Has China become a consumer society?
- Source: Global Times
- [21:07 August 04 2009]
- Comments
Q: As we develop from agricultural to industrial society, food processing is also developing. But people would rather choose non-processed green products. Does it mean, then, that as society moves forward, people’s consumption or lifestyle goes backward? Is it a progress or regression?
Dominique: History never repeats itself, but similar patterns can appear at different stages. I found that the way rice is sold at supermarkets in Guangzhou is the same as in Europe and the US in the 1950s. Here rice is sold in bulk. People can touch it and smell it. But it’s different in Europe. For food safety concerns, the rice runs down through a tube directly into a box. People can’t touch it.
Q: Some Chinese have switched their breakfast from “porridge and streamed bun” to “bread and milk.” What does this say about consumption habits?
Dominique: I have two explanations for this: one is advertising, and the other is as urbanization progresses, Chinese people exercise less and less, especially the white collar workers. The traditional Chinese breakfast contains very high calories. If people continue with this tradition, they will keep getting fat. That’s probably why they switch to bread and milk. But that’s just my personal opinion.
Q: What is a consumer society? What are the main characteristics? Is China now a consumer society?
Dominique: We don’t have a definition for it but can only explain it through the phenomenon. A consumer society has two features. On the one hand people have more time for entertainment, relative to working hours. In the past, people in France worked about 3,000 hours a year, but now, 860 hours. Thus people spend more time consuming. But in China, people don’t even rest on weekends. I found that people in Guangzhou worked almost every day.
A more obvious feature is the mushrooming supermarkets and shopping malls. It’s a signal that the country or region has become a consumer society. I think China is already there.
A consumer society also features a sharp increase of the amount of products. In 1950s France, there were several thousands of products, but now there are over 100,000. And they have many more functions. Before a product may have only one single function, but now people have many more options.
Q: How does consumption patterns affect lifestyle?
Dominique: Take the example of cooking. If all the materials are primary products not yet processed, then it would take a long time to prepare the food. Someone in the family has to do it, husband, wife, child, or grandparent. Whoever it is, their lifestyle is altered, because they have to cook instead of work or relax.
On the other hand, if for time or economic reasons people have to stay home and cook, who should work and support the family and who should pay for the obligatory domestic labor?
