The Chinese have a special name for those tots: xiao huangdi, or "little emperors." They are regularly deplored in the state-run press. China's children are growing up "self-centered, narrow-minded, and incapable of accepting criticism," declared Yang Xiaosheng, editor of a prominent literary journal, in a recent interview in the Beijing Star Daily. Wang Ying, the director of Qiyi's kindergarten, concurs: "Kids these days are spoiled rotten. They have no social skills. They expect instant gratification. They're attended to hand and foot by adults so protective that if the child as much as stumbles, the whole family will curse the ground."
The one-child policy has been loosely enforced in the countryside, where more than two-thirds of China's people live. In remote areas it's not uncommon to find farm families with as many as five or six children. But in cities one child per family remains the norm. Demographers estimate that of Chinese under age 25, at least 20%--about 100 million--have been raised in one-child households. That's only a sliver of China's 1.3 billion people. But for foreign companies hoping to capture the hearts and minds of Chinese consumers, little emperors are a crucial market vanguard. They're confident, cosmopolitan, and eager to try new things. And unlike their rural cousins, they have the financial wherewithal to gratify their whims. An April survey by Hill & Knowlton and Seventeen magazine of 1,200 students at 64 universities in Beijing and Shanghai found that six in ten reported spending more than $60 a month on "unessential items"--a staggering sum given that monthly per capita income in those cities averages less than $250. Many analysts predict that as their purchasing power increases, China's little emperors will emerge as a driving force of lifestyle and market trends beyond China--not only in Asia but in the U.S. and Europe as well. Says Conrad Persons, a consumer-trends analyst at Ogilvy & Mather: "Get ready for the biggest Me Generation the world has ever seen."
The key to understanding this generation is to recognize that it is a breed apart. Everything is different for these kids; the sibling dearth is just the start. China's little emperors and empresses have come of age in an era of unprecedented prosperity. Their parents and grandparents endured years of famine under Mao's disastrous communal agriculture policies and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. They remember the trauma of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square. But for the Chinese born since 1980, that's ancient history. For youngsters in Beijing and Shanghai--and even second-tier cities such as Dalian, Chengdu, or Kunming--each passing week brings a gleaming new shopping complex, restaurant, highway, or residential development.
The one-child policy has been loosely enforced in the countryside, where more than two-thirds of China's people live. In remote areas it's not uncommon to find farm families with as many as five or six children. But in cities one child per family remains the norm. Demographers estimate that of Chinese under age 25, at least 20%--about 100 million--have been raised in one-child households. That's only a sliver of China's 1.3 billion people. But for foreign companies hoping to capture the hearts and minds of Chinese consumers, little emperors are a crucial market vanguard. They're confident, cosmopolitan, and eager to try new things. And unlike their rural cousins, they have the financial wherewithal to gratify their whims. An April survey by Hill & Knowlton and Seventeen magazine of 1,200 students at 64 universities in Beijing and Shanghai found that six in ten reported spending more than $60 a month on "unessential items"--a staggering sum given that monthly per capita income in those cities averages less than $250. Many analysts predict that as their purchasing power increases, China's little emperors will emerge as a driving force of lifestyle and market trends beyond China--not only in Asia but in the U.S. and Europe as well. Says Conrad Persons, a consumer-trends analyst at Ogilvy & Mather: "Get ready for the biggest Me Generation the world has ever seen."
The key to understanding this generation is to recognize that it is a breed apart. Everything is different for these kids; the sibling dearth is just the start. China's little emperors and empresses have come of age in an era of unprecedented prosperity. Their parents and grandparents endured years of famine under Mao's disastrous communal agriculture policies and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. They remember the trauma of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square. But for the Chinese born since 1980, that's ancient history. For youngsters in Beijing and Shanghai--and even second-tier cities such as Dalian, Chengdu, or Kunming--each passing week brings a gleaming new shopping complex, restaurant, highway, or residential development.
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