February 01, 2006
Capitalism, Chinese-Style
Last night, President Bush made reference to the economic competition coming from China. I gotta tell ya, from what I've seen, he's got a point. Everyone knows that there are a gazillion people living in China, and during my visit, it seemed that at least a half a gazillion of those people have money to spend.
This is the view through the blurry windows from the hotel in Shenyang:
The traffic is light, these pictures were taken at mid-morning. Luckily, this was a relatively smog-free day. The glare and blurriness is due to the dirty windows I was shooting this through. This view was similar to much of what I saw in China. People were selling (and presumably buying) things all over the place.
One thing that was a little strange to me was the ubiquity of Western models used to sell Chinese products. One the plane ride from Beijing to Shenyang, I flipped through the complimentary Air China inflight magazine. I counted approximately 53 total advertisements containing models. Of that number, 21 featured Asian models, 19 featured Western models, and 12 featured a mix of both Asian and Western models. It was the same thing in the view from the hotel window. At least half of the large display signage that featured models featured Western models only.
I'm not sure why this is. I'm not even sure it's worth pointing out. I just thought that it was interesting. Still, despite the fact that capitalism is bursting out all over China, it's good to remember that all of this is still happening under the watchful eye of Chairman Mao.
Dear god, it looks like Times Square there, even the subway entrances. How sad is it that I've never even heard of Shenyang?
Posted by: mattbucher at February 2, 2006 10:21 AMWhen my sister, Rachel, was modeling, we found it very interesting that she was persued heavily by a huge Japanese modeling agency (not chinese i know but bare with me) they wanted her for high fashion runway (at 5'7" mind you) and we were very suprised by that, turns out the general feeling from that agency was that a western look was much prefered, clients who hired western looking models acctually saw a better response to the sales of their product than if they had hired strictly asian looking models! This particular agency said that at that point in time (about 3 yrs ago) they had about a 60/40 split in representaion, And the smaller percentage was not western models it was asian. So, i find it very interesting that you found a similiar trend 3 yrs later in another asian country!!! Very Perceptive Ken! I'm impressed!
Posted by: Stacey at February 2, 2006 05:24 PMI'd never heard of Shenyang either, prior to starting the adoption process. It's a very industrial city, probably not all that well known outside of China, despite having a population of over 5 million.
And that's not a subway entrance. It's an entrance to a huge underground mall. "Fashion Street" they call it. It is packed every night with thousands of teens-twentysomethings doing whatever it is that young people do at malls around the world.
One thing, I wish I had taken a picture at night. There's neon all over the place there.
Posted by: ken at February 2, 2006 08:17 PMah, reminds me of korea.
Posted by: jane at February 2, 2006 11:29 PMKen,
Here's a digital photo album of the Chinese countryside that I thought you might enjoy.
http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7301
Ben-Lag
Capitalism, Chinese-Style
Year of the Sleeping Dog
Learning from Each Other
Home at Last
We Are Family
Ladies Man
Feeling Blessed
Traveling in a Pack
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
