Slate’s Daniel Gross has made a couple of lazy and incorrect assumptions in his recent column about real estate in China:
In Shanghai, which is China’s New York, locals and expats are doing their best to foist American-style consumerism onto China’s rising masses—with mixed results. Starbucks has opened several hundred stores, even though China has no coffee-drinking culture to speak of. As it spreads into China, Toys “R” Us is trying to convince higher-income Chinese parents that toys are a part of a childhood, not a distraction from preparation for the all-important national college entrance exams.
I’m guessing Gross looked at a per capita coffee consumption chart and concluded from China’s microscopic rate that there ‘was no coffee culture to speak of’. Most of my Chinese friends would beg to differ; a good many of them drink coffee regularly and enjoy it; every Starbucks I’ve been to in China has been crowded, from Chengdu to Beijing to Qingdao to Shenzhen.
What’s more interesting is the extent that coffee culture differs in China from the West. Few shops serving coffee are open very early, and for the most part Chinese people seem to enjoy their coffee during the late afternoons and evenings. The culture of jamming cups of Joe down in order to satisfy a morning caffeine fix- a culture I wholeheartedly subscribe to- doesn’t really exist. But the popularity of coffee houses throughout the country attests to the rising growth of the number of coffee drinkers in China.
Gross writes as if Starbucks has embarked on a fool’s errand in opening a lot of stores in China, but my sense is that they’ve wisely targeted a growing market with the potential to become huge. Just today I noticed an advertisement for a new Starbucks being built in north Kunming. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to see people flock to it when it opens.
Also his rather condescending assertion that Chinese parents don’t understand that ‘toys are a part of childhood’ is so wildly off the mark I don’t even know where to begin. As I type I can hear a group of children in the garden chasing each other on these skateboard-like objects that have become all the rage. Every time I step into an elevator in my building I see children holding balls, stuffed animals, or little cars- all under the watchful eye of mom and dad.
By the time the typical Chinese child is ready to take his college-entrance examinations they are at least 17 years old- a bit past Toys’R'us’ target demographic. As someone who grew up with several Toys’R'Us in the vicinity I can confidentally assert that I didn’t step foot inside one past the age of 10 or so. Do that many teenagers elsewhere play with toys? I mean, other than Mom and Dad’s car of course.
My sense is that Gross took one trend- American retail brands expanding into China- and two stereotypes- the Chinese study hard! The Chinese drink tea!- and welded them together in order to craft an appropriate opening paragraph. Unfortunate his words ring very hollow to anyone who has actually spent time in this country.
Comments 7
Some good criticism here, Matt.
Despite the remark about the lack of coffee culture here, Gross is probably guessing (wrongly, I believe) that Starbucks is participating in a China coffee shop bubble that resembles the coffee shop bubble in the US. But I don’t see any evidence that Starbucks is going to have to shutter stores in China the way it did in America. He’s simply ignorant of the way new Chinese money and educated Chinese alike loves Starbucks.
As for the toys, sweet Jesus does he know Chinese love the crap out of Transformers and Playstations, with or without Toys ‘R’ Us kicking about? The bigger danger to Toys ‘R’ Us will be competition from the online world, not Gaokao prep (which starts in senior one, around 16 years old).
Posted 20 Nov 2009 at 11:12 pm ¶Am I the only who went through a Star Wars action figure collection phase in my late 20s?
Gross’s article underlines something I call Stranger in a Strange Land Complex. It is so very easy – and especially for a dilettante blogger such as myself – to latch on to an observation or trivial fact, and use it to extrapolate “truth,” connect dots, and form constellations in one’s own image. The danger is that this myth-making is the stuff of broad sweeping generalizations and stereotypes.
I love coffee but haven’t had any since coming to Hunan. Earlier this semester, students came over to discuss literature – Thoreau and transcendentalism of all things – and were disappointed when I told I didn’t have a coffee maker.
Posted 21 Nov 2009 at 8:08 am ¶I think the key word in his paragraph is “foist.” This guy had an agenda and his agenda was to point out how bad foreign companies are in trying to “foist” their products on a country that doesn’t want them. It’s the noble savage getting corrupted script and it is both untrue and incredibly condescending.
Posted 21 Nov 2009 at 10:04 pm ¶I would like to comment, but it looks like only those with the name “Matt” are eligible interlocutors.
*smirk*
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Posted 21 Nov 2009 at 10:13 pm ¶Matt, I have to agree with Gross on most posts – however it seems he chose the wrong tenses.
China didn’t have a coffee culture to speak of before Starbucks, and you will find that the now existing coffee culture only covers a very small amount of Chinese even in the larger cities mentioned.
I would have to put it this way: The Starbucks culture is far more dominant than coffee culture in China. Whereas other countries have several chains of coffee stores and many European countries even a much larger amount of indie stores, China has Starbucks. I do realise that other brands/stores/cafes exist, but they cover an even much smaller demographic group than Starbucks currently does.
And on the matter of College Entrance Exams vs. Toys: You would not believe how many middle class children I have tutored at age 7 – 10 that have been preparing for just that exam.
Posted 22 Nov 2009 at 3:46 am ¶Jeffrey,
I think you’ll have to change your name if you want to continue commenting here
Posted 22 Nov 2009 at 8:28 am ¶Now that I think about it, I agree w/ China Lawyer. Beware of agenda setters. These are people with preconceptions and find facts and observations to support their world view.
I think I’m guilty of this myself and will try to focus my blogging on concrete images, quotes and obs. Better to let the reader make conclusions himself, my dear.
I couldn’t link to Ian’s blog. Are you blocked?
Posted 22 Nov 2009 at 5:19 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
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