Ten years ago a food parcel he
received from his relatives in Shanghai had several packs
of bundles resembling coiled springs. Reading the
directions, he learned they were instant noodles. He envied
the Shanghainese for obtaining such "luxury
foods," but did not expect that in several years
instant noodles would be popular across the country, as a
cheap and convenient food for those on low incomes.
Since 1978 state and the local
governments have invested several tens of billions of yuan
developing the food industry.
Corn flour and sweet potatoes, poor
people's staple foods in the past, are still seen in the
markets, but are no longer the cheapest way to allay
hunger. Well-fed people now feel it necessary to eat
nutritious coarse foods such as these for a change in their
diet.
In harsh yeas people preferred fat
meat to lean meat. Now at the marketplace fat meat is
ignored. Pig's head and sausage, popular in the past, have
been replaced by processed meat products. Sea cucumber,
squid, mushrooms, cloud ears and other delicacies, the
"mountain and sea treasures," are more common on
people's dinner tables. People don't care much about money,
but value nutrition when buying food.
Instant and frozen meals are seen in
more and more large markets. They are convenient and save
time in a competitive society. Dazzling new name brands
constantly appear on store shelves. One often hears shop
assistants complaining about lack of space to display their
merchandise.
According to data provided by the
State Statistics Bureau for the first half of 1993,
increases in food prices were only moderate. Prices for
staple foods had dropped while costs of more selective
items had gone up. In this period the average per capita
expense for urban residents each month for staple foods was
83.3 yuan, 15.6% up from the same period the previous year.
Allowing for price rises the actual increase was 2.3%. Per
capita monthly expenses on grain were 9.5 yuan, 11.8% lower
than the year before. The per capita monthly expense for
non-staple foodswas 73.8 yuan a 4.1 percent increase, with
meat, poultry, egg, milk, seafood, vegetables and sugar
showing the biggest increases. Prices drooped for
cigarette, tea, liquor, beverages and fresh and candied
fruits.
The change in food consumption shows
that having had enough to eat and wear, most Chinese have
started to seek more healthy and nutritious food.
Time-saving and healthy cuisine's have experienced a surge
in demand.
Buy Sell Products in Asian Trade Gallery,Online Trading Proposals in
Asia,Buyers Sellers in Asia
Tradehub
Gallery
Product: Perfume Body Glitter ( Roll- on)
Source: Taiwan
Price:USD $ 2 Per Unit
Company: Chase Era Enterprise Co.,Ltd
Product: Cardigan Sweater
Source: South Korea
Price:USD $ 10 Per Unit
Company: DAWOO APPAREL CO.,LTD.
Product: Stainless Steel Agricultural Sprayer
Source: Taiwan
Price:USD $ 50 Per Unit
Company: Tanong Group
Fast
food has also developed. In Beijing the growth of the industry went
through three stages, starting out at the end of 1970s and beginning of
the 1980s. The coming of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a leader among foreign
fast food giants, into Beijing in the mid-80s marked a second stage of
sudden expansion. Ethnic, sanitary and convenient foreign fast food and
restaurant chains, such as Maxim's and "International Fast
Food," and California Beef Noodles King (actually a Chinese
franchise that appropriates the California name) have been very popular
among Chinese. Chinese fast food stalls on the street are not so
sanitary and the kind of Chinese snacks, some of them quite
disappointing, have suffered in the fast food revoluti8on. The third
stage was marked by the rise of sanitary Chinese fast foods centered
around high cuisine, such as boiled and steamed dumplings, Sichuan
flavoured noodles and Beijing roast duck. These businesses are now
developing simultaneously with the capital's Western-style franchis es.
Fast food outlets providing a variety of cuisines have developed. One
opening in July 1993 offered American fried chicken, Japanese beef rice,
Malaysian-style hamburgers, hot dogs, garlic bread, Singapore fish ball
noodles and Chinese-style ribs and noodles. Here one need only spend 10
yuan to eat well.
Last
summer, small kiosks selling hamburgers appeared almost overnight at 16
stops along Beijing's subway line. Set up by the Baiwanzhuangyuan
Industrial Corperation, the stalls served pork, chicken and beef
hamburgers at 2.6 yuan each, and other fast foods and drinks, from 6 am
to 9 pm.
With
a daily flow of 1.4 million people, the subway has provided a huge
market for these kiosks. Since their opening, they have sold at least
10,000 hamburgers a day with each kiosk earning around 1,000 earning
around 1,000 yuan, about 700 or 800 yuan for a day's business.
In
1987 a family in Beijing ate less than once per month on average. Now
the average is 2.5 times a week in a restaurant somewhere. With 1.5
million families and a daily total of over one million people on their
way to work in the morning and back home in the evening, Beijing has a
huge market for its fast food and restaurant industries.
