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Consuming Hong Kong

(消費香港)

Edited by Gordon Mathews and Tai-lok Lui

ISBN : 978-962-209-536-6


Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology Hong Kong Culture and Society

October 2001

356 pages, 6″ x 9″, 9 b&w illus.; 2 figures; 1 map & 3 tables


Paperback
  • HK$195.00
No longer available

Also available in Hardback HK$320.00



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