Consumerism
Posted by Cottontimer on 14 Dec 2004 | Tagged as: Shopping, Singapore, Vietnam
With globalization, things are getting cheaper and cheaper. Even people with small budgets can now become shopaholics. The dollar bins at Target are filled with plastic Sesame Street figurines, lavender bubble bath, and wooden puzzles. Ross Dress For Less has $7 Nike t-shirts, $5 Mary Engelbreit books, and DVDs for less than $10. Instead of being dirt poor with nothing to their name, it’s now possible to be dirt poor with lots of clutter instead. We’ve made a lot of progress.
I struggle constantly against my desire to acquire more material goods. I thought I would enjoy the spirit of the holiday season in California and Singapore, but instead, I started feeling repulsed by the blatant consumerism all around me.
Signs outside the OG department store in Singapore remind us that “the joy of giving begins with shopping.” Perhaps my problem is that I haven’t been shopping enough.
Or maybe my problem is that I am not advanced enough, not progressive enough.
“The largest mall shows our progress as a society,” said Fu Yuesheng, general manager of the New Yansha Group on the company’s completion in Beijing of the biggest shopping mall in the world.
Phooey on human rights and environmental protection. What we need to make the world a better place is to do more shopping and build more malls.