January
1994 was extremely cold, but people's clothes were as colorful and
stylish as in other seasons. In the frozen north, down jackets, woollens
and fur overcoats in red, yellow, orange and other bright colors livened
up the bleak winter scene. In the south, where the climate is more mild,
people chose smart western suits, jeans, sporty jackets, sweaters and
other fashionable clothing to wear year round.
In
the past many people hated winter because of the monotony. In the summer
they could wear silks, polyester and cotton clothing that were cool and
attractive. In the spring and autumn they could wear soft wool and
fashionable cotton garments, but in the winter they had nothing more
than thick and cumbersome cotton-padded jackets to resist the cold.
Their fashion sense was strangled by the weather. Now this has all been
changed by many new, warm down coats and artificial furs. In any season
people can step out in their carefully-chosen clothes and express their
personality.
According
to market experts, fashionable clothes have become the new trend in how
Chinese buy what to wear. The market has all sorts of goods to meet the
demands of different consumers. High quality clothes are of a famous
brands and refined materials, while more cheap and practical clothing is
also available. Famous name brands and fashions are a common sight in
Beijing, and they sell quite well.
Figures
from the Statistics Bureau show that Chinese now tend more and more to
fashionable ready-made clothing. In the first half of 1993 urban
citizens spent on the average 25.3 yuan per month buying clothes, 29.6%
more than the same period in 1992. The percentage of money spent on
clothing, out of a person's total lifetime expenditure, increased from
14.5 to 15.3 compared with the previous year. The increase in ready-made
clothes was 33.37% and cloth sales was 20.5%.
On January 6, 1986, Time magazine , talking about
reforms in China's southwestern province of Guizhou, wrote that people
in central Guizhou could watch news from New York and Beirut on
television in their own homes. Just three years before they didn't even
know about people living on the other side of the mountains that
surrounded their communities. There has been a rapid increase in
consumer items for everyday use.
Mass consumption of color TV sets, refrigerators
and other durable electrical goods in China indicates a change in
lifestyles, from meeting basic needs to a comparatively well-off
standard of living. This change is evident in the following story of
how an ordinary family spends Its Sunday.
The couple works in the same factory. They have a
six year old daughter. Soon after the wife gets up, she sits at her
dressing table. There is a great number of beauty creams and cosmetics
for sale in the shops. A survey on 200 urban women revealed their
average expenditure on cosmetics every month was 3.1 yuan, 50% more
than they spent three years ago.
After putting on some make-up the mother goes into
the kitchen to prepare breakfast for her husband and daughter.
She still remembers how years ago the old
honeycomb briquette stove had inconvenienced her when entertaining
guest. She was so frustrated that whenever the second dish was ready,
the first one would already be cold. Now she enjoys cooking with a gas
stove. Cooking utensils have also changed. Aside from a traditional
iron frying pan, she also uses aluminium, pressure, non-sticking,
enamel and electromagnetic pots. The production of cooking utensils in
China has developed into an industrial trade, with an output of eight
million pressure cookers and about one million kitchen smoke
ventilators each year.
While the wife is busy in the kitchen, the husband
cleans the house.
In a few years the family has added a bed with a
mattress, a set of matching furniture, a color TV, a refrigerator, a
tapeplayer, an electric fan, two arm chairs, a washing machine and
recently a VCR to the things that they own.
After breakfast it is the time for their daughter
to practice her piano lesson. In 1982 electric piano output in China
was less than 1,300, but now there are as many as eight million in
homes across the country.
As living standards have improved, Chinese have
spent more and more money on furnishings and appliances In the first
half of 1993 urban dwellers spent an average of 14.8 yuan a month on
these items, a 33.3 percent increase over the same period in 1992. The
increase in durable articles purchased was 39.8 percent and other daily
necessities 20.6 percent.
The increase in purchasing power and disposable
incomes boosted China's production of electrical household appliances
in the 1980s.
Even as late as the 1970s electric household
appliances were only a dreams to many families. Only the wealthy were
able to afford them and almost all were imported from abroad. In 1980
China's electric household appliances output value was only 860 million
lyuan. In 1992 it reached 38.21 billion yuan, an increase of 44 times.
Between 1980 and 1992 the output of refrigerators, washing machines,
electric fans and air conditioners increased 126,28,7.7 and 114 times
respectively. The past decade saw China's production of electrical
household appliances developing at an unprecedented speed in the world
economy, and the country has become a leader in the manufacture of
electric appliances.
By 1985 the demand for household appliances hit a
new level, which in turn brought the industry into a period of
unprecedented development. Small household articles, such as hot water
shower devices, kitchen smoke ventilators, ultrasonic sprayers,
electric sterilization cupboards and electric heater now have become
popular in cities throughout the country.
