by Annie Wang
The host says, "With China's entry into the WTO, more foreign products will come to China, and vice versa. We will see more interaction between the Chinese and foreigners than ever. Romance is one kind of interaction. But fears and misunderstandings can cause problems in interracial romances due to the language and cultural barrier. How can the new generation be prepared for interracial dating? Let's hear what this couple says…"
Unbelievable! This time not only Nick is being interviewed but also Little Fang. They are holding hands in front of the camera, and every few moments, Nick puts his arm around Little Fang's shoulders to give her an affectionate hug.
Nick speaks. "Sometimes it is better not to understand everything the other side says. How does the Chinese saying go? Nande hutu:ignorance is bliss."
Little Fang says, "I'm going to publish a book called How to Date an Englishman. All my advice is in the book. All you need to make your relationship work is to read my book."
The studio audience applauds in admiration.
I steal a glimpse of CC.
CC seems calm. She says to us, "We should all make some New Year's resolutions and share them before midnight. I already have my three wishes for the New Year. One: I want to lose weight. Two: I will find my true love. And three: I will write a small book called How to Dump an Englishman.
60 Going Gaga for Designer Labels
My American girlfriend Sue is in her second year of the M.B.A. program at Purdue University. The Chinese economic changes she's seen on TV as well as the colorful Chinese life described in my e-mails have inspired her to write a China-related thesis. Her topic is foreign brand awareness in China.
After the New Year, Sue rushes to China to do research. When I tell Hugh about the subject Sue is working on, he thinks it could be a great story for Western readers to get to know the perceptions of Western brands in China.
To make the story more convincing and the research more authoritative, I have asked Lulu to conduct a national survey on Chinese women's impressions of foreign brands in Lulu's magazine Women ' s Friends. A total of 663 women, in the eighteen-to-thirty-five age bracket, mainly with office jobs, have participated and answered the survey.
After the survey results are tabulated, Sue is shocked. The brand images in China are quite different from those in the States. For example, 24 percent of women think to dine at TGI Friday's and to drink coffee at Starbucks is a symbol of wealth. And McDonald's is not deemed low-class, but rather chic. When it comes to cars, American cars are considered most prestigious: 92 percent of the participants consider a Cadillac or a Lincoln fancier than a Benz or a Lexus. Standard brands such as Lee's jeans and Ikea furniture carry no cachet in the States or Europe, but become premium here. Häagen-Dazs ice cream, which one can buy in cheap grocery stores anywhere in the States, is emblematic of fashion and money in the eyes of young Chinese women.
With the unexpected answers and data in hand, Sue believes that if she can understand the psychology behind Chinese consumers, she can land a job in any of these American companies without problems. She might even be able to select from many offers.
Lulu and I organize a talk on foreign brands in the conference room of Lulu's magazine Women ' s Friends. We've invited young women from different parts of China. On the day of the meeting, ten women come as Sue's focus group. Lulu and I also sit in on the meeting.
Sue shoots her first question. "Tell me, what does Häagen-Dazs ice cream have to do with fashion?"
A young woman named Li, with long permed hair, clad in a black miniskirt and black boots answers eagerly. "First, the Häagen-Dazs stores are very cute, always colorful and stylish, with a designer's taste. Second, it's the most expensive ice cream one can buy, the Rolls Royce of ice creams. Two coffees and one scoop of ice cream there will be more expensive than a Chinese dinner with five dishes. Because it's so expensive, most people stay away from Häagen-Dazs. The stores are lonely places. So it makes you noticeable when you walk into a Häagen-Dazs store. Sitting on the beautifully designed chairs and seeing the outside world through its glass windows, I feel on top of the world with a taste of the creamy American ice cream."
Another girl, named Ting, with gelled red hair and leather jacket, nods in agreement. "What Li said is very true. I love Häagen-Dazs so much I broke up with my boyfriend because of it."
"Why?" Sue asks, looking puzzled.
