Consuming Hong Kong

Consumption forms an essential part of Hong Kong people’s lives today, but until now little serious attention has been paid to it. This book fills this gap, in a fascinating way. The contributors to this volume explore such topics as:

• the coming of shopping malls to Hong Kong
• tenants’ senses of home in cramped public housing
• the experiences of movie-going
• alcohol as a marker of social class
• the pursuit of fashion
• Chinese art and identity among Hong Kong collectors
• the dream and reality of owning a flat
• Lan Kwai Fong and its mystique
• the McDonald’s Snoopy craze of fall 1998
• cultural identity and consumption in Hong Kong today

This book shows how the detailed ehtnographic study of consumption in Hong Kong can lead to a deeper understanding of Hong Kong life as a whole, as well as of consumption in the world at large.

Gordon Mathews teaches anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching For Home in the Cultural Supermarket (2000). Tai-lok Lui teaches sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has co-edited The Dynamics of Social Movement in Hong Kong (2000), and co-authored City States in the Global Economy (1997).

“The book will make an important contribution to the debate regarding Hong Kong cultural identity. It will also have a significant impact on international scholarship relating to consumption and consumer studies. I will most certainly be making frequent use of it in my own research and I know many other scholars, living in several countries, who will do the same.” —James L. Watson, Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society and Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University