China Fashion & Beauty
Chinese Consumers Indifferent to Diplomatic Spat Between China and Canada as “Canada Goose Boycott” Backlashes
Despite Canada-China tensions, the Canada Goose store in Beijing is faring well.
On December 28, Canada Goose opened its very first store in mainland China at a renowned Beijing shopping district, Sanlitun (三里屯), two weeks later than originally scheduled due to “ongoing construction.” The announcement of the delay came amidst growing tensions between China and Canada following the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver on December 1.
The Canadian brand, known for its luxury winter jackets and parkas, has been facing great difficulties since the arrest, with its shares dropping 37 percent in value according to Reuters.
The company’s struggles have also received extensive coverage on Chinese social media. On Weibo, the hashtags “Canada Goose Value Crashing” (加拿大鹅暴跌) and “Canada Goose Mainland store opening canceled”(加拿大鹅内地开业取消) registered over 230 million and 170 million views, respectively, with some netizens calling for a boycott of the Canadian brand. The nationalist tabloid Global Times quoted ‘experts’ and ‘consumers’ in suggesting that “if Canada keeps detaining a senior Huawei executive in a complicit move to woo the US, the repudiation of Canadian goods will expand.”
However, no boycott materialized as the brand’s first Mainland store was packed with Chinese consumers on its opening day, to the point where store employees had to restrict entry, forcing many to wait over thirty minutes in -12oC temperatures.
To some, a most disheartening sight; to others, a mark of quality (The Beijinger).
The same Reuters article also revealed the store’s popularity was no one-day fad; three days after the opening, consumers were still having to queue for an hour.
“Why would I boycott an enterprise that didn’t do anything wrong?”
Such “unpatriotic” consumerism has not been ignored by Chinese netizens, prompting many to ask about the much-trumpeted boycott. This time, however, calls for a boycott were by and large dismissed, with some defending the unassailable right of consumption (“why would I boycott Canada Goose? If Meng Wanzhou can buy houses and a Canadian residence permit, why can’t I buy some Canadian clothes?”) while others questioned the validity of making a Canadian company responsible for the Canadian government’s action. (“Why would I boycott an enterprise that didn’t do anything wrong?”).
Unintended side-effects of patriotic shrilling for a boycott, namely increasing Canada Goose’s brand awareness among Chinese consumers, were also mocked by netizens. As one Weibo user wrote: “Before the boycott, my colleague had never heard of the brand. Now my colleague is rushing to the new store to buy something. The irony.”
More comic relief was provided by the self-mockery of some netizens who observed, tongue planted firmly in cheek, that they didn’t boycott the brand but neither did they go to the store – long queues hide the fact that luxury products remain unaffordable to the vast majority of the Chinese people.
“Young people driven by fashion tastes, not politics.”
All this accords with the prediction made by some pundits that the boycott would quickly blow over as the biggest buyers of the products in China are young people “driven by fashion tastes, not politics”.
The numbers also show the slump in share value preceding the store opening was not fatal: On Monday 31, Canada Goose’s stocks registered a 6 percent increase from the previous week.
Are Chinese consumers less patriotic than in the past? After all, Canada Goose’s success is a marked contrast to the concerted effort Chinese consumers made to boycott South Korean products during the THAAD dispute between China and South Korea that began in September 2017 and lasted a whole year before a truce was called.
Perhaps luxury is patriotism’s kryptonite; perhaps Canadian ambassadors of Chinese culture like entertainer Mark Rowswell, the first foreigner to ever perform comedy for a Chinese audience in Mandarin, have made netizens subconsciously more tolerant of the Canadian government. Whatever the reason, this whole episode shows that Chinese public opinion is not always boringly predictable and subservient to the Chinese state.
By Gabi Verberg, edited by Eduardo Baptista
Contributions by Miranda Barnes
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China Fashion & Beauty
The Mulan Makeup Challenge: Traditional Chinese Makeup Goes Trending
Recreating the Mulan make-up look was the biggest beauty challenge on Chinese social media this July.
Since Disney released the official trailer for its live-action Mulan movie earlier this month, Mulan is recurringly appearing in the top trending lists on Chinese social media.
