un prix réduit à 15 cents et que la vaisselle laisse la place à des assiettes et gobelets en carton. Dans la mesure où le service n’est plus assuré au volant — les clients passent commandes eux-mêmes à un guichet —, les voituriers furent licenciés.

In Thailand, Ronald McDonald greets people in the traditional Thai "wai" greeting gesture of both hands pressed together. The Thai version of the company mascot was created in 2002 by the local Thai franchise, McThai, as part of a "McThai in the Thai Spirit" campaign.
The Thai greeting referred to as the wai (Thai: ไหว้, pronounced [wâːj]) consists of a slight bow, with the palms pressed together in a prayer-like fashion. It has its origin in the Indic Añjali Mudrā, like the Indian namasté and the Cambodian sampeah. The higher the hands are held in relation to the face and the lower the bow, the more respect or reverence the giver of the wai is showing. The wai is traditionally observed upon entering formally a house. After the visit is over, the visitor asks for permission to leave and repeats the salutation made upon entering. The wai is also common as a way to express gratitude or to apologise. The word often spoken with the wai as a greeting or farewell is sawasdee (สวัสดี, RTGS: sawatdi, pronounced [sàwàtdiː]). This word was coined in the mid-1930s by Phraya Upakit Silapasan of Chulalongkorn University. This word, derived from the Sanskrit svasti (meaning "well-being"), had previously been used in Thai only as a formulaic opening to inscriptions. The strongly nationalist government of Plaek Pibulsonggram in the early 1940s promoted the use of the word sawasdee amongst the government bureaucracy as well as the wider populace as part of a wider set of cultural edicts to modernise Thailand. Waiing remains to this day an extremely important part of social behavior among Thais, who are very sensitive to their self-perceived standing in society. As a rule of thumb for foreign tourists and other visitors unaccustomed to the intricacies of Thai language and culture, it is unwise to initiate a wai exchange with someone who is younger. However, one should always return a wai that is offered as a genuine sign of respect. Corporate wais, such as those performed by convenience store cashiers, can generally be 'returned' with a smile. If one is waiied while carrying goods, or for any other reason that makes the physical act of returning a wai difficult, it is still important to recognize the show of respect and make a physical effort to wai back as best as possible under the circumstances.

Ronald McDonald is a clown character used as the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. In television commercials, the clown inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland, and has adventures with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and The Fry Kids. In recent years, McDonaldland has been largely phased out, and Ronald is instead shown interacting with normal kids in their everyday lives. Many people work full-time making appearances in the Ronald McDonald costume, visiting children in hospitals, and attending regular events. There are also Ronald McDonald Houses, where parents can stay overnight when visiting sick children in nearby chronic care facilities. Since August 2003, McDonald has been officially styled as the "Chief Happiness Officer" of the McDonald's Corporation.

The origin of Ronald McDonald involves Willard Scott (at the time, a local radio personality who also played Bozo the Clown on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. from 1959 until 1962), who performed using the moniker "Ronald McDonald, the Hamburger-Happy Clown" in 1963 on three separate television spots. These were the first three television ads featuring the character. Scott, who went on to become NBC-TV's Today Show weatherman, claims to have "created Ronald McDonald" according to the following excerpt from his book Joy of Living:

The McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries.[4][5] Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948 they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles. Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955. He subsequently purchased the chain from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its worldwide growth. A McDonald's restaurant is operated by either a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. McDonald's Corporation revenues come from the rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. In 2012, McDonald's Corporation had annual revenues of $27.5 billion, and profits of $5.5 billion. McDonald's primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. In response to changing consumer tastes, the company has expanded its menu to include salads, fish, wraps, smoothies, and fruit.

