The Fat Years Read Online Free PDF

and there are so many tourists and visitors from abroad—what an international city. And everybody’s shopping—stimulating domestic demand and contributing to society.
    I remember that a couple of months ago, a friend of mine studying rural culture at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences asked me a favor. Her niece from Lanzhou was in Beijing for her winter vacation and staying with her. When she asked her niece where she fancied going, she said she wanted to go to Y-3 to buy some clothes. My friend hadn’t a clue what Y-3 was, so she asked me. She’s such a bookworm. It didn’t even occur to her to look it up online. Y-3 is a new clothing brand started as a cooperative venture between Adidas and Japan’s celebrated Yohji Yamamoto. “Y” stands for Yohji and “3” is probably for the three leaves of the Adidas trefoil logo. The Y-3 brand is really hot here. In fact, they say the biggest Y-3 market in the world is in China, and its flagship department store is right in front of me now, opposite the Swire Village Wantwant Starbucks.
    When they opened just before the 2008 Olympics, they occupied only about one-third of the fourth floor of the five-story Adidas outlet. Now one whole floor belongs to Y-3. Of course Adidas also expanded its Swire Village area by taking over the floors once occupied by Nike. This was all due to the merger and reorganization of the local brand Li Ning with Adidas, but the thanks should go to the Chinese government’s new policies. Every brand that wants to enter the Chinese market has to have at least 25 percent Chinese-owned capital; with 50 percent or more, they can receive even more favorable terms. If they want to be listed in Shanghai, they have to meet extra requirements, I can’t remember exactly what. Any foreign brand that does not meet these conditions has to wait for the Ministry of Commerce to grant it special permission; if it doesn’t receive special permission, then it has to remove itself from China’s 1.35-billion-person market.
    I’ve lived over half my life in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and I always used to believe that for any place to develop it had to rely on exports. The population had to depend on living frugally and getting rich through thrift in order to fill the first bucket of gold. But now I finally realize how important domestic demand and consumption are. If the Chinese are willing to spend money, they may not be able to save the world, but at least they can improve their own situation.
    I’m not blindly praising China. I know China has many problems. But just think about this. There was the 2008 financial tsunami, when the developed capitalist countries, led by the United States, began to self-destruct. They enjoyed only a couple of years of slight recovery before they fell into stagflation again in 2011. This new crisis spread right across the globe, leaving no nation untouched. And now there’s no end in sight to this depression. Only China has been able to recover, surging forward while the others are on the decline. With domestic demand filling in for the dried-up export market, and state capital replacing evaporated foreign investments, the current forecast is that this year will be the third successive year of more than 15 percent growth. Not only has China changed the rules of the international economic game, we’ve also changed the nature of Western economics. Even more importantly, there has been no social upheaval; in fact, our society is even more harmonious now. You can’t help accepting that it’s all really incredible. Now I’m beginning to get emotional. It’s been happening to me a lot recently, being so easily moved that I actually start to weep.
    Then I remember how depressed Little Xi looked and it makes me sad. Everybody around us is living the good life, while she’s becoming more and more despondent. I take a couple of deep breaths and fight back my tears. I used to be a very cool guy. Why am I so sentimental these days? I