beyondbrics

It will come as no surprise that last week’s Chinese New Year holiday was a good one for luxury goods retailers worldwide, with Chinese spending $7.2bn overseas on their much-loved luxe (up 28.6 per cent from the holiday week in 2011, according to Chinese newspapers). Within China, retail sales were up 16 per cent from last year, to Rmb470bn.

But the Chinese press, which spent much of the past week dissecting various behaviours relating to the lunar new year holiday, found that all was not bling in the spring festival sales: this year there was a tendency to rent rather than buy cars; to travel rather than buy property – and, for that matter, to travel rather than buy a refrigerator.

But for those who want to read the tea leaves of this year’s spring festival in a more fundamental way, consider these lunar new year-themed stories from the past week’s Chinese press:

* Sudden deaths from heart attacks were up this year due to spring festival drinking binges, “while exhaustion from unusually long sessions of playing cards or mahjong was also a major factor”, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. As China gets wealthier, it gets more and more alcoholic.

* According to Nanfang Daily newspaper, a father sued his sons for refusing to join him for a traditional New Year’s Eve family reunion dinner. The sons were ordered to pay their father Rmb1000 in compensation. What would Confucius say?

* And in perhaps the most interesting news of all, China Daily found that in Nanchang, capital of eastern China’s Jiangxi province, more elderly retirement home residents preferred to spend the holiday in the nursing home than in the homes of their own children, as is the Chinese tradition. “My children invited me to stay with them for Spring Festival, but I refused,” the newspaper quotes one father of three as saying. “The rest home gave us a big meal for the celebration, and I had a great time. What’s the point of having a New Year’s dinner at home and then being sent back?”

The smart investor will make sure he gets into retirement homes, moutai and heart defibrillator stocks before the next lunar new year. In China, it is hard to see ageing, alcohol consumption or heart attacks falling any time soon.

Related reading:
Luxury brands long to bond with China’s elite, FT
Can quirkiness sell in China? beyondbrics
Fungs: more European style to China, beyondbrics
Barbie says bye bye to Shanghai, beyondbrics
Selling in China: be unique or don’t bother, beyondbrics