Mergers and Acquisitions
One of my friends, an aspiring tai tai, described Milan Station, this chain of widely successful, high-end second-hand boutiques, to me:
women, er, I mean, mistresses, who aren’t given cash, but they are
allowed to shop all they want. So, they go to LV, and buy a dozen
bags and sell them [to Milan Station] for cash. The chain
has done so well, it went public. It’s really popular because people know the bags are new and not fakes.
This story sickened me a little. Partly, because it highlights
the common social acceptance in HK and China (and other Asian countries
as well?) of the practice of having a pampered wife, and a younger
girlfriend on the side (it harkens back to past practice of polygamy
and the keeping of concubines). It’s so widespread that it has
spawned its own little cottage industry.
It also disturbs me a little because I have friends who are preparing
to enter into the more legitimate of the two options. I can’t
imagine trading fidelity for material comfort and to provide “face” to
one’s family through a “good” match. Why do some
of my friends expect $o much and so little out of marriage?
It also forces me to ponder, how much of the luxury market is dependent
on arrangements, such as this. Each “arrangement” produces two
customers, the wife and girlfriend, who need to be kept happy with
shiny objects. It’s enough to make me go off on one of those
feminist/Marxist critiques, but I’ll pass the baton on that point to one of you. Any takers?
ToastyKen
February 3, 2006 @ 7:31 pm
Hm. I know very little about Hong Kong history, and whether they experienced a feminist movement in particular.. but in China, there was never a feminist movement, per se… It was Communism that enforced a lot of general equality.. but top-down ideas don’t have the same staying power and bottom-up idea. Now that the power of Communism is fading, maybe people are just reverting to the old ways, because there was never really a social dialogue and thus deep acceptance of the ideas of gender equality?
ToastyKen
February 3, 2006 @ 7:32 pm
I guess what I’m saying is: I feel that they’ve increased women’s rights on the surface more than they’ve increased them deep down in people’s hearts.
Saheli
February 3, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
TK makes a good point. Re: the luxury goods–I fear that this somewhat sordid arrangement is probably a lesser of the luxury goods market’s problems.
guppie
February 6, 2006 @ 3:31 am
i guess there’s no other politics quite like sexual politics… horrible isn’t it?