“austerity chic”
do the chinese have no concept of individuality? they seem so ready to accept whatever bullcrap their media forcefeeds them. our media does the same thing, but I can’t see people going for “austerity chic”.
You can see the times here throwing it out there, to see if it will stick.
reduce your standing of riving. that would be... ahh, cool and “chic”. yes, low standard of living... good
It’s still COMMUNIST CHINA...that’s why they fall for anything their media (government) says...contrary to economic wonks and Globalists.....they are still Communist
I’m not sure if either of you speaks Chinese or has visited China. Most Chinese do NOT believe in Communism, particularly if they’re not party members. In fact, a lot of party members don’t believe in it either. The average Chinese has found that if a person wants to survive the dictatorship and the Party cadres, one kowtows to authority while ignoring it privately.
If there has been one guiding philosophy through Chinese history, even during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, it is Confucianism. Part of that philosophy requires a certain amount of personal conformity for civic order as well as living a relatively frugal life.
While the Times might call it “austerity chic” in English, the Chinese media are calling the trend to austerity a return to familial duty. A couple of problems a lot of us of Asian descent in the US have had with new immigrants are their disrespect of elders and their ostentatious living (really hard to believe these folks came from a Communist country). The young are as bad, if not worse, than their American counterparts.
The surprise is the call to consumer spending by the Communist Party. I seem to remember President Bush making similar calls after 9/11 to maintain the economic viability of the nation during wartime. Unfortunately, too many Americans became super-patriots in this area, spending to their credit limits and digging themselves into debt, which they were doing a pretty good job of prior to 9/11. One of the problems of this recent recession has been the collapse of the credit market, specifically mortgages and small business loans as well as defaults on credit cards.