Success and the price of going for the CHINESE TOUCH

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.