China Inside Out: 10 Irreversible Trends Reshaping China and its Relationship with the World

Foreword

Men and women in China have the right to dress as they please: plaids, stripes, purples, reds, acid-greens, fuchsias, rhinestones, tight skirts, baggy T-shirts—all at the same time, even, if they choose to experiment (which some do). They can buy at bargain basement prices or, those who can afford it, can shop at expensive boutiques. They can dress as peculiarly as they like—or as fashionably—as the glittering catwalks of Shanghai have spotlighted since the opening years of the twenty-first century.

China hasn’t always been that way, though. As the bad old days of the Cultural Revolution closed in the late 1970s and the country sought its way out of the economic and social chaos that had defined the lives of generations, the Mao-suit was all the fashion. Actually, it was pretty much the only fashion for adults, available in the most drab shades of gray, blue, and green conceivable. The statement the social uniform made was “we are all equal,” though, of course, Communist Party members were more equal than others. For the 30 years after Mao Zedong announced the liberation of the People’s Republic of China, Communist Party apparatchiks tightly controlled all parts of Chinese life: where one lived, if one attended university, what discipline one would study, where one worked, where one shopped, how much one could buy (if shelves were stocked at all), even who to marry (dating was illegal). In other words, up until about 1980, China’s government was totalitarian, interested ...