Luxury, Luxury Culture, And Chinese Culture

Life is changing in China everyday with a speed faster than anywhere in the world. As well as their lifestyles, Chinese people's values, culture and daily habits are also changing rapidly. A new society, culture and value system is emerging for new people of the modern China.As the second largest consumer of luxury products in the world, China has long accepted luxury consumerism and the values it embodies as part of modern life. The current pattern of luxury consumerism and materialism in contemporary Chinese society is vastly influencing the Chinese culture and creating new socio-cultural values very different from the previous generation's culture of savings, focus on family life, appearance of equality, and conformity.Driven partly by multi-national luxury companies, social pressure and government encouragement, an increasing focus on luxury goods and lifestyle may permanently change the culture of China. Chinese are bombarded by luxury brands. Shopping and consuming is becoming the core and a central activity in the lives of common people, and luxury consumption had become the pinnacle of this lifestyle and Chinese culture.The desire for luxury goods, the luxury market in china, the incomes of rich and middle classes, the income gap, and the distance between people will grow in the future, and Chinese people will become more loyal to brands, making the luxury lifestyle and consumption a part of their ordinary life.As a consequence, a big social gap, stratification, and instability in Chinese society (and a challenge to the Chinese indigenous culture itself) could result from extravagant luxury consumption, lower/middle classes'desire for luxury, and ostentatious displays of luxury items.