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C Story / Yu Ting

With a plain white paper cup decorated by the raised voluntarily by Chinese entrepreneurs, stu-
wordplay “a wise man does not devote himself to dents and officials – penetrated into the life of every
love but the beautiful China belief”, a hutong cafe Chinese between 1910 and 1940.
can harvest over ten thousand posts on Little Red This national goods movement in full swing
Book, a social media and e-commerce platform. The defined a series of standards in terms of visuals,
innovative combination of traditional Chinese naming, raw materials, origin and purity of nation-
doughnuts and coffee simmered in a pressure cook- al goods. These far-reaching standards have become
er can tempt someone to fly to Shanghai just for a convention today.
fresh try. In the solemn Forbidden City, you can Since the current Chinese fad brands are an
even savor the “Emperor Kangxi’s favorite choco- extension of the national goods, these century-old
late”, which is not available anywhere else. standards can guide the design of the followers today,
Coffee, once dominated by foreign chain brands, and also enable us to identify the “real Chinese fad
is becoming a playground for domestic brands with brands” with just a glance. Take naming as an exam-
traditional cultural elements and a small stream in ple. TASOGARE, the so-called “light of national
the emerging Chinese fad wave. goods” as CCTV Finance claimed, sounds less “Chi-
We are amazed at how the youth fancy Chinese nesey” than Luckin (“Rui Xing” in Chinese). As for
fad brands, which have swept their social platform visual designs, Sexy Tea uses the image of court la-
pages and conquered their taste buds. It seems that dies, a notch above Heytea and LELECHA. However,
every young Chinese has been an urban social but- Luckin and Sexy Tea cannot be seen as first-class
terfly with strong national identity, longing for new national goods, even if we are less strict with the
stuff and knowing how to play. standards, because of their recruitment of foreign
But why Chinese fad? Why today? technicians and claim of making Chinese tea western.
Of course, China is not alone in the history of
Chinese fad 1.0 dates back to a cen- national fad. In fact, from the late colonial era to
tury ago the present day, quite a few countries have pursued
a national fad trend as a way to construct na-
In the early 20th century, once China had lost tion-state, such as India’s boycott of British goods
its independent say on tariffs after the Opium Wars, in the last century and the decision to ban Chinese
the domestic market was rife with foreign goods. Apps in recent years.
Amidst the repression, despite the absence of a Consumerism has always played an important
command center, the national goods movement – role in clarifying nationalism.

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