Listen "To Be Rich is Glorious: A Short History of Showing off Wealth in China"
Episode Synopsis
A group of young women in Shanghai group-bought luxury bags and booking rooms at five-star hotels just to take photos and pass them off as their own purchases on their WeChat feeds. Netizens mocked them as “fake socialites. Young men are doing something similar. A more humble bragging is, for example, complaining the new Lamborghini your husband gifted to you is "too ugly." The girl who started this traces its origins to the Japanese manga The Rose of Versailles, a story based on the flashy Bourbon Dynasty. In ancient China, competition on flaunting upper class lifestyle and taste was once a fad among the elite group. It finally led to the fall of dynasties and powerful political families during that period.
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