Letters

Amy Hanser (“Made in the PRC: Consumers in China,” Contexts, Winter 2004) highlights the remarkable consumer revolution in contemporary China. A quadrupling of personal incomes has meant not only an increase in consumption, but a change in consciousness and values. In my most recent trip last autumn, my sister-in-law, Fang, and her husband met me and my wife at the Shanghai airport in their new Volkswagen sedan. Private automobiles were the hot topic in the summer of 2003, as thousands of Shanghai professionals took advantage of new consumer car loans. As we drove toward the city center, Fang told us about the Volkswagen car club website that she often visits. She also complained about her son’s use of pocket money. The problem is not that he is spending too much, but that he is spending too little. Fang said with a little laugh, “I give him money, and he always says it is too much.” This struck me as symptomatic of the new consumer culture in China, in which even a child’s identity is realized as much through what he buys as through his achievement and deportment in school, the traditional standards. My nephew did know a lot about consumer products; he could discuss the most suitable tires for the new car, and which supermarket had the best deals on foods he liked. Whether defined by product choices and knowledge, new communities such as car clubs, or class status defined by the ability to buy a car and an apartment, consumption is central to new personal and social identities in China.