Ting says, "One day I said to my ex, citing the advertisement, 'If you love me, buy me a Häagen-Dazs ice cream.' When we walked into the store, he said he refused to spend seventy yuan on an ice cream. I decided to dump him right there."
"Why?" Sue asks.
"He simply isn't a member of the middle class yet. I want to marry somebody so that I can move up to the middle class," Ting adds dismissively.
"The middle class? What do you mean?" asks Sue.
"Someone who knows and can afford to eat Häagen-Dazs, use Ikea furniture, and wear CK's underwear."
Conspicuous consumption may be an American invention, but it has been perfected in China.
"Why Ikea?" Sue wonders, thinking Ikea isn't very upscale in the States, and is actually considered quite tacky in some quarters.
Ting continues. "I love Ikea's designs, but I can't afford it. I have to take a carpenter with me to the Ikea stores and tell him to copy their style. My dream is to own a room of Ikea furniture."
"What about cars? What is your dream car?"
"A Buick!" Another woman, Yo-Yo, jumps in.
I explain to Sue that a Buick usually costs $40,000 or more in China.
Sue is disappointed at the taste of these women, so she decides to let them know what the real fashions and tastes are.
"Do you like Versace clothes or Omega watches?" she asks the women.
"Everyone can wear Versace clothing and an Omega watch nowadays," Ting says, not impressed.
"Really?" Sue probes.
"The knockoffs, of course," I explain to Sue quietly in English.
After talking to the girls, Sue thanks Lulu and me for our help.
"So do you think it will help you land a job?" I ask Sue.
"Yes. Apparently, in order to make big bucks, I should work for GM or Häagen-Dazs Asia. Or I can go back to school to study law and become a lawyer that specializes in IPR," Sue concludes.
61 Culture, with a Bitter Aftertaste
Sue is puzzled by another phenomenon in China: a bowl of noodles costs only six yuan, whereas a cup of coffee costs thirty yuan or more. Sue asks me, "Why has coffee become so expensive in China? It's virtually a luxury item. You actually have to make a thoughtful decision before sitting down to have a cup."
My answer is simple: coffee is culture, coffee is fashion, and drinking coffee is a symbol of status. You pay thirty or forty yuan not just for the coffee but also for the background music, the candlelight on the table, and the yuppie ambience in a coffee shop.
"It sounds like coffee carries a deeper meaning here!" Sue comments.
"Yes, indeed." I nod, and tell Sue the story of my friend Fu and his coffee religion.
In the 1980s, when Nestles instant coffee was first intro duced to China, Fu was one of the first to try it. But he didn't fall in love with the taste of coffee. It reminded him of the taste of banlangen, the bitter Chinese medicine his mother gave him every time he was sick.
Soon he learned that instant coffee didn't taste as good as regular coffee. He decided to buy regular coffee. At that time, the Chinese didn't have access to regular ground coffee, much less coffee beans. With the help of my mother, he got a jar of Columbia coffee at the Beijing Friendship Store.
How to make coffee? He didn't know of the existence of coffee makers. But from the TV advertisements, he learned that coffee needed to be boiled. He put the coffee into a wok that was filled with water. When it was boiled, he drank it along with the residue, thinking it was part of the coffee-drinking experience, just like drinking the tea leaves in the bottom of a cup of tea.
The taste was awful. It
ended his passion for coffee until Starbucks came into China almost twenty years later.
Fu discovered that among his wide circle of fashionable friends, all of a sudden "espresso," "latte," and "cappuccino" became cool words to toss around during conversations. His coworkers always brought a cup of Starbucks coffee back to the office after lunch. In order to be fashionable, he turned the Starbucks on the corner into his classroom of culture. He gave himself a crash course on words like "mocha" and "grande," "tall" and "short."
Although the taste of coffee still didn't appeal to him, whenever he was in a restaurant with friends, he always ordered coffee, not tea.
The taste of status was much more appealing than the taste of coffee itself.
At one time, Fu dated a girl named Yao. On their second date, he chose to meet at Starbucks and ordered black coffee for himself and cappuccino for Yao.