Among all the different topics relating to the upcoming Mulan movie, the Mulan make-up challenge is one that jumps out this month.
The Disney live-action trailer showed a scene in which Mulan, played by Chinese American actress Crystal Liu Fei (刘亦菲), has a full face of betrothal makeup. The original animated Disney movie also features a full makeup Mulan.
Although there was also online criticism of the ‘exaggerated’ makeup, there are many people who appreciate Mulan’s colorful makeup look.
On Weibo, many showed off their skills in copying Mulan’s makeup look this month.
By now, the hashtags “Mulan Makeup Imitation” (#花木兰仿妆#) and “Mulan Makeup Imitation Contest” (#花木兰仿妆大赛#) have attracted over 300 million views.
Makeup such as lipstick has been used in China as far back as two or three thousand years ago.
Makeup vlogger Emma Zhou explains more about Tang Dynasty (618-907) makeup customs here; the skin would be whitened with rice flower, followed by the application of ‘blush’ (pigment of strong-colored flowers) to the cheeks and eyes in a round shape, to emphasize the roundness of the face.
A floral-like decoration would be placed in between the eyebrows.
The yellow forehead, as can be seen in the live-action Mulan, is also known as “Buddha’s makeup,” and was especially popular among ladies during the Tang Dynasty. A yellow aura on the forehead was believed to be auspicious (Schafer 1956, 419).
Although contemporary Chinese makeup trends are much different than those depicted in Mulan, traditional makeup seems to make somewhat of a come-back because of the Disney movie, with hundreds of Chinese netizens imitating the look.
Beauty bloggers such as Nico (@黎千千Nico, image below) receive much praise from Weibo users for their makeup look. Nico wrote: “I even opened the door for the delivery guy this way!”
It is not just girls imitating the look; there are also some boys showing off their Mulan makeup.
Although many still find the Mulan makeup look exaggerated and even “laughable,” there are also those who think it looks really “cool” – of course, depending on whether or not the application is successful.
Want to try it out for yourself? There are various amateur tutorials available on Youtube (in Chinese), such as here, here, or here.
The Mulan make-up hype will probably continue in 2020; the Mulan movie will come out in late March.
To read more about Mulan, please see our latest feature article on Mulan here.
By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo
References
Schafer, Edward H. 1956. “The Early History of Lead Pigments and Cosmetics in China.” T’oung Pao, Second Series, 44, no. 4/5: 413-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4527434.
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China Celebs
Iconic Shanghai Singer Yao Lee Passes Away at the Age of 96
Yao Li, one of the seven great singing stars of Shanghai in the 1940s, has passed away.
Chinese singer Yao Lee (姚莉), the ‘Queen of Mandarin pop,’ passed away on July 19 at the age of 96.
The singer, with her ‘Silvery Voice,’ was known as one of the seven great singing stars (“七大歌星”) of Shanghai of the 1940s.
For those who may not know her name, you might know her music – one of her iconic songs was used in the hit movie Crazy Rich Asians.
Yao’s most famous songs include “Rose, Rose, I Love You” (玫瑰玫瑰我爱你), “Meet Again” (重逢), and “Love That I Can’t Have” (得不到的爱情).
Yao, born in Shanghai in 1922, started singing at the age of 13. Her brother Yao Min was a popular music songwriter.
When popular music was banned under Mao in the 1950s, Hong Kong became a new center of the Mandarin music industry, and Yao continued her career there.
On Weibo, the hashtag Yao Lee Passes Away (#姚莉去世#) already received more than 200 million views at time of writing.
Many Chinese netizens post candles to mourn the death of the popular singer, some call her passing “the end of an era.”
“Shanghai of those years is really where it all started,” others say.
Listen to one of Yao’s songs below:
By Manya Koetse
Follow @whatsonweibo
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mikehunt
January 3, 2019 at 6:02 pm
1. there was no orgainsed boycott. if they want to boycott, get 100 protesters to stand outside the store and block entry into store. that’s how you organise a boycott.
Arnout
January 4, 2019 at 8:08 am
The Canadian entertainer you are referring to is Mark Rowswell, not Roswell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashan