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(Totally Shameless) Thursday Timewaster: We are SWEDISH HEROES
Threesday: How globalized Shanghai remains Chinese
Representing Singapore at the Expo: DURIAN STAR
Made in China ad campaign has its faults
A very recent story by the LA Times reminded us of one of our favorite threads in the Shanghai Expat forums: Chinese behaving badly at the Ikea in Shanghai. According to the article about the Swedish furniture maker's Beijing location, shopping for actual Ikea goodies can sometimes seem like getting a souvenir at the end of a trip to a theme park. A furniture theme park:
Every weekend, thousands of looky-loos pour into the massive showroom to use the displays. Some hop into bed, slide under the covers and sneak a nap; others bring cameras and pose with the decor. Families while away the afternoon in the store for no other reason than to enjoy the air conditioning.Visitors can't seem to resist novelties most Americans take for granted, such as free soda refills and ample seating. They also like the laid-back staffers who don't mind when a child jumps on a couch.
Purchasing anything at Yi Jia, as the store is called here, can seem like an afterthought.
"It's the only big store in Beijing where a security guard doesn't stop you from taking a picture," said Jing Bo, 30, who was looking for promising backdrops for a photograph of his girlfriend.
If the Shanghai Expat forums (and our own experiences outfitting out our pad) are to be believed, Shanghai's Ikea suffers from the same problem. In any day during the summer, though mostly on weekends, you'll find people in Ikea doing the following things:
- Changing diapers on the cafeteria tables
- Wiping boogers on the cushions of the display sofas
- Napping or lounging on the display sofas
- Doing portrait shots on the pretty furniture - even sexy portrait shots.
- Having a picnic in the dining room furniture area
- Making use of the display bowls for those picnics
- Peeing between the rows of the collection warehouse (to be fair, only children have been seen doing this so far)
Ikea, for the most part, allows the behavior to go on in hopes that these browsers and day trippers will one day become buyers. In waiting for the burgeoning middle class, they face the same challenges most retailers seem to run across - a decidedly frugal populace and plenty of copycats (including ones brazen enough to come into the store with measuring tape).
As for foreigner reactions, if Shanghai Expat is any indication, they range from horrified disgust to shrugging acceptance and amusement. Having been in China for a while, we're probably closer to the amusement side of the spectrum - still, we make it a rule to never taking display furniture home with us.
Photo from Hi Shanghai
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Hey it's air conditioned and beats life in a local flat. Even though the tv doesn't actually work...
If there was a working TV everyone in the store would be fighting over the channel, including throwing display furniture at each other.
Beijing is still a village full of village idlers, just with nicer clothes, apartments and cars.
Would the booger wipers go by screen names like Eastman and BBC1?
I honestly think the problem of Jolynne the poster is the very pain received watching how Chinese spread money while West is suffering from financial crisis.
If IKEA cannot find another market on this planet as such, who cares about customers behaviors? Of course Chinese migrant workers should improve and learn step by step from foreign migrant workers who pick noses only in their rotten cars and throw “fillings” to streets. nanheyangrouchuan could sure serve as model coach for that trick.
It's too bad that most economists whose articles I have read on the subject of domestic consumption have correctly tied almost all of China's domestic consumption to infrastructure spending by state-owned enterprises. Otherwise, I might have actually thought you were onto something.
I've never expected "your economists" would tell you "car sales rose 48% to 6.1m in last 6 month in CHina which is more than USA and bank lending for car purchases have not risen which means most Chinese buyers use cash for vehicle purchases.
I am sure you'd take it as purchase by "state-owned enterprises".
Judging by the vast amounts of new cars (imported, or at least with foreign brands - not domestic) spotted on the roads recently sporting military or "O" plates, I'd say "yes, they are purchases by state owned entities".
So you take the success of one consumer-targeted industry, which was booming in China before the economic crisis hit, and from that you aim to make the case that the economy is being powered by the average Chinese consumer?
Hon, I read both "your economists" and "my economists" and none of those economists agree with you. Quite the opposite. Or did you think that the banks were lending money to build all of those bridges at the behest of the central government because the government prefers infrastructure spending, which is almost exclusively carried out by state-owned enterprises and makes up over half of China's current growth, to private consumption? Domestic consumption does not equal consumption by average consumers. But don't take my word for it. You just continue believing that the economy is being powered by IKEA-shopping masses buying desk lamps. Ignorance is bliss.