Yao had never had a cappuccino in her life. She drank the coffee with the small spoon still in the cup. The spoon, of course, fell to the floor. Fu was displeased and attempted to educate Yao. "You should use the spoon to stir the coffee and then put it down before you drink the coffee."
Yao was humiliated by Fu's condescending tone, "It's not a big deal. I like to drink coffee any way I want."
"Culture is culture," Fu retorted. "If you don't bother to learn about culture, what do we have in common?"
Evidently, they didn't have much in common anyway, as the girl stood up and said, "Stir this," then stormed away angrily.
After hearing the story, Sue is shocked, "So your friend lost his date just like that?"
"Yes!" I say.
"What does he do now, I wonder," Sue asks.
"A few years ago, seeing that Starbucks makes so much money by charging twenty-eight yuan for a cup of coffee, he decided to get himself a share of this lucrative business. So he opened his own independent coffee shop. He charges people thirty-five yuan per cup," I say.
"But in the States, Starbucks is the one that charges more than the independent coffee shops," says Sue, a bit confused.
"I know. For luxury products, here in China, the more expensive it is, the better people think it is. I've heard he is opening his thirteenth coffee shop and is being romanced by investment bankers. He plans to go public and sell shares!"
62 Class Differences in Communist China
Being called xiaozi, or petit bourgeois, was dangerous during the Cultural Revolution. Although not as bad as being labeled counterrevolutionary, the petit bourgeois were condemned and assaulted by Red Guards if they so much as wore high-heeled shoes, permed their hair, or committed some other "offense" against the People's Fashion.
Gone are the days when beauty and fashion are deemed counterrevolutionary. Today, xiaozi is one of the most glorious words in the Chinese lexicon, representing an emerging army of cool people. They read the Chinese versions of Elle and Cosmopolitan instead of the Peoples Daily and take pride in drinking coffee rather than tea. They may not be rich enough to own cars or condos, but they own taste. They don't hesitate to spend a third of their monthly salary on a Luciano Pavarotti concert.
Lulu proudly calls herself a xiaozi. During a break in our weight-loss class, Lulu chats with Beibei and me about the new class concepts in China. "Because China is changing so fast, the society has become more segmented than ever," Lulu lectures. "Everybody is looking for a new label. Our magazine has to constantly study demographics to get a handle on our readers. Results show that our magazine serves xiaozi people like me, but not people like Beibei."
"I'm not a petit bourgeois?" asks Beibei.
"Of course not," Lulu replies, as if it was obvious. "You're a xingui, a member of the new elite who reads Fortune magazine or BusinessWeek. "
"What makes me a member of the new elite?" asks Beibei.
I interject: "Your income and your lifestyle. You drive a BMW. You have lovers. You attend banquets every week."
"Who are we?" Beibei wonders.
Lulu explains: "You're the group that has benefited most from the open-door policy. You can be Communists or Capitalists, but often the combination of the two are the big gest winners."
I ask, "What type of people are both communists and capitalists? I read Karl Marx's Capital. They are certainly not in there."
Lulu explains: "They are the kids who grew up in upper-class families in Beijing or Shanghai, then received an education in the West, and later work for multinational investment banks or Fortune 500 companies. Chief executives and presidents of privatized companies that were formerly state-owned. Popular singers, actors…"
Beibei asks Lulu: "What about Niuniu? Which group does she belong to?"
"I'm definitely an antielitist. I'd never drive a BMW to show off," I say to Beibei.
"Niuniu, you're a bobo!" Lulu says, as if she is a scientist classifying rare animals.
"A bobo?" I laugh.
"Yes," says Lulu, "the most fashionable group, better sounding than the middle class or the petite bourgeoisie. The bobo concept, of course, comes from an American book called Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. "
"What does it mean?" I ask, not having read the book.
"Bourgeois bohemians," Lulu explains. "The next issue of my magazine is a special issue about the bobos. I know everything about this group."
"Bourgeois bohemians. I love the sound of it. So what makes me a bobo?" I ask.
