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Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities. Edited by CHUA BENG-HURT. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. xiv, 249 pp. $90.00 (cloth); $31.95 (paper).
This volume, part of a series on the "new rich in Asia," brings together a wideranging set of articles on the political economy and symbolic valence of consumption in East Asia. In his insightful introduction, Chua Beng-Huat lays out the purposes of the volume: to offer empirical analyses of changing objects and levels of consumption in the region, to examine the changing cultural/ideological discourses that the expansion of consumption in the region has engendered, and, finally, to engage conceptually the expanding social science literature on consumption.
Chapters 2 through 6 track patterns of, levels of, and attitudes toward consumption among the middle classes of Malaysia (Rokiah Talib), South Korea (Seung-Kuk Kim), urban China (Chengze Simon Fan), Hong Kong (Annie Hau-Nung Chan), and Indonesia (Solvay Gerke), using quantitative survey data. These chapters attest to the emergence of a general pattern of consumption in the region, along with variations. The chapters on Malaysia, South Korea, and Hong Kong delineate housing, cars, and education as key commodities for the middle classes. The relatively poorer economies of China and Indonesia demonstrate a shift from pre-economic reform era goods, such as sewing machines, watches, and bicycles, to late 1980's valorization of televisions, refrigerators, fans, washing machines, and cameras. The assumption is...