Yes for a communist country they do take to capitalistic ways like fish to water.
I recently took my 4th trip there. My first trips were to the big cities and my impressions were the same as yours: consumerism is on the rise; however, now I've started visiting outlying areas and much of the country still lives without many of the things we take for granted. It would be interesting to see the wealth and income gap between the rich and the poor.
Recently I went to the Guanxi region in the southwest, bordering Vietnam. Although there are major tourist areas (Guilin being the biggest tourist attraction to Chinese) most of the areas are dirt poor.
Didn't you find that, even though the price tags were high, the cost of everything is negotiable?
Of course they were nicer to you: you've got beaucoup tourist bucks! The most important phrase I learned was: bu yao la! (I don't want it) used to fend off the peddlers of kitschy trinkets and crap.
Nostradamus,
I wasn't referring to the doo-dads that are sold on the street being expensive. BTW, if you are interested in that crap, you should be paying around 10-20% of what they are asking. And as far as them being nice. Well, unfortunately, I look chinese (being chinese american). So they weren't so nice to me, as they were to,say, caucasians. When dealing with service related issue, I simply found it more convenient to speak english, because then they would know I wasn't a local and ended up getting better service. Of course when it came to negotiating price, I took the standard, rude, "what are you joking…That expensive for that piece of crap" attitude.
What I meant mainly in the early posting was regarding the sheer purchasing and consumption that's generally going on in China. It was amazing. The amount of business and the overall spending and consumption that normal chinese people are doing. Everyone I saw had cell phones, some pda/game device, and the latest camera gear. Considering these items are as expensive as they are here in the states (sometimes even more), what struck me interesting was how much average middle class chinese folks spend on these items relative to their income. For example, I saw so many digital SLR cameras. With a low end DSLR being around $600USD, that's a good percentage of a chinese upper middle class income (say about $30-40k USD). Cell phones are $100-$200USD( yes, we're spoiled here because usually we can get one for free with 2year service, but in china, people pay a lot for the phone and have very cheap phone service). Gasoline is about $2.5/gal. For the average chinese upper middle class to be able to spend this disportionate income on these things to me means (1) they are willing to consume (2) they other basic cost of living allows them to spend this way.
To me, it's a symbol of growing wealth. It also seems like there is some opportunity to make some money off of the chinese middle class. On one hand it's alarming relative to our standard of living. On the other hand, it does seem like there is a lot of opportunity for people to do business with the chinese consumer.
Of course, I also have seen the poor countryside in China too. The wealth gap in China is enormous. I'm curious to see what the Chinese government is going to do to bridge this gap moving forward.
