Being both American-born as well as the gigantic hypocrite that I am, I believe I have the convenient luxury of cherry-picking when it’s convenient to associate Asian traits to myself, or when I curl my upper lip, take a step back, and say “whoa, I was born in the States.”
A little while back, I was way the hell up in Dawsonville at the outlet mall. Normally, going to an outlet mall in December, much less all the way up in Dawsonville is about as good of an idea as running blindfolded with scissors, but I was doing my best impression of being gracious and accommodating.
Dawsonville, for lack of a better term, is country as fuck. The population of the town is like 3,000 people, and it makes me believe that outlet malls are stuck in desolate country towns like Dawsonville, just so that it can stimulate the economies of both the town and the surrounding area. The most notable people to have ever come from Dawsonville are some former NASCAR driver “Awesome Bill From Dawsonville” Wallace, and apparently former pro-wrestler, Bill Goldberg lived there for a spell.
According to the omniscience of Wikipedia, Dawsonville’s demographic is 97% white. * However, if anyone were ever to take a guess at what the primary demographic of Dawsonville were based on a single visit to the outlet mall, and I’m pretty confident that they would take a guess that it was 97% Asian-slash-Pacific Islander.
*Back in 2010, but come on, how much could Dawsonville really change in three years?
Seriously, from the moment we parked, and began hopping from name brand store to name brand store, there were Asians everywhere. There may as well have been a gigantic red arch at the entrance and called the place a Chinatown or a Shinto shrine, and it would be believable. And it wasn’t any one particular group either, I heard people speaking Korean, Cantonese and even Japanese, while we were there.
They were all there for the same purposes – to indulge in name brand products.
It didn’t even seem so much like it was about pursuing the point of outlet malls; getting brand name goods at discounted cost, as much as it was seemingly amassing as much brand name material as they could afford. The more bags emblazoned with a Michael Kors logo, Nike swoosh, Calvin Klein or Kenneth Cole names printed on them, the more successful they would appear to other shoppers.
I don’t really understand why Asian people in general are so materialistic and obsessed with brand names. I’m not singling any one demographic out either in spite of how easily I could cherry pick, because frankly, I see similar behavior in my own family. They like Lexus cars, Polo apparel, and Burberry scarves as much as the next materialistic Asian does.
It was all really kind of fascinating and ironically amusing to me, watching people scuttle about from store to store, for almost no reason other than the name on the outside of it. I’m not immune to this stigma entirely, as I like particular brands too, but usually it has to do with the fact that they make apparel that I find aesthetically pleasing, comfortable, somewhat cost-efficient (at times), and not necessarily just for nothing but the name they go by, and what that name means to others.
It’s no real secret (at least to most third/fourth generation Asians) that lots of Asians love name brands and showing them off, it’s just that I don’t really understand the importance. If anything at all, I would rather other people NOT know if I happened to have expensive goods in my possession, because then I’d be even more paranoid about people trying to break into my house and rob me.
I don’t even think it’s behavior that could even be justified in the old days and ancient times either. Personally, I don’t think flaunting any sort of materialism is a positive thing to ever do, regardless of the time or era it is, because it’s an unattractive display of arrogance. It’s even worse when it’s false bravado, because I’d have to imagine it’s kind of humiliating if it turns out that you’re not as affluent as you try to portray yourself, and people discover this.
Kudos on the properties and brands who hop aboard for recognizing this too. Frankly, I can’t ever recall actually saving a buck by shopping at an outlet mall. All the stores appear to be exercising the age-old method of marking everything up three-fold, so they can slash their prices in half and boast 50% OFF savings, and because of the names attached to all the crap, people eat that shit up and spend boatloads.
This is a real inquiry though, why are Asians so materialistic? I simply just don’t understand the importance of flaunting transparent status through possessions.
Maybe it’s because I was born in the States.
