Thursday, February 21: 7:30 pm e.s.t.
It is very interesting hearing about the way commercialism has suddenly taken China by storm. Mark (the president of our client, Glen Arbor Home Furnishings) said that 6-7 years ago there was no "commercial" TV. There were only two channels: a government run, political channel and a current weather and Chinese news channel, which by the way rarely broad casted programing. At the time there really wasn't a large enough class of people to consume commercial products; there wasn't a demographic large enough to support the product sales that TV programming as we know it needs to support itself--thus there were no TV shows. But now all that has changed as a result of the rising middle class who are consuming, who are buying commercial products that have purchased air time from the TV stations, thus enabling the stations to develop and distribute popular programming.
All that in order to discuss the image of beauty as beheld by the average Chinese person, or so interpreted for us by the Chinese broadcasters. For a few days now I have walked around and wondered who Chinese people consider beautiful and who they don't; what facial structures, skin tone, hair shape and color, body build qualifies as beautiful in Chinese culture? I could certainly walk around and make that judgment for myself..."her face is pretty", "I'll bet women find him attractive..." and so on. But would the average Chinese person agree with me? I often found myself, after looking back at the situation, considering those whose faces resembled Westerners most, to be the most beautiful...those who looked most like me, or my "kind". One humorous incident involved me finding out that they think that my nose is very sharp and long (a bit exaggerated in proportion) and that characteristic is considered to be very "Western". Mark on the other hand, does not have what the Chinese would consider a "Western" nose because his is flatter, closer to his face like a Chinese person, thus more attractive and desirable.
I hope this post was interesting to someone other than myself, I had great fun writing it while I was in China. By the way, the top photo is from a lunch I had, very delicious! The photo at the bottom is from my first experience at a "family" style seafood restaurant, where you pick your food out live, then they cook it and bring it to your "room", where you have a table and your own bathroom. More about all that later!
It is very interesting hearing about the way commercialism has suddenly taken China by storm. Mark (the president of our client, Glen Arbor Home Furnishings) said that 6-7 years ago there was no "commercial" TV. There were only two channels: a government run, political channel and a current weather and Chinese news channel, which by the way rarely broad casted programing. At the time there really wasn't a large enough class of people to consume commercial products; there wasn't a demographic large enough to support the product sales that TV programming as we know it needs to support itself--thus there were no TV shows. But now all that has changed as a result of the rising middle class who are consuming, who are buying commercial products that have purchased air time from the TV stations, thus enabling the stations to develop and distribute popular programming.
All that in order to discuss the image of beauty as beheld by the average Chinese person, or so interpreted for us by the Chinese broadcasters. For a few days now I have walked around and wondered who Chinese people consider beautiful and who they don't; what facial structures, skin tone, hair shape and color, body build qualifies as beautiful in Chinese culture? I could certainly walk around and make that judgment for myself..."her face is pretty", "I'll bet women find him attractive..." and so on. But would the average Chinese person agree with me? I often found myself, after looking back at the situation, considering those whose faces resembled Westerners most, to be the most beautiful...those who looked most like me, or my "kind". One humorous incident involved me finding out that they think that my nose is very sharp and long (a bit exaggerated in proportion) and that characteristic is considered to be very "Western". Mark on the other hand, does not have what the Chinese would consider a "Western" nose because his is flatter, closer to his face like a Chinese person, thus more attractive and desirable.
I hope this post was interesting to someone other than myself, I had great fun writing it while I was in China. By the way, the top photo is from a lunch I had, very delicious! The photo at the bottom is from my first experience at a "family" style seafood restaurant, where you pick your food out live, then they cook it and bring it to your "room", where you have a table and your own bathroom. More about all that later!
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