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Looking back on Spring Fest shopping sprees and orgies of optimism
By Wan Lixin |
February 3, 2009, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ECONOMIC crisis is conveniently cited to explain away a lot of unpleasant facts today, but retailers had no need of such excuses during the Spring Festival.
Municipal sources said that 400 big retailers posted an average daily sales of 610 million yuan (US$90 million) during the week-long holiday, the highest since such statistics were first collected in 1999.
An elderly acquaintance of mine ventured to go to the Lotus on the New Year's Eve, and was aghast at the crowds there.
When I cycled my way around Carrefour in Jinqiao at about 8pm last Saturday, I had to thread my way through cars stranded in an unprecedented traffic jam on a nearby road.
From January 24 to 30, 100,000 tons of domestic trash had to be removed, another record.
The cultural scene appeared equally vigorous: Shanghai's largest cinema chain reported a 32 percent increase in box office, topped by the much-hyped animated feature "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" that took in 5.3 million yuan during the holiday.
Although my son looked confused most of the time during the show, and the son of one of my colleagues had to be awakened when the show ended, 5 million yuan justifies all.
The clicking of mahjong tiles could be heard everywhere. This national pastime remained the chief attraction at numerous family gatherings, before and after the food.
In one huge square, 50 teams of mahjong players competed nonstop for three days in the "2009 Mahjong Contest," according to Jiefang Daily on Sunday.
At the end, a septuagenarian granny tottered to the dais to receive the 5,000 yuan award.
The sponsor of the event claims that mahjong is not only highly entertaining, but also highly intellectual and cultural, and is part and parcel of traditional Chinese culture - I regret to point out that in many Chinese homes this is probably the only feature that can be characterized as cultural. Nothing mixes and harmonizes guests so well as a good game of mahjong.
When we sat down to our banquets this holiday, the top news was, as usual, about housing relocation, rather than the crisis.
There was a general feeling that the firecrackers were not as loud as last year, but a still formidable amount of fireworks were dedicated to the Caishen (God of Fortune), five days after the Lunar New Year's Eve.
When CCTV reported on Sunday glowing statistics suggesting national consumption orgies over the holiday, it commented that Chinese spenders are "inwardly strengthened" (you diqi). This colloquialism vividly conveys an all-pervasive optimism.
I guess one of the chief reasons that Chinese people dare to spend is that Chinese consumption is not yet financed by credit and loans.
As we still have savings - condemned by some Western politicians - our lifestyles are not so tightly coupled to our current earnings.
Another reason is that most Chinese have bought into the media prophecy that the current economic woes are nothing but a temporary hiatus in a prolonged prosperity.
"The media says things will go up in the second half of the year" - I have heard this voiced by many locals from very different backgrounds.
But as the Oriental Morning Post commented on Monday, "Blind optimism - as represented by the views that the erstwhile prosperity will reappear soon - will do little in helping us tackle the crisis.''
It goes on to point out that the current crisis manifests many parallels to the Great Depression 80 years ago. This is saying a lot.
And there are differences: Eighty years ago we were not yet confronted with population explosion, ecological deterioration, the depletion of natural resources, and globalization.
Municipal sources said that 400 big retailers posted an average daily sales of 610 million yuan (US$90 million) during the week-long holiday, the highest since such statistics were first collected in 1999.
An elderly acquaintance of mine ventured to go to the Lotus on the New Year's Eve, and was aghast at the crowds there.
When I cycled my way around Carrefour in Jinqiao at about 8pm last Saturday, I had to thread my way through cars stranded in an unprecedented traffic jam on a nearby road.
From January 24 to 30, 100,000 tons of domestic trash had to be removed, another record.
The cultural scene appeared equally vigorous: Shanghai's largest cinema chain reported a 32 percent increase in box office, topped by the much-hyped animated feature "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf" that took in 5.3 million yuan during the holiday.
Although my son looked confused most of the time during the show, and the son of one of my colleagues had to be awakened when the show ended, 5 million yuan justifies all.
The clicking of mahjong tiles could be heard everywhere. This national pastime remained the chief attraction at numerous family gatherings, before and after the food.
In one huge square, 50 teams of mahjong players competed nonstop for three days in the "2009 Mahjong Contest," according to Jiefang Daily on Sunday.
At the end, a septuagenarian granny tottered to the dais to receive the 5,000 yuan award.
The sponsor of the event claims that mahjong is not only highly entertaining, but also highly intellectual and cultural, and is part and parcel of traditional Chinese culture - I regret to point out that in many Chinese homes this is probably the only feature that can be characterized as cultural. Nothing mixes and harmonizes guests so well as a good game of mahjong.
When we sat down to our banquets this holiday, the top news was, as usual, about housing relocation, rather than the crisis.
There was a general feeling that the firecrackers were not as loud as last year, but a still formidable amount of fireworks were dedicated to the Caishen (God of Fortune), five days after the Lunar New Year's Eve.
When CCTV reported on Sunday glowing statistics suggesting national consumption orgies over the holiday, it commented that Chinese spenders are "inwardly strengthened" (you diqi). This colloquialism vividly conveys an all-pervasive optimism.
I guess one of the chief reasons that Chinese people dare to spend is that Chinese consumption is not yet financed by credit and loans.
As we still have savings - condemned by some Western politicians - our lifestyles are not so tightly coupled to our current earnings.
Another reason is that most Chinese have bought into the media prophecy that the current economic woes are nothing but a temporary hiatus in a prolonged prosperity.
"The media says things will go up in the second half of the year" - I have heard this voiced by many locals from very different backgrounds.
But as the Oriental Morning Post commented on Monday, "Blind optimism - as represented by the views that the erstwhile prosperity will reappear soon - will do little in helping us tackle the crisis.''
It goes on to point out that the current crisis manifests many parallels to the Great Depression 80 years ago. This is saying a lot.
And there are differences: Eighty years ago we were not yet confronted with population explosion, ecological deterioration, the depletion of natural resources, and globalization.
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