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Leaving China, you tend to forget the overwhelming power of chinese culture. You here about how all these western countries are moving into China and from abroad you tend to think of this as a westernization of China. But in reality the culture here takes over everything that comes here. Take Big Box department stores, walmart, office depo etc., among my dissaffected friends in the U.S. these are considered the essence of what is wrong with american culture. They take waway from local business, encourage blandness in the culture and are just depressing to go into anyway.
When you go into Big Box developments in China (they have a lot of them, the local one here is the Au Chan), the first thing you think about is how Chinese these places are. First of all they are teeming with people. Take a crowded day at an american theme park and that’s how it is all the time in these stores. Second most of the stuff the are selling besides the clothes are chinese. In the Au Chan there is a KFC (which I think the chinese like more than the americans) and then a noodle and jiao zi shop. If you want to buy anything, fifty old chinese women will come running up to you shoving things in your face and saying it is the best deal. If you try to pick something that you would like, they will tell you it is ugly, it will make you fat or insult your taste in some other way.
All the critiscims that apply to american big box developments may also apply in China, but I can’t tell. For all I know the Chinese could take over walmart and make it just what there country needs. On the other hand Walmart and China could band together to form an evil alliance to take over the world. Whatever happens, western businesses in china will always have to stay Chinese in order to survive.