The McDonald's restaurant concept was introduced in San Bernardino, California by Dick and Mac McDonald of Manchester, New Hampshire. It was modified and expanded by their business partner, Ray Kroc, of Oak Park, Illinois, who later bought out the business interests of the McDonald brothers in the concept and went on to found McDonald's Corporation. In 1937, Patrick McDonald opened "The Airdrome", a food stand, on Huntington Drive (Route 66) near the Monrovia Airport in Monrovia, California. Hamburgers were ten cents, and all-you-can-drink orange juice was five cents. In 1940, his two sons, Maurice and Richard ("Mac" and "Dick"), moved the entire building 40 miles (64 km) east, to West 14th and 1398 North E Streets in San Bernardino, California. The restaurant was renamed "McDonald's Bar-B-Q" and served twenty five barbecued items on their menu.In October 1948, after the McDonald brothers realized that most of their profits came from selling hamburgers, they closed down their successful carhop drive-in to establish a streamlined system with a simple menu of just hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, shakes, soft drinks, and apple pie. The carhops were eliminated to make McDonald's a self-serve operation. Mac and Dick McDonald had taken great care in setting up their kitchen like an assembly line to ensure maximum efficiency. The restaurant's name was again changed, this time to simply "McDonald's". and reopened its doors on December 12, 1948. In 1953, the McDonald brothers began to franchise their successful restaurant, starting in Phoenix, Arizona and Downey, California; the latter is today the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant. The McDonald brothers created Speedee to symbolize the quick and efficient service system that they had devised. They later withdrew Speedee because the Alka-Seltzer mascot was named Speedy, and McDonald's did not want to be affiliated with Alka-Seltzer. Downey's Speedee is one of only a few remaining. His little legs, animated in neon, still run as fast as they can to serve the restaurant's next customer. The Speedee sign was erected in 1959 at Downey with its single giant arch and is a one-of-a-kind. Designed by the architect Stanley Clarke Meston and his assistant Charles Fish, Downey's restaurant is the oldest operating McDonald's in the world. Since it was franchised not by the McDonald's Corporation, but by the McDonald brothers themselves to Roger Williams and Burdette Landon, the Speedee McDonald's was not required to comply with the McDonald's Corporation's remodeling and updating requests over the years. Recognizing the historic and nostalgic value of the intact 1953 structure, the McDonald's Corporation acquired the store in 1990 and rehabilitated it to a modern but nearly original condition, and then built an adjacent museum and gift shop to commemorate the site. Inside the small museum are many McDonald's artifacts from over the years, and also a small display showing how the restaurant buildings evolved from the small walk-up candy striped stands to the large more common mansard-roofed restaurants. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a seller of Multi-mixer milkshake machines, learned that the McDonald brothers were using eight of his machines in their San Bernardino restaurant. His curiosity was piqued, and he went to San Bernardino to take a look at the McDonalds' restaurant. He was joined by good friend Charles Lewis who had suggested to Kroc several improvements to the McDonald's burger recipe. Believing that the McDonalds' formula was a ticket to success, Kroc suggested that they franchise their restaurants throughout the country. When they hesitated to take on this additional burden, Kroc volunteered to do it for them. He returned to his home outside of Chicago with rights to set up McDonald's restaurants throughout the country, except in a handful of territories in California and Arizona already licensed by the McDonald brothers. Kroc's first McDonald's restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, near Chicago, on April 15, 1955, the same day that Kroc incorporated his company as McDonald's Systems, Inc. (which he would later rename McDonald's Corporation). Ray Kroc's first McDonald's was then demolished after many remodels in 1984. Once the Des Plaines restaurant was operational, Kroc sought franchisees for his McDonald's chain. The first snag came quickly. In 1956 he discovered that the McDonald brothers had licensed the franchise rights for Cook County, Illinois to the Frejlack Ice Cream Company. Kroc was incensed that the McDonalds had not informed him of this arrangement. He purchased the rights back for $25,000, five times what the Frejlacks had originally paid, and pressed forward. McDonald's grew slowly for its first three years. By 1958, there were 34 restaurants. In 1959, however, Kroc opened 68 new restaurants, bringing the total to 102 locations.