Four streamlined tourist buses park bumper-to-bumper in front of a Coach handbag boutique in Rockefeller Center, the tourist hub of midtown Manhattan. The doors open to a familiar spectacle of Chinese women tourists stampeding into one of many luxury showrooms along Fifth Avenue.
For most American bargain shoppers, the famous-brand handbag, dress wear and diamond ring shops along the avenue are ridiculous tourist traps, their price tags double the cost of the same labels sold in brand-name outlets in the suburbs. But cries of “pian yi!” (cheap!) ring out from the Chinese ladies.
My wife is one of them, rummaging through a pile of Coach purses to compare the prices with the same “ming pai” (name brand) in China. “I saved $230,” she crows, waving a tiny cloth billfold in the air. “This purse would cost $400 dollars in Beijing.”
I can’t even pretend to understand why famous brands cost more in China than they do here in the US, especially when many of the “foreign brands” are actually made in China. “Better quality,” my wife insists, reminding me of the “100 percent pure wool” sweater she bought for me in Beijing. After just one wash, it shrank from XX Large to a petite size 2. Her only consolation was, “At least one of us can wear it now.”
Sure, there have always been fake labels in the garment industry, in New York as well as in China.
But the “better quality” argument falls flat when you consider the most sought-after clothing item in the world – blue denim jeans, which the Chinese call “cowboy pants.”
Denim is a rough linen beloved by workmen and fashionistas alike. But there are only four denim mills in the US, rolling out millions of yards of the same fabric day after day. The only difference is how the pants are cut and which designer label you sew onto the waistband. Denim is denim. There can be no “better quality” of the same thing.
Human nature being what it is, I know that millions of consumers in China’s new middle-class rose from poverty and want to show off by splurging on foreign luxuries as status symbols.
It’s sad, I think, that a peasant woman will save up for two years to buy an over-priced ming pai purse just so she can appear “respectable” in society.
It reminds me of the passenger train porter who explained why poor people give him the biggest tips. “The poor man doesn’t want you to know he’s poor, and the rich man doesn’t want you to know he’s rich.”
I realize that China’s conspicuous consumers worship designer names like Armani, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. So do many other people around the world.
But if you are really proud of what you’ve become, why would you want to walk around with somebody else’s name on your clothing?
In America, such people are considered nouveau riche, a derogatory term to describe a vulgar social class lacking the values of rich people like Warren Buffett, who don’t flaunt their wealth, wear off-the-rack suits, drive station wagons instead of BMWs and use their money to help others. Even when Americans get hooked on the mystique of brand names, thanks mainly to slick TV advertising campaigns, there is a different social dynamic in our unwillingness to pay top price for anything without feeling cheated by the retailer.
Shopping for bargains might seem to be a cheap character trait in China, but Americans rich and poor tend to be comparison shoppers, aware that a price tag marked “40 percent discount” means nothing if the price has been jacked up to offset the “savings.” Drive past any prestige auto showroom and you will see the signs: “Rebate!” “Cash back!” “Zero financing!” While in China, middle-class motorists are still paying double for imported luxury cars without blinking an eye.
If the Chinese were better comparison shoppers, I believe, the price of foreign-made goods would be lowered to compete with China’s own name-brands. Is there really a hundred dollars’ worth of difference in the quality of Nike sneakers compared to Adivon, Li-Ning, or Xtep?
If you’re going to live with materialistic values, you should at least get a fair price.
The author is an Emmy Award-winning TV news correspondent. barrycunningham@globaltimes.com.cn