Iron Rice Bowls and Plastic Money: The Push and Pull of Consumerism’s Rise in Capitalist/Communist China

As the plane takes off the girl next to me gently rustles the bag nestled between her feet, eager to explore its contents. She looks about 20, but it is difficult to tell. She wears some fashionably distressed jeans and a sports top. This is the flight from Shanghai to Kunming, the provincial capital of rural Yunnan province in Southwest China. I am the only non-Chinese face on board. Once we have reached our cruising height the girl leans down and pulls the bag onto her lap, opening it and taking out a blue Adidas zip-up top, a pale pink T-shirt with the words ‘cool life’ scrawled on it in glittery silver, and a Hello Kitty pencil case. She holds each of the things in front of her, examining them from different angles, turning them over in her hands, and feeling their insides and edges. Her face is at times tense, as if fearing potential regret at her own error of judgement or taste in buying them, and at times serene. Finally, seeming pleased with her purchases, she turns to me and smiles, asking where I am from – “Meiguo?” she says. I reply that I am not American, but English. “Ah Yinguo! David Beckham, Big Ben, Red Bus,” she reels off gleefully, citing the global signs that have in recent years become those most attributed to the UK.