Day two in China was first spent walking to Beijing Central Station to get our tickets to Urumqi. Afterwards, we moseyed back to the Wangfujing and Tian’anmen Square area. To call the juxtaposition between old and new China drastic would be an understatement. The mile or so walk back from the train station was a stretch of a shopper’s paradise, the likes of which I’ve not seen before.
Large shopping complex after large shopping complex lined the way back to Tian’anmen Square, each luxury brand—Chanel, Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Rolex, Mont Blanc—represented in at least one of the complexes, though frequently they have a storefront in each. These shopping malls are not just playgrounds for the international tourist. These are shops catering to a new kind of Chinese, a nouveau riche and burgeoning upper class with significant sums of disposable income. It’s incredible. There is no recession here. At least not for now.
The electricity this new found sense of buying power gives to the younger generation is palpable. The streets pulse with their vibrancy.
However, for the older generations adjusting to this rapid pace of progress and development (and who have much less purchasing power), there is a sense of melancholy, of doing the best they can with the little they have, of being left behind.
The future world is no longer comprised of nations or nationalities but rather consumers loyal, not to their state, but to their brands.
However, the Chinese “wild west” beckons. And soon we’ll see a very different China, which we’re both looking forward to.
Until later…
by FFrame
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