My youngest daughter is crazy about eating at McDonald’s, the fast-food burger place. As a dyed-in-the-wool Asian militant, I find this a massive ideological problem.

So we argue fiercely about it all the time. But because we love each other, we always end up compromising. I compromise by allowing her to eat at McDonald’s. She compromises by not throwing a tantrum. Everybody wins. This is known as "good parenting".

Anyway, last weekend, I was invited to have dinner with the big boss of McDonald’s, who was on a tour of his Asian operations.

That day, I told my daughter that I was going to meet the President and Chief Operating Officer of McDonald’s. "This guy is the big boss of every branch of every McDonald’s in the whole wide world," I said.

"You mean Ronald McDonald?" she said.

Er, no, actually, his name isn’t Ronald. I had to break it to her gently that the yellow-suited clown which the company uses as a symbol was not actually the guy who runs the business. "Ronald is not the big boss of the company," I said. "It’s run by a businessman."

"A businessman?" she said in scornful italics.

She was baffled. I couldn’t blame her. To a kid, a restaurant should be run by a chef, a country should be run by a king, and McDonald’s should be run by a clown. What would you need a businessman for? Businessmen don’t even eat at McDonald’s!

I decided not to try justifying this, and simply headed out to dinner, which was a charity fund-raising event. The global boss of McDonald’s, a man named Ralph Alvarez, sat with Tim Fenton, the boss of McDonald’s for the eastern hemisphere. There were lots of other multi-national corporations there, including top guys from Coca-Cola and other firms.

The dinner’s hostess asked your humble narrator to auction various items for charity. Messrs Alvarez and Fenton bought vast numbers of paintings by sick ill children for outrageous sums of money, raising a fortune for charity.

This made me temporarily lose my ideological opposition to McDonald’s to such an extent that the following day, when one of my other children had an attack of hunger on the way to an appointment, I voluntarily took him to McDonald’s. (But I made sure we sat behind a pillar, so other Asian militants could not see me.)

Three things most people don’t know about McDonald’s:

1. It’s not as ubiquitous as people think. Asian countries without McDonald’s include Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.

2. They don’t sell burgers. The most popular items in Indian branches include the McCurry Pan, a rectangular container of naan bread filled with curried vegetables, the McAloo Tikki, a crispy-fried patty of peas and potato, and the Paneer Salsa Wrap. In Japan, they queue for prawnburgers. In South Korea, they eat the Bulgogi Burger, a traditional Korean pork dish. The Asian recipes come from an experimental laboratory in North Point, Hong Kong.

3. Many adults think Ronald McDonald doesn’t exist. In fact, he is a family member who works as a restaurant consultant. The whole clown thing has been massive marketing problem for him.

His website warns people who book his services: "Ronald does not have red hair or wear big shoes."