The Power of the Purse Chinese Women and Consumption中英对照.doc

The Power of the Purse: Chinese Women and Consumption Call it the downfall of Chinese society or call it harmless materialism. If you like, you can call it a corrosive consumerism gnawing away at the root of an already decaying morality. But some call it the rise of the Chinese woman in her own society and in the world. Though it makes a person wonder – if a designer handbag is the Chinese analogue to the shoulder-padded powersuit of the high-flying 1980s urban female, what is the significance of this symbol in real terms? In other words, what is the power of a Chinese womans purse? A portrait of the consumer as a young woman According to China Daily, in 2006, urban Chinese women spent 30% of their incomes on consumer goods. In just four years, in spite of a global economic crisis, that figure ballooned to 63%. Clothing topped the list of purchases over the four years surveyed, while their savings rate plunged over that time period from 55% to 24%. In the years since that savings rate has surely sunk further – this in a country with a reputation for penny-pinching. What sensibility could possibly explain such willingness to spend such large swaths of ones hard-earned income on make-up, shoes and bags (especially given that just 2000 to 3000 RMB is starting salary for college grads in most cities)? You could dismiss it as foolish vanity, which was my original response. Or how about a more complex explanation: a naive lack of foresight, a childish sense of novelty, and an uncommon degree of insecurity, which when taken together make comparatively spoiled urban women all too readily exploitable by the flood of companies scrambling to seize the (almost mythical) opportunities presented by the Chinese market. Would we be short-changing urban Chinese women if we left it at that? Perhaps. Its clear that to some degree or another all consumers the world over, “spoiled” or not, naively conflate material possession with a specific standard of living, one that comes with a kin