During the Cultural Revolution, cosmetics were condemned as a sign of counterrevolutionary bourgeois habits. The hangover lasted a decade until Yue-Sai began selling lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner. But this was no street-fashion revolution. The order for China to make up its face came from the top. It was a deliberate ploy to distract attention from politics in the aftermath of the bloody crackdown that followed the Tiananmen protests of 1989. Foreign firms pulled out of China en masse. The politburo wanted to show that the country could continue on the path to modernity. They called on Yue-Sai to help.
“At a private dinner with the vice premier, he asked if I would be willing to start a company while everyone else was withdrawing. He told me it would be wonderful and it would look good,” she recalled.
“Did you have any doubts?” I asked.
“None. I never doubted that China would open up. The fact that they had invited me to do a TV series and lead them into the world showed that.”
“Even after the crackdown in 1989?”
“No doubts. Some even say that my program started the Tiananmen demonstrations because I showed the Chinese people the world.”23
The political turmoil worked out well for Yue-Sai, who was able to start her business on a field abandoned by many foreign retailers. Like countless firms since, she opened her first stores in Shanghai, before tackling the politically riskier ground of Beijing. In advance of setting up shops in the capital she sought the support of the powerful Women’s Federation. The wife of Li Peng, the prime minister who ordered the troops to fire on the protesters, organized a lunch of all the vice premiers’ wives to back her.
It was to prove an initiation into a rich elite that she has since helped to expand. Yue-Sai’s products were a massive hit. Cosmetics proved a gold mine, particularly in Shanghai, where women spend fifty times the national average on makeup.24 By the time she sold the company to L’Oreal in 2004, its annual revenue was $80 million. The multinational then made even more money by adding strong skin-whitening agents to their products.25
Along with a surge in popularity of cosmetic surgery to enlarge breasts, lengthen legs, and make eyes look more Western, the growth of the skin-whitening industry suggested China was moving closer to the Barbie ideal.26 Even Yue-Sai, the ambassador of consumer culture, was starting to lament that the world “was becoming all the same.” More than ten years after introducing Western cosmetics, she launched a line of dark-haired, brown-eyed Chinese-style dolls.
“I like Barbie, but I thought it was necessary to have a different doll. The idea behind it is to tell Chinese kids that you are beautiful too. The standard of beauty is not just blue eyes and blond hair. It was a revolutionary idea.”27
Unfortunately, it was also a failure. In toy shops, the doll—inevitably named Yue-Sai Wawa—proved the poor cousin of Barbie, suffering second-class display status if it made it to the shelves at all.
The same proved true of House of Yue-Sai products, which were sold only online. Faced with more market competition and less Communist Party backing, the former cosmetics maven was struggling. She partly blames declining moral standards: “The whole environment has changed because so much wealth has been made by so many people. In all nouveau riche societies, people flaunt their money. Here too. They don’t buy a bottle of wine, they buy a case. But all they really know is brand names. It takes a long time to acquire genuine style.”
That train of thought took her back to her own credentials and then the shock that someone, i.e., me, might have overlooked them. “I can’t believe you missed me last night.”
In an attempt to switch attention, I asked if she would buy a Jaguar after headlining the company’s promotion event.
The Yue-Sai cut shook from side to side. “They only offered a ten percent discount. I don’t buy for ten percent.”
It was not just this doyenne of consumer culture who was occasionally hesitant about splurging. If there was a glimmer of environmental hope in Shanghai, it was that, even here, shoppers had not yet fully embraced Western levels of consumption. Many still preferred flasks of hot tea to cans of Coke. In the big supermarkets, the average basket of goods was smaller than in the West and profit margins were lower. This thrift was not inspired by environmental concerns but by a traditional desire to live within one’s means. But that prudence was changing.
I asked Yue-Sai if she regretted her role in promoting an American consumer lifestyle in China, given what has since been learned about the fragility of the environment and the limits of the world’s resources.
The question prompted the first silence of our two-hour interview, and then just a hint of self-doubt about her influence on Chinese consumers: “I don’t want them to live like in the U.S., but I want them to have a more beautiful life. Of course, I am worried about the environment. Everyone is worried about that, but …” Another long silence.
“I can’t answer your question well. If you ask me what I am concerned about it is not resources, it is how substandard things are. With the new consumerism, everyone is trying so hard to be corrupt, to make more money. Everyone is squeezing down.”
I tried the question again, more directly.
“Do you ever wish you hadn’t helped to launch consumer culture in China?”
“No, the government wanted it. China had to open up to the world. If the government didn’t want to do it, it would never have happened. When I started working in China in the early 1980s, the leadership was great. They were visionary—”
“But they weren’t aware then of the environmental consequences as we are now,” I interjected.
“No, they weren’t … I just read an article about the Antarctic crumbling.”
“Do you think it would help to move away from a consumer lifestyle?”
“Consumerism has a good side and a bad side. The key really is to balance it.” Then she paused. “Are you blaming me?”
“No, our problems today are not the fault of any one person. There was almost no consumer culture when you started. But now, hasn’t it gone too far in the other direction?”
Another pause. “I think you are right. But it is only a small section of society,” she said. “And no matter how horrible you think China is today, you should have seen the China I saw twenty years ago. It was truly like a moonscape, totally different. In some ways, it is better now.” She pauses again. “But it is true that in other ways China is not better: the ungreening of it, the toxins, the plastic things.”
The self-doubt quickly passed. We moved on from climate change and consumer guilt and talked instead about her charity work, about celebrities, about untrustworthy business partners. Her tone was warm. I began to think she might have forgotten the shock. But then, just as I was preparing to leave, she returned midsentence to that unintended, incomprehensible, unforgettable slight.
“I am so unhappy that you didn’t see me last night.”
My social climb had hit the ceiling. The worlds of Barbie and the China Doll had converged. In Shanghai, people were under more pressure to look good, to eat expensively, to shop for self-fulfillment. Other cities would follow. The American dream had not yet been realized, but it was drawing closer. Consumption was rising conspicuously, regardless of the fashion for eco-food and green living. On the coast and in Chongqing, I had now seen how trade, industry, urbanization, and other forces of development were all geared toward endless expansion just as in the West. But the planet is a finite space. Something had to give. Where were the stresses being felt? I worked my way next toward the northwest to look at the impact on the land, the water, the air, and the people.
NORTHWEST
Imbalance
