"What other country could treat us as well as the Chinese have? They’ve loaned us money and provided us with the kind of cheap goods that let the middle class feel a little bit richer.” The author of this piece overheard a man speak those words while they were both sitting in a Wall Street coffee shop in New York City. Once the speaker found out that the author was Chinese journalist, he immediately paid for his check.

The huge television screen in New York City’s Times Square now shows promotional clips and updates about China 15 times per hour, for a total of over 300 such broadcasts per day. In other words, in the minds of U.S. citizens, China is no longer simply associated with images from movies like Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum, but rather is increasingly becoming known as one of the primary economic powers in the world. Indeed, a U.S. national survey recently discovered that 34% of Americans are interested in China and feel that it is an important country, as compared to 6% for France, 11% for Germany and Italy, and 17% for England.

Seattle architect Stan Tesco must be among the more sympathetic individuals around. For the past two years, his company has been continuously contracting with Shanghai real estate developers to design high-end facilities for wealthy neighbourhoods of large, American-style homes. Some of these contracts have involved sums of 50 to 100 million Yuan. Tesco believes that the Chinese urban real estate market is in an unending race against time; his own firm was initially selected after some Chinese developers’ consultants quickly glanced at a resort his company had designed in Palm Springs, California. Apparently they liked what they saw, because Tesco’s firm was handed the plans to a massive project soon thereafter.

Tesco’s small-scale 17-person architecture firm is just one of the many such American firms profiting off of China’s rapid economic development. Nonetheless, his little firm has been ceaselessly designing skyscrapers, American-style mansions and up-scale apartments in China to the specifications of Chinese developers. In the economically precarious times that have persisted in the U.S. for the past two years, companies like Tesco’s architecture firm have been more than a little grateful to China for the boost. But not only that, many architects also feel that Chinese customers are superior to their U.S. counterparts: they are less picky, and are more likely to accept challenging architectural designs, especially when it comes to upscale, luxury projects. In fact, it sometimes seems as if Chinese developers will agree to any architectural idea or concept, so long as the plan comes from a foreign architect. Most importantly though, Chinese developers are much more willing to shell out the cash needed to get some of these outlandish projects off the ground.

In response to this phenomenon, Columbia University sociology professor Charles Armstrong said that, even though Americans are now interested in all aspects of Chinese culture and society, including Chinese characters, painting and even parenting techniques, they are most fascinated with the jet-setting lifestyles of China’s super-rich.

“Looking at the world today, it is already very different from how it was several decades ago,” said Professor Armstrong. “And although the American attitude towards China’s recent rise is very complex, this transformation in attitude is not merely the result of changes in economic strength.”

In the United States, wealthy Chinese are proud of their success and not afraid to flaunt it. Arriving in the U.S. for a short stay, they will buy a mansion on Long Island in New York without a second thought. Many of them are often surprised to see the narrow lanes that run through Wall Street, or the small buildings that dot Washington, D.C. Consequently, among the Chinese super-rich it is not uncommon to feel that many Chinese cities are already superior to anything found in the U.S. Of course, what they haven’t realized is that the United States was not built in a day. Only thirty years ago these Chinese nouveau riche were crowding onto public busses and working from dawn ‘til dusk, hurrying down muddy roads with nothing but a dream in their hearts. They are a generation who has only just become rich, while the U.S. has been wealthy for many generations.
 

Source: huanqiu.com
 

Related links
Is America Crumbling as China Grows?
Online Opinion of Chinese on America and its Relation with China
Who Lives Better Life? A Conversation between Chinese and American

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