WILDCARD

Y O U P E T T Y BOURGEOISIE

万 万 花 花 筒 筒

56 57 D R A C D L I W

CHINA’S NEW CROP OF a Nuo, a contestant films, Apple computers, the city of class with houses and cars, and xiaozi you know, over time so many people HEDONISTS INDULGE on a dating and Adidas—though a with candlelight dinners and a glass of LIVING THE XIAOZI used that word in a bad way.” He

WILDCARD THEMSELVES, show, became real xiaozi would never admit to their wine.” Xiaozi, it seems, like to spend LIFE IS MORE ABOUT turned to his friend, “Actually, she is WHETHER OR NOT infamous last year for addictions so bluntly. money on high-sensation experiences ATTITUDE THAN xiaozi!” The young woman next to him THEY CAN AFFORD IT declaring that she’d Sipping latté in a Chaoyang like travel and fine meals. They may EARNING POWER flinched. She was wearing a bright M“rather cry in a BMW than smile Starbucks, native Wei Yuan also indulge their penchants for sleek red, puffy coat and blushed as Li spoke 小 资 代 表 什 么 ? 是 on a bicycle.” Outraged netizens explained the xiaozi ideal to me as it consumer gadgets and well-crafted approvingly of her white Honda. 享 乐 主 义 ， 亚 文 took her comments as fresh applied to her 33-year-old friend: “Her fashion accessories. One person told concern from older relatives worried Asked what xiaozi meant to her, she 化 ， 还 是 中 产 阶 级 evidence that ’s new rich life is so xiaozi. She’s single, her house me that the typical xiaozi salary is about the next generation’s financial said in English, “Enjoy life!” 的 特 权 ？ 答 案 是 had sacrificed inner fulfillment is full of art and she travels abroad anywhere from 5,000–20,000 RMB future. “Young people think they’re The term xiaozi came into its for the fleeting pleasures of to buy foreign things.” At the next a month, but that living the xiaozi life living in the moment,” said Zhuang current meaning in the 1990s as “全都不是”。这是 material wealth. But, in fact, many table, a group of three men in their is more about attitude than earning Shi, a lifestyle editor in Beijing, “but in China’s growing economy permitted 个 无 法 翻 译 的 词 。 upwardly mobile Chinese fall 30s gathered around an iPad for a power. older people’s point of view, they are new heights of consumer indulgence. somewhere in the middle, chasing meeting, but each tapped furiously on In a society where memories of wasting their time and life, because if Its origins, however, go back to the personal fulfillment and consumer their own iPhone 4. Wei told me her scarcity are none too distant, xiaozi they’re living in the moment, it means days of staunch Communism: xiaozi gratification with equal abandon. friend worked in public relations—a live for the present. Many Chinese they have no plan for the future.” originally meant “petty bourgeoisie,” a The so-called xiaozi (小资) are very xiaozi profession. “Sometimes people see home ownership as the Most people I spoke with term occupying a specific space in the a distinctly Chinese urban tribe she says, ‘no, I’m not a xiaozi,’ but it’s mark of an eligible bachelor, but xiaozi thought that xiaozi had a negative Marxist theory of class. that occupies a space somewhere precisely her lifestyle, I think.” regard such notions with disdain. As connotation, but some embrace the The petty bourgeoisie were between the yuppies and hipsters What makes these xiaozi different real estate prices skyrocket, they prefer term. “Especially in Beijing, maybe city dwellers who may have been familiar to Westerners. A short list of from China’s rising ? to rent and spend any extra cash on 60 percent of people like being called government functionaries, owners xiaozi accoutrements includes coffee, According to Helen Wang, who escapes to or foreign-language this,” says Li Ran, a Beijing native of small businesses, or intellectuals. Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian interviewed members of both groups novels and DVDs. Such choices may who studies economics at Seoul Stuck somewhere in between the Wood,” French cuisine, the Houhai for her book “The ,” be individually fulfilling, but the “live National University. “To be called true capitalist oppressors and the By Shepherd Laughlin neighborhood in Beijing, European many Chinese “associate the middle it up” mentality of the xiaozi provoke xiaozi means they have money, but workers, farmers and soldiers who formed the core of the revolution, here? “Well, I choose not to see it,” “FORTY YEARS their status shifted during the early she told me. AGO SHAMPOO decades of Chinese communism. Watching well-heeled shoppers MIGHT HAVE BEEN “The petty bourgeois (小资产阶 queue for designer cupcakes in the DENOUNCED” 级 Xi2o Z~ch2nji8j!) writers and artists shadow of a massive new Comme des constitute an important force…” Garçons store in Beijing, it’s hard to said Mao Zedong in 1942 at the imagine that a scant 40 years ago, a Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. basic commodity like shampoo might “There are many shortcomings in have been denounced as a decadent both their thinking and their works, bourgeois splurge. And yet, during but, comparatively speaking, they are the radical and paranoid days of the inclined towards the revolution and , any hint that are close to the working people.” someone gained spiritual or emotional Xiaozi today probably have fulfillment from material possessions different inclinations. “I think you was suspect. should leave what Mao said behind,” Today’s discussion in China about said Shi, who usually goes by Aviva xiaozi and their supposed flaws reminds Shey, her English name. “I think what me of nothing more than the debates you want to know about xiaozi is very about “hipsters” that circulated in 万 different from what he meant.” True, New York City when I lived there. My 花 Mao’s ideas about class were based former neighborhood was called the 筒 on the way people earned their living, unofficial capital of hipster America. not on taste or lifestyle. But isn’t there It’s a place where even the hardware 58 some kind of important connection store lends its window to installations by conceptual video artists. Residents are widely mocked for the high price tag of their “countercultural” lifestyle.

WILDCARD Is xiaozi translatable? “Hipster” doesn’t quite work; xiaozi aren’t particularly countercultural (except that they often pursue an interest in things that are considered “un-Chinese”). “Yuppie,” though dated, seems to be the most accurate English equivalent, but there’s an important difference: the typical yuppie can afford the expensive things he buys, while xiaozi are criticized for spending beyond their means. In the end, it seems the concept of xiaozi is specific to China and we’ll have to leave it at that. I asked Shi if she thought she was xiaozi. “I’m not so blind as to chase material things—balance is key,” she said. Then, quickly, I, like last season’s hottest restaurant, lost her interest. She was off to other things, “Do you have enough material yet? I have to go wash my hair now.”