Consumption in China: How China's New Consumer Ideology Is Shaping the Nation
Consumption in China: How China's New Consumer Ideology Is Shaping the Nation. By LiAnne Yu. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2014. xi, 207 pages.In less than a generation, China transformed from stark socialist scarcity to conspicuous consumption wonderland, awash in colossal shopping malls, luxury brands, and elite cosmopolitanism. As high rises replaced hutongs, China became stuffed with Western fast food restaurants, five star hotel chains, and retail behemoths such as Walmart, whose large, clean stores, standardized service, and dizzying array of products were viewed as the epitome of modernity. What do the Chinese make of these rapid changes? How do such transformations follow patterns seen in the West? To what degree is China's shift from Cultural Revolution to consumer revolution unique? LiAnne Yu, who bills herself as an "independent anthropologist and consumer insights strategist," tackles these and other questions in her book Consumption in China.Yu, who spent a year in Beijing as a foreign exchange student and later returned with a PhD in anthropology to consult Fortune 500 companies, draws from her dual background in academia and business. This hybridization proves to be both strength and drawback. Borrowing heavily from 19th century scholars such as Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen, Yu reports that the Chinese have been commodified through corporate influence and commercialization. These critiques, however, are tempered by Yu's reliance on consumer theorists who assert that shopping can be a powerful act of identity construction with ample doses of agency and resistance. It is difficult to imagine that the twin target audiences for this book scholars and corporations looking for insights into Chinese consumptive behavior will come away completely satisfied. Because she caters to both cultural Marxists and corporate marketers, Yu proves to be an unreliable narrator. Ultimately, Yu's background in corporate consulting is foregrounded, and she peppers the book with tips and advice aplenty, ranging from how best to glocalize products and services for the Chinese consumer to optimal strategies for aggressive viral marketing. At times, one wishes that Yu were a bit more circumspect, less of a cheerleader for Chinese capitalism by any means necessary.Yu employs a qualitative approach, delving into the lives of individuals well known to her. Yu's subjects are largely "Singletons," only children born under China's One Child policy in the late 1970s and 1980s. Singletons make for a unique case study because they grew up during China's transformation from communism to consumerism. Now adults in their thirties and forties, Yu's subjects are middle and upper middle class residents of first tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and they are hyperaware of their unique position and perspective. A shortcoming of the book is that other voices are lost. Nearly half of China's population remains in rural areas, living under conditions largely unchanged from fifty years ago. Poor, rural Chinese have no place in Yu's examination of the country's "most 'obvious' consumers the ones that corporations covet" (9).At the book's core are five standalone chapters that explore Chinese consumption from varying angles. This includes examinations of virtual and real world shopping spaces, social class identity and status, lifestyles, the commodification of private life, and the degree to which Chinese consumers are aware of and reflective about the transformation from communism to cosmopolitanism. A limitation to this approach is that Yu's chapters do not build on one another or intersect in meaningful ways. One of Yu's strengths is that one can quickly gain information about the topics of most interest.Yu asks intriguing questions: "Have corporations taken over the work of the CCP in organizing and manipulating behaviors" and attitudes? (124) The answers, however, are often less thought provoking.