Though the state has satisfied the domestic demand
for electric appliances, it still finds excessive demand in rural
areas. For example, the popularization for refrigerators is only 15
percent across the country. To reach the goal of advanced living
standards by the year 2000, China needs to sell seven million
refrigerators annually to its own population. The popularization of
washing machines in the countryside is no more than 13 percent. The
figure is 85 percent in he cities, but most of the machines are
approaching that age where they will need to be replaced. It is
predicted that sale of automatic washing machines will increase at an
annual speed of 30 percent. At present popularization of air
conditioners in urban areas is only 1 percent. By the year the
popularization ratio should rise to 25 percent among 80 million
households, meaning that in coming years air conditioners will be in
great demand. Farsighted international enterpreneurs have seen in China
the world's largest potential market for electric household appliances
Consumption patterns in the Chinese market have
changed considerably with the introduction of new expenses into mainly
people's budgets, namely in the shape of increased telephone calls,
bus and taxi fares and other rises in transportation cost. In 1993 the
average expenditures for these costs was over 12 yuan a month, an
increase of 97.5 percent over 1992, of which 62.3 percent was for
transportation and the remainder for telecommunications, namely the
new trend among many urban households to purchase a telephone and
personal pagers. But many other changes were starting to making
themselves felt as well.
An unusually strident horn on a Beijing street
usually heralds a fleet of Mercedes, prompting other cars in the way
to make room. The procession will then rush past revealing a few
Cadillacs in the convoy as well. Upon seeing such a sight, one cabbie
looked at the cars going Past and remarked on the "a parade of
fresh seafood," a colloquial Chinese idiom popular among taxi
drivers using food as a metaphor for an elegant car.
These Mercedes, or shengmeng haizian to many
Chinese, are yet another kind of Beijing taxi. The more Common miandi,
"loaf of bread" or also one of the many short and stout
minivans used for taxis in the nation's capital, can carry up to five
people for a base fee of ten yuan (a little over a dollar) plus one
yuan per extra kilometer. Painted a bright canary yellow, a minadi
stands out on even the sunniest day, and is also one of the cheapest
ways to get around town.
There are 19 Cadilliacs used as a taxis in
Beijing, serving foreign dignitaries and wealthy businesspeople. A few
Caddies made an appearance at a wedding in town not too long ago for
one of China's better known entertainment figures.
Another kind of Beijing taxi is the standard
four-door sedan, which now fare poorly in the highly competitive cab
market. One sedan driver complained that "in the past the fare
was low and the driver could still make a decent living, but now the
current fare is two yuan per kilometer, twice what it costs for a
minicab and too expensive for people on an average salary."
On Beijing's Chang'an Boulevard, a writer from
China Today saw only three out of 18 minicabs vacant and without a
fare . More and more People will now think nothing of flagging down a
miandi to visit friends and relatives, make a trip to the hospital,
rush off to the train station, or make it in to the office when the
buses are full. For only one or two people, a minicab is more
expensive than the bus, but it equals out when four or more passengers
share a ride. And the miandis are faster and far more convenient.
Beijing had 6,201 taxis in service by te end of
1991 and 25,000 by the end of 1992, with most of new taxis minicabs.
Beijing now has 800 taxi corporations according to figures and every
day the names are paraded around on the sides of cabs everywhere, on
each corner and every street and lane.
Incomplete statistics show that China had 7,000
taxis in 1980 and 160,000 in 1990, an increase of 20 times. Forty-one
percent of these cars, or 67,000 vehicles, belong to individuals.
The China Urban Taxi Association says that of
China's 467 cities of different sizes, only a few have no cab service
whatsoever. The city with the most taxis is, of course Beijing. Even
Lhasa, the ancient capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, has over
100 taxis now in service.
Back in Beijing, of the most undesirable noises
of life in the city are people's beepers constantly going off. The
little contraptions have become so popular that one of the
best-selling items among Chinese teenagers are a series of T-shirts
saying in Chinese, "If you want me, page me."
Eight years ago, most Beijingers didn't even know
what a beeper liked like. Now they are in every public place, even in
classrooms. The rise of the personal pager has created a revolution
for Chinese who want to show off the latest in modern communication.
In 1986 a Hongkong entrepreneur by the name of
Wong Gamfu was the first to introduce the modern pager to the Chinese
market, at a science and technology expo in Beijing. Before returning
to Hongkong, Wong generously donated his demonstration model to the
Beijing Radio Research Institute.
Wong's little gift did not go unnoticed. That
very winter Beijing had its first paging terminal, albeit a very small
one, and the market was still incredibly miniscule. Today, However,
there are 72 paging terminals in the city with 300,000 subscribers,
averaging one pager per 40 people. Most are individual businessmen,
followed by service workers and caterers, and then office workers and
staff from different science, education, cultural and medical
enterprises around the city. A variety of multi-function beepers are
now available with digital English and Chinese readouts to replace
single-function older models using voice frequency.
