Link: Great Wall of Shopping.
So why is it that Chinese people just love to shop? The need to satisfy that superficial hunger for brand name goods or anything to stand out?
With the boom of the upper and middle class in China, which we all know is a small percentage of the overall pop. but still frightening large, anyone living in Hong Kong probably has seen the hordes of mainland tourists shopping like mad in TST or Causeway Bay.
I mean I still marvel at the sight of a 40-year old man dressed in suit pants and a T-shirt carrying four bags in each hand. Of course with wealth comes the urge to use it and get the things that one couldn't before.
But it doesn't stop there...even before the opening of the borders Hong Kong was really very much like one huge shopping mall.
Perhaps it's due to the fact that so many have gotten by with so little for so long. Perhaps it's the refuge mentality that seems to be ingrained into each Chinese person. Perhaps it's the cultural upbringing that one has to have face, and show one's wealth to prove one's worth.
It's probably all the above, added in with a healthy dose of advertising. I mean it's obviously not just China - take a look at the US and there's one big fat consumer culture for you. Product placements in movies, in toilets, sports events, everywhere you go something is screaming at you to buy.
It's enough to wish that you could flip a switch and make it all go away. To unplug your brain and delete all the programmed-in urges to buy things you don't need. To find some spyware-removal or cache-cleaning software program for the mind. To stop using consumer culture terms in everyday life.
Sometimes you gotta wonder - humans have supposedly come a long way but where the hell are we really right now anyway?
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