Success and the price of going for the CHINESE TOUCH

Actors perform "Empress Wenzhao's Reverence to Buddha" at the Buddha Reverence Platform at the Longmen Grottoes Scenic Spot in Luoyang of Henan province on April 25 (Xinhua/Li An)

"Caoxian county, the center of the universe … I'd rather sleep in a bed in Caoxian county than buy a suite in Shanghai … I often feel inferior because I'm not from Caoxian county."

This monologue, delivered in Shandong dialect and with ironclad confidence, left internet users up and down the country in paroxysms of laughter last year－so much so that many were seeing if they could possibly mimic it.

However, it was not just this over-the-top patter that turned the small town in Shandong province into an internet sensation; for that the town can thank the discovery that it boasts one of China's most prosperous and thriving hanfu markets, with more than 2,000 companies involved in the industry.

A report by the China National Garment Association says Caoxian's online hanfu sales account for 35 percent of such sales nationwide, with 60,000 e-commerce stores. In 2020, its gross output was worth 46.4 billion yuan ($7.32 billion).

Hanfu refers to the traditional clothing of the Han people. Although it varies according to the times, hanfu conveys in various ways, including elegant, dignified or simple, the beauty of the Chinese classical aesthetic.

Lyu Xiaowei, a member of the organizing committee of Chinese National Costume Day, says that behind the growing appreciation of hanfu is cultural self-confidence among China's Generation Z.

On Dec 14, Sina News published Into the Confident Generation Z－2021 New Youth Insight Report, which says 96 percent of Gen-Zers are interested in guochao, or China chic, and this extends beyond intangible cultural heritage and traditional Chinese festivals, with more young people becoming fans of domestic brands.

The 2022 China New Consumer Brand Development Trend Report, released by internet service provider Weiboyi, says the search popularity of China chic related content has increased 528 percent in 10 years, with guochao digital products, clothing and makeup topping the charts. The report shows the growth in sales of guochao brands is three times that of ordinary brands. More shoppers are willing to buy items relating to Chinese traditional culture and are eager to identify Chinese culture with what they buy to give themselves a sense of belonging and achievement.

On the third floor of a shopping center in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in September, people wearing hanfu bustled among the carved beams and painted buildings. Under the mural of the famed Song Dynasty (960-1279) painting Along the River during Qingming Festival, two or three musicians were playing. At the entrance of a guochao milk tea shop, a young woman waited anxiously.

"A lot of people are lining up today," she says. "I'm willing to wait for an hour to get a cup of feng chao huang, the most popular bubble tea."

That scene played out at the China Chic Festival in a building mimicking one from a Qingming Festival in the Song Dynasty. It took two years to build, and the work included restoration of market streets and alleys of the Kaiping period of the Song Dynasty capital, with row upon row of houses, dotted pavilions, bustling and prosperous commercial streets that provide eating, drinking, entertainment, sightseeing, shopping－in short, almost everything.

This kind of activity is held regularly, generally, accompanied by traditional musical performances and sales promotions. Enthusiasts go there to take pictures and have fun. Wang Yingquan, a student at Shenzhen University, says he has been immersed in traditional culture since he was a child. For him, China chic is the rebirth of classical culture.

However, cultural renaissance comes at a price－or, to be more precise, rising prices. Not long ago, one of China's down jacket brands, Bosideng, was listed on Weibo's hot search, attracting comments such as "guochao is now way out of our league", one of its down jackets costing more than 10,000 yuan.

At the same time, the prices of domestic digital products have continued to shoot up. Between 2018 and 2019, the price of most domestic flagship mobile phones was about 3,000 yuan. However, starting in 2020 more than a few such phones cost 4,000 yuan, and those costing 7,000 yuan are now by no means rare.

Not all shoppers are perplexed by the rising prices. Li Na, 22, a graduate student in Beijing, expressed understanding and acceptance of the increasingly expensive domestic brands: "As long as the design, quality and functionality reach the standard of international brands, I don't get the fuss about these price rises. Just as many people buy luxury goods, you can't just focus on the cost. After all, they're flagship models."

The rise of China chic started with Li-Ning, a sports brand that became a hit at New York Fashion Week in early 2018 under the moniker "China Li-Ning& China". Less than a minute after the show started, one of the jackets in the show with the brand name written in Chinese characters on it was sold out online. More sports brands cottoned on to the idea, and the guochao concept took off.

However, not all the more expensive China chic is really "value for money". In Li's view, some brands simply set a high price by adding Chinese character logos to their clothes or other products, and people like Li find these pseudo China Chic items a degradation of Chinese culture.

Li has noticed that over the past year a Taobao clothing store she often visited has started selling many clothing items with Chinese elements, and prices have tripled.

"The original price of a trench coat was a little more than 100 yuan, but just with the addition of two embroidered pockets, it now costs more than 300 yuan," she says.

It is not just clothes that are becoming more expensive. Guochao milk tea and snacks have sprung up like mushrooms. With more guochao elements in the packaging design and store decoration, prices can double.

"Some brands regard guochao as a status symbol," Li says. "The price of ordinary coffee, milk tea and lipstick with the elements of the Forbidden City have doubled in a flash. Ordinary restaurants put up Peking Opera masks or affix Chinese style totems to pull in customers."

Guo Xin, a marketing professor at Beijing Technology and Business University, says: "People are becoming more savvy, and even if brands gain customer traffic by cashing in on the guochao fad, it's unsustainable to just cobble together a collection of meaningless oriental cultural elements such as cranes, auspicious cloud patterns and Chinese characters, and then slam a guochao label on it thinking you have a sales winner."

In particular, many products are not all that different from one another if you strip them of the guochao hype. If you search for the term "Chinese-style lipstick" on Taobao, you are likely to be confronted with 10,000 products. However, Heimao Tousu, a third-party customer service platform under Sina, says one lipstick brand alone attracted more than 300 complaints last year. Grounds for complaints included "Quality problems have not been resolved", "Failed to receive refund for subpar products" and "Poor attitude of sales staff".

"Since the reform and opening-up, consumption has become diversified, and now is the time to seek personalization in diversification," Guo says. "Young people need a tool with which they can advertise themselves, and guochao is exactly that. But the rise in popularity largely comes down to one thing, and that's product quality."