The Western Influence on China: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

History shows that emerging Asian powers have, on occasion, used established and dominant Western cultures as models in the course or cause of their development. For instance, Meiji Japan and its rapid adoption of mainly US western military traditions and fashions, or even India, which with its elitist and exclusive clubs and schools still seems even more British than contemporary Britain. Modern China is no exception but this time around it is the ubiquitous ‘brand and lifestyle' consumerism of the West that is the spur. From DVDs, Apple stores, ‘Mister Christmas' and entire Austrian villages, China's copy-cat culture is well documented. In the last few years so many goods, services and customs have been transposed from the West that cities like Shanghai or Shenzhen increasingly feel like dystopian homes from home. Here is a selection of some of the good, the bad and the ugly ways that China is becoming more recognisably Western.   

Photo: wetnoseguide.com

The Good

1) Cafes
Incredibly, tea and China often seems like an anachronistic pairing these days as walking around any modern Chinese city you're far more likely to come across a cafe and hordes of fashionable young Chinese sipping lattes and cappuccinos. This rise in popularity of coffee culture can be accurately chartered by the astronomical rise of Starbucks, which has gone from a single store in 1999 to over 500 today. China also boasts its own somewhat familiarly decked out cafe chain, SPR Coffee. Unless you are a tea fanatic whose lips will only let pass liquid from a thimble-sized porcelain cup with floating leaf matter in it (they do exist), you'll agree that the rise of a coffee culture is a good thing – not least because of all the new, clean Western toilets you now have access to for that dreaded rumble of the stomach out on the street!     

2) Gyms
If you have become used to blowing your rent money in order to pay for gym membership it is a joy that thousands of cheap, good quality urban gyms have sprung up all across China. So even if you're not a regular gym go-er at home, China is likely to change your mind as car fumes make most street-side runs wheeze inducing, while even jogging in the parks poses a health hazard in terms of eyeball-poking taiji practitioners and invisible garrote-like kite strings trailing across paths. In contrast, exercising in one of the new relatively calm, well ventilated gym venues seems like an attractive and much safer alternative. 

3) Anti-smoking laws
China's anti-smoking laws are a welcome adoption (for all non-smokers) of the West's zero tolerance approach on this issue. OK, there's obviously a long way to go in China when it's still common to see patients and staff smoking in hospitals but one of the great things about China is that once it legislates to do something, it's not too long before it does it! The foot is in the metaphorical door. 

4) Queuing culture
The lack of queuing in China has driven many an expat wild, especially if you have been brought up with this street etiquette as standard, your sanity has an even shorter date of expiry in China than most. But never fear. It seems this aspect of the Colonial cultural legacy in Hong Kong has been positively noted by the Guangdong government and they have realised that we would all get from A to B a lot faster if we queued and let passengers exit trains first before entering. The Guangzhou metro is awash with government advertisements urging the city's residents to queue for their trains. Hopefully in the not too distant future in all of China, a train door opening will not signify a battle for life and death where grannies are trampled to the ground and push chairs are used as battering rams.

The Bad

1) Traffic jams
Even a decade ago in China, it used to be the case that in many cities the only noise pollution was the tinkling of thousands of bike bells and all that you had to worry about on your journey home after work was a rain shower and getting wet. Now of course two wheels have been replaced for four and horns cry out through evening rush hour as commuters sit in some of the world's longest traffic jams. China's city ring roads and freeways, like the American roads they were built to resemble, boast the same maddening congestion and choking pollution, the by-product of copying a Western urban development model. Surely there was a greener alternative!?     

2) Hypermarkets
Small, local urban food markets in China are becoming a dying species as they are crowded out by development and gargantuan new Western style hypermarkets. Yes, they were often smelly and not always the most sanitary of places, but they offered cheap, fresh produce not to mention a great place to hone your Chinese bargaining skills and practice your Mandarin. Life in China would seem a lot less colourful without them, exactly as has happened in cities in the West. 

The Ugly 

1) Obesity
Visiting the West after protracted periods living in China, one of the first things that used to strike many expats was the level of obesity in their own countries. The waist sizes of many Westerners were double that of most Chinese. Nowadays China is in the midst of its own obesity epidemic and the difference between Western and Eastern waist bands is becoming less notable. A primary cause of this Chinese obesity crisis must surely lie with the increasing prevalence of Western style fast food chains and their Chinese knock-offs (has anyone visited a CBC: China Best Chicken?). One of these various types of fast food joints can now be found in every large shopping mall, airport and city centre in China, just like in most American and European cities.        

2) Pet grooming studios
Pets have always been valued in Chinese culture but it is only in the last few years that Chinese cities have seen an explosion in pet grooming studios and parlours. Animal cleanliness is not to be sniffed at but rainbow coloured poodles and pony tailed Pekinese gracing Chinese streets look as absurd as they do anywhere else.

Of course this is not a one-way process as the growing interest in the West in all things Chinese (not least mega-money to bail out the West's failing economies) testifies. Indeed, it might not be too long before we find that China, with its economic might, starts re-exporting Chinese adapted versions of Western brands to our own countries. In 50 years time walking down a street in London complete with its SPRs and CBCs might be just like walking down a street in Beijing!
 

Related links
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