The daily sales volume of personal pagers is now
increasing at rate of 8,600. Chinese like to call this line of
business the "real estate in airwaves, " for it is a
profitable occupation but without the risk that speculation in real
estate carries.
In rural areas of China many peasants, as soon
as they have money, build a new house. The Chinese government claims
that these new rural dwellings are part of peasants' means of
subsistence, thereby giving residents in the Chinese countryside the
right to build new homes and the title to these houses once they are
finished. Such sound policies have helped boost the percentage of
home ownership in the countryside. As of 1992, rural per capita
housing area was 19 square meters, twice the figure of 1978. In the
ten years from 1982 to 1992, housing unit cottages were replaced by
brick tile and reinforced concrete dwellings, 30 percent of them more
than one storey. In China's countryside until 1992, brick, wood and
reinforced concrete houses made up 66 percent of all dwellings. In
some better-off areas, homes were installed with telephones,
wallpaper, indoor plumbing and tiled kitchens. In other places rural
residential areas were planted with flower beds and trees.
If this is life in rural areas, how about the
cities?
In the early 1980s, one third of urban
households had per capita space under four square meters, the next
third had between four square meters to six square meters and little
more than one tenth had 8 square meters per capita.
Now, with the readjustment of China's economy,
the state has increased investment funds for housing and has granted
hundreds of millions of yuan on an annual basis as special funding
for subsidizing housing construction for staff at primary and middle
schools, and workers in the public health and service industry. Many
ways of fund raising were tried in all parts of the country with
remarkable results.
In the 1980s new urban housing reached 1,240
million square meters, hitting 70 percent of available housing for
the first time in the 40-year history of the People's Republic of
China. General investment in housing funds was 216 billion yuan, 86
percent more than total funds in the previous 40 years.
Since the early 1990s housing construction has
speeded up. Renovation of old homes has been superseded by
construction of new residential districts in many urban areas.
Numerous moving vans can be seen shuttling back and forth on city
streets. Today urban per capita housing in China has reached eight to
10 square meters. In 1994 the Chinese government still included
ordinary domestic housing in its plans for developing the real estate
industry.
Not having much housing, Chinese people
especially value their room space. The enthusiasm for "interior
installments," such as wooden floors, carpets, lamps, painted
walls and counters, is in every large city and small town. The number
of households so furnished has increased by 30 percent. In Beijing,
Shanghai, Tianjin and other coastal cities, a well-furnished home is
a mist for anyone with a salary.
Shanghai, probably China's most crowded city,
has the most active industry supplying tasteful and high-quality
furnishings. One leader from Shanghai Building Commission said that
furnishings in Shanghai and this included how well one made use of
room space, layout and the overall style of the room, had become a
science for many retailers in the city, and the quality of decoration
often took precedence over architecture and building design for many
people. One worker at a professional decorators in Beijing said that
many furnishings differed from household to household, with many
rooms reaching standards found at three-star hotels.
In the 15 years since the start of China's
economic reforms, many peasants have clawed their way out of poverty
and now have warm clothing and enough to eat. Quite a few live a
well-to-do existence.
The state Statistics Bureau claims that in the
44 years since the founding of the People's Republic rural per
capita incomes have increased 16 times to 784 yuan in 1992, five
times more than in 1978.
This sharp increase in income promoted rural
consumer activity. In 1992 Chinese peasants' per capita expenses was
659 yuan, 4.7 times more than 1978. At the same time their spending
patterns changed in that the cost of their basic means of living,
such as food, clothing and fuel, gradually went down, but costs for
housing, appliances and services increased. Other notable changes
taking place in the Chinese countryside were :
-An increase in nutritional intake. In 1992,
per capita grain consumption among peasants was 257 kg, broken down
into 0.75 kg of unprocessed food grains per day, 80 percent of which
were wheat flour and rice. According to standards set by Chinese
health authorities, the average daily caloric heat factor was 2,4000
kilocalories above every day requirements for each rural dweller,
and absorbed proteins reached world standards in the early 1980s.
Previously non-staple foods reserved only for major holidays, namely
poultry, fish and meat, are now common fare for most peasants. Milk,
beverages, tonics and other snacks with higher quantities of protein
also sell well in the countryside.
-Clothing improved and more styles were
available. Polyester, wool, silk and leather are now more common and
offer more variety, three times as much as in 1978. Now many
peasants can dress tastefully. Jackets, down coats and Western-style
clothes are popular in some rural areas.
-Durable consumer goods became available to
many peasant households. In 1992 each household had on the average
two more clocks and one more bicycle, while every other household
had a sewing machine and a radio. About 61 percent of peasant
households had a TV set, 60 percent of them had an electric fan and
21 percent had a tape player. More and more households were buying
motorcycles, refrigerators, washing machines and cameras
China in Brief
