Comment Re:Heck... (Score 2, Informative) 103
3. Unlike the US - the people of China do not have the "I've gotta have it!" kind of outlook. It is more like how the US used to be. The "If it won't solve my problems I don't want it." kind of outlook. And their major problems are food, clean water, medicines, and shelter.
I think parent is stuck in the 1980's mindset of China. I've visted China 4x in the past decade and I was most recently there just a year ago. The fast growing Chinese middle-class is probably the MOST brand conscious demographic I've ever seen. The obsession with status and spending money on gadgets, electronics, cars, and entertainment is wild; much more so than the US. We're not talking about a country of 1.3billion (not 3.5 billion) farmers here. We're talking about a country who's number Internet users just hit 130million and whose purchasing power will soon rival the top developed-countries. Yes, of course 50% of China's population are agrarian, but that doesn't mean the millions upon millions of people living in urban center's don't have cash to burn. If anything, the average middle-class Chinese have more percentage of their money to spend on electronics than their US counter part. China's social security system promises housing, healthcare, and retirement means more money that is taken home can be spent on non-essentials. Sure less money is taken home, but since food is cheap and most family don't need to own a car or pay for mortgage, most of that money is spent on entertainment. Did you know the total number of cellphones sold in China last year was 60 million? And is set to surpass the US in cellphone usage is just 3 years? This hardly sounds like a country of poor farms barely getting by on food and water, like the picture you're trying to paint.
If the post above were made 20 years ago I would have whole-heartly agreed. But anyone who's looked at China recently would completely disagree.
