One of the clichés that Singaporeans hold most dear is that their lives are a pursuit of the five ‘c’s: cash, cars, condominiums, credit cards and club memberships.
Over the last thirty years, Singapore’s PAP government has ‘delivered the goods’ to the people, and this is recognized as a prime reason for its legitimacy. Delivering the goods means expansion of consumption, of both public goods like housing, transport and health care, as well as private goods: fashion, food, films, to name just a few items in the universe of “things that can be purchased”. But how do Singaporeans consume? How is shopping used to define our place in society?
This book is a series of essays by Singaporean scholar Chua Beng Huat, one of the Asia’s leading commentators on the sociology of shopping and consumption. They are explorations of the consumption experience in Singapore, whether that be hanging out at the town centre McDonalds, riding the escalator at Ngee Ann City, or learning to look at price tags at Prada. Why do powerful women wear cheongsam? What is the symbolic significance of Peranakan food in Singapore? What do locally-made films say about class in Singapore?
This collection of essays combines clear-eyed sociological analysis and sharp observation. Singaporeans will recognize themselves in these pages, as Chua looks beyond the billboards and the TV commercials to examine how we constitute Singaporean social reality in an environment steeped in global consumer imagery.
