A taste of 'modernity

Working in a western restaurant in market socialist China

Bibliographic Data

ID2402255
AuthorsC L Hsu (0000-0002-5854-0507, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume6
Issue4
Pages543-565
Publication date2005-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1466138105062478
OpenAlexW2039320972
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited20

What does working in a western restaurant mean to people in urban China? This article, based on ethnographic research at three western food places in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, argues that for Harbiners at the turn of the century, working in western restaurants was meaningful for two reasons. First, these workplaces were seen as connected to the global capitalist economy and the world of cosmopolitan consumerism, in contrast to the local, provincial, and backward. Second, these workplaces were seen as distinct, and indeed oppositional, to state socialist workplaces and to the socialist understanding of work where individual contribution was rewarded by state paternalism. People who worked in western food restaurants understood work through the concept of development - people should develop themselves by acquiring skills and experiences through work. In other words, for those who worked in western food places, jobs were something to be 'consumed' like courses in a self-designed training program for entrepreneurship

Capitalism · China · Consumerism · Ethnography · Modernity · Paternalism · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science · Taste · Work (physics · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology