Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

 

I was waiting in a long line to board the train when it happened: a smartly dressed young lady with a luggage handler in tow sauntered casually to the front of the queue.

Together this pair, a young woman aged about 25 and a male porter aged about 55, stopped beside a special side gate. A ticket checker quickly ran across to open the gate, in the process revealing the truth of the situation: the young lady had purchased the privilege of being allowed on board the train before the other passengers.

I describe this minor incident in order to discuss a relatively novel phenomenon in China: the rise of the VIP.

In its original English meaning, the term 'VIP' (short for 'Very Important Person') is used to designate a dignitary or celebrity who is accorded special treatment on account of his or her high social status. In China, on the other hand, the acronym seems to be open to acquisition via a financial transaction, and confers on the purchaser the right to be waited on hand and foot. In other words, a VIP in the Chinese sense would seem to be somebody who has paid more money for a service than anybody else.

However, there is undoubtedly more to this new VIP culture than just an extremely high level of luxury travel. The full significance of the term lies in the demeanor of the young lady described earlier. Her face showed that she was clearly enjoying passing by the line of passengers (some of whom had first-class tickets) with an older man trailing behind her like a lapdog.

An important aspect of being a nouveau VIP is not only to be better than mere first-class, but also to attract the envy and admiration of the hoi polloi. At the same time one must not neglect to boost one's own self-image and feeling of having 'arrived'.

This impulse to puff up one's ego is now sufficiently widespread that even local outdoor swimming pools have a VIP section. There, one can imagine, bathers are being served caviar and champagne by fragrant hostesses - or something along those lines.

Although I understand the necessity for companies to turn a profit, I think there are two serious drawbacks in pandering to some people's urge to be pampered and recognized as superior to others.

The first of these disadvantages is the strong possibility of undermining the idea that all the citizens in a state are notionally of equal importance. If some people are officially acknowledged as more important than others merely due to their ability to pay more money, then how can an egalitarian and harmonious society which serves everyone equally be constructed?

The other problem with the budding VIP culture is the very real risk of creating a generation that prizes and aspires to luxury, vanity, self-indulgence and high social status above all else. If we want a world full of stuck-up twenty-somethings parading with their noses in the air because they think they are better than everybody else, then encouraging young people to buy artificially-inflated privileges is certainly a good way to set about achieving this goal.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.