"You drive an SUV," says Lulu.
"Yes. I love camping." I nod.
"You read Time magazine. Your English is perfect. You love to travel and toss around words like Tibet, Bali, and Shangri-la. You're almost a vegetarian. You have more than fifteen years of education. You sleep under down quilts. You are often seen with a Sony or an Apple laptop at Starbucks. You have an iPod. You listen to new age music and do yoga. You're no different from those bobos in New York except that you carry the latest cell phone model and they don't really care much about cell phones. You pay less for manicures and derm-abrasion and rentals than they do. The whole point is that among the Chinese, bobos are the most cosmopolitan group."
I say: "It does sound like me. But I don't like stereotypes."
"You even sound boboistic!" Lulu says, smiling at me, proud of the word she has just coined. "You believe in individualism and refuse to be categorized. But you should feel lucky to be categorized in the bobo class. You might have been born into the hobo class, like the migrant workers who live in the south of the city."
I reply: "Communism's goal is to eliminate class differences. But now Chinese people seem to enjoy classifying themselves."
Lulu continues the analysis: "I guess China is on the move. Young people will go wherever it is fashionable."
I put my arm around Lulu. "And if they aren't sure what is fashionable, they can always buy Lulu's magazine."
POPULAR PHRASES
XIAOZI: Petite bourgeois; refers to an emerging group of young people who enjoy things Western, from coffee to jazz. They are not rich, but pay attention to their lifestyle. They would fit in quite well with their counterparts in the West.
63 Returning Home
The Chinese New Year is drawing near. Thousands and even millions of people are on the move in trains, airplanes, and buses, rushing to reunite with their loved ones. It is the time to huijia, or return home. In increasingly cosmopolitan Beijing, home is a concept that constantly needs to be redefined. Over dinner, Beibei, Lulu, and I discuss which home we will return to.
The most common definition of home for a Chinese woman is where her husband is. In our case, both Lulu and I are single women. Although Beibei is the only one that is married, she no longer has any affection for her husband, Chairman Hua. "Impermanence and homelessness probably are evitable feelings of modern souls, even though we do have a roof over our heads," Lulu says philosophically.
"I think when the Chinese talk about returning home, we don't mean our own homes," says Beibei. "We mean our parents' homes."
"Do you plan to spend t
he Chinese New Year at your parents' place?" I ask Beibei.
"Yes," Beibei says cheerfully. "They will teach me how to make dumplings and I will teach them how to taste red wine. Then we might play mahjong for a few days and nights. What about you, Niuniu?"
"I envy you for being able to spend time with your folks together," I reply. "Since my parents are divorced, I have to choose one over the other for my holiday visits. This year, my father wants to take his new wife to the States… So I guess I'll go to my mother's home. What about you, Lulu?"
Lulu casts her eyes downward. Returning home is a painful issue for her. Lulu's family is in a small town in the south. Her parents divorced a long time ago. Her father was a successful businessman and sent her to Beijing for schooling. But he passed away when Lulu was in college and his secretary stole all of his money. The rest of Lulu's family still lives in the small town.
Today, she is the biggest achiever in her family, a legend in her hometown: she was the most beautiful girl in town, the only graduate from a top Beijing university, and, now, the editor of a well-known fashion magazine. At one time when she returned home with ginseng and stacks of cash, the whole town celebrated. Small kids followed her around, asking for red envelopes. But things have changed in the last few years.
As her childhood playmates become mothers of toddlers, she is still single, without a decent boyfriend. The boys who used to have a crush on her have all "jumped into the sea" – started their businesses. The last few years have been good for business owners in small towns. They have built nice houses, they drive nice cars, and some are already working on their second or third girlfriends or marriages. Lulu still can't afford to buy a house in Beijing. She doesn't own a car. The neighbors all ask her mother the same question: "Has Lulu got a steady boyfriend this year?" Seeing her come home by herself, her mother no longer happily notifies every neighbor. The pride has been replaced by worry.
