Alice in Consumerland
Woman’s clothing in China can border on provocative, like any modern short-skirt wearing country, but for the most part I find it conservatively cute. The same dress worn by a 30-year-old can be seen on a 10-year-old.
Consumption of clothing, or just about anything in China, and now I’m noticing in Hong Kong, is unnerving. Going through malls in Beijing is a lot like when you were a kid and would climb inside clothing racks to hide. Only in these shopping emporiums it’s not a matter of hiding it’s a matter of getting lost in a world of material goods. The first time I went into one of these places I felt like I had fallen down the hole with Alice and we entered some acid-trip Wonderland of mass spending.
My hope is to some day look into the places where all this stuff is being made.
I was so overwhelmed at the markets last year that I stood inside them but was unwilling to “engage” in the insanity. Our teenagers, however, had a blast as well as some American college students we met. No, I don’t need a Prada knock-off, no, I don’t need a custom-made suit, no, I don’t need fake Columbia. But obviously, someone must need/want these items or the vendors wouldn’t be making money! In addition, having people touch/grab me so I would buy their goods was intimidating.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:13 amOut of all your pictures, this one disturbs me the most. Perhaps it’s the carbon copy of our own society, or the way this girl spends her time every day. I can’t judge, only observe what our consumer impulses have done to us.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:39 pm