User:Guancong lance li/Chinese Dama

Content

The word "dama" comes from the pinyin of "大妈" in Chinese.The authoritative Chinese dictionary Xinhua Dictionary defines Dama as: (1) father's elder brother's wife (2) aunty. The term has evolved beyond its own definition as society evolves.

Activities and influence

Economic Activities and influence

Chinese damas have considerable purchasing power, and they often snap up or invest in groups, so the media declared them to be the "consumer cohort.". They have penetrated every corner of the Chinese economy and even the global economy. Gold, Bitcoin, real estate, jewelry, luxuries, and stocks are their investment targets.

What made the Chinese Dama world well-known was the Gold purchases in 2013. In April 2013, affected by the bearish situation in the gold futures market, the price of gold has plummeted, and Chinese people, mainly Chinese damas, rushed to the nearest store to buy gold. China's strong demand for gold products has reversed the dying gold market, the international gold price has stabilized significantly, and Goldman Sachs has also stopped recommending shorting gold. Although from an economic point of view, there is no causal relationship between Chinese Damas snapping up gold in physical stores and the recovery of gold prices in the international market, Wall Street realizes that Chinese Damas have become a force in the global gold market.

The super-purchasing power of Chinese damas is related to Chinese family culture. In most families in China, wives have always been in charge of family money. At the same time, Chinese damas have a herd mentality. After having idle funds, damas are more inclined to share shopping or investment information. For example, when a dama invests in gold and earns money, she can easily lead other damas to invest in gold. Although they may not understand economics or finance, many damas have sources of investment information. The super-purchasing power of Chinese damas is not an isolated case. A similar group, "Mrs. Watanabe," appeared in Japan at the economy's peak. "Mrs. Watanabe" refers to Japanese housewives who invested in overseas high-yield varieties or made foreign exchange investments. The difference is that the Chinese Dama has a larger population and more substantial purchasing power. In 2000, China's total GDP was about 10 trillion yuan, and by 2013 it rose rapidly to nearly 57 trillion yuan. The rapid growth of family wealth prompts this "consumer cohort" to grow. Besides, when damas face the pressure of large consumption, housing, education, and pension issues, they are eager to use the investment to realize wealth appreciation.

Cultural Activities and influence

Facekini designed by Shifan Zhang

Some damas maintain a pragmatic aesthetic. In Qingdao, a coastal city in China, a dama named Zhang Shifan designed the facekini in 2004 to avoid being stung by jellyfish while swimming in the sea. The facekini also has the function of sun protection. By 2017, Zhang Shifan had updated the facekini to facekini 7.0. Facekini 6.0 focuses on the ten world endangered animals like pandas and Chinese alligators and intends to promote species diversity. There has also been Peking Opera-themed facekini with traditional images of dragons, phoenixes, and peacocks, which are full of conventional solid Chinese characteristics.

Square dancing with dama as the leading participant is not only a fitness activity for middle-aged and older people but also has a wide range of cultural influences. The origins of square dancing in China can be traced back to the 1990s. With the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, millions of people lost their jobs. Square dancing while doing nothing is not only the perfect choice for low-cost fitness but also relieves anxiety. With the development of the times, China's urbanization is constantly advancing, and every city has built large and small squares as public spaces. The improvement of public space provides spatial help for the development of square dance. In 2008, in the fiery atmosphere of Beijing hosting the Olympic Games, the government launched a national fitness program to encourage citizens to exercise through square dancing in their spare time. Most of the square dance choreography mixes aerobics, simple disco, and simple Chinese folk dance. The dance movements are lively and generous, which can make it easy for beginners to get started. Damas participate in square dance not only to exercise but also to show their beauty, and through dancing, they can gain memory and happiness in their youth. In addition, the square is also a public space for damas to communicate and gain new friends. According to research, participating in square dancing is helpful to the quality of life, mental health, and well-being of middle-aged and older people. Experts suggest that it is a good way of life for the elderly to insist on square dancing for a long time.During the development of square dance, many problems have arisen. For example, a square dancing troupe is a temporary spontaneous organization lacking proper management, so issues such as noise disturbance often occur.

Marriage and Family

Since most damas are of childbearing age during the one-child policy period, the policy stipulates that urban employees will lose their jobs if they give a second birth, so urban aunts often only have one child. This phenomenon leads to a unique problem, shidu. Most families who have lost their only child will lose their focus in life and distance themselves from society. Some families will comfort each other, and some mothers who have lost their only child will choose to conceive and give birth again at 50 or 60. Yi Fuxian, the author of Empty Nests in Great Power, estimated based on census data that among the 218 million only children in China, 10.09 million will or will die before the age of 25. This also means that 10 million mothers and families have lost their only child in China.

Media coverage and entertainment

Damas have been featured on all kinds of media. In China's popular Zhao Benshan's Sketch comedy, his female partners are usually middle-aged women, commonly known as damas. The most famous actress Gao Xiumin's classic image on the stage is an austere, loud, kind, and straightforward rural dama. The rural damas are also active in the TV series Country Love, which was invested and produced by Zhao Benshan and was released in 2006, reflecting rural life in Northeast China. It is worth mentioning that, from the 1st(2006) to the 14th(2022) episode of Country Love, the images of the damas gradually changed from flat to round and more diverse. The damas were only called someone's mother at first, and then slowly, everyone had their character name. In the first few episodes, they only cooked food and did farm work for their families at home, and then gradually started their careers, such as running for women's committees, companies, and webcasts. The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (2006) by famous Chinese director Xu Anhua focuses on the love life and families of urban damas. The film observes the daily life of his aunt, Ye Rutang, from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy. Ye grew up in the metropolis of Shanghai and went to university. During the Cultural Revolution, she married a vulgar older worker in Anshan, northeast China, and then left her husband and daughter to return to Shanghai. One day, Ye met Pan Zhichang, a handsome middle-aged man, in the park, and the two soon fell in love. Unexpectedly, Pan deceived Ye of all her savings and fled. The next unfortunate thing happened one after another. In the end, Ye decided to leave Shanghai and return to Anshan to reunite with his ex-husband and daughter. The social news program All For the Masses, broadcast on January 1, 2009, invited damas to talk on behalf of the audience. In 2015, a new media account called "Beijing Dama has something to say" was created to explain the views of middle-aged and elderly women from dama's perspective and break the stereotype of dama in society. Program themes are "We don't just dance and invest in gold," "Who is actually taking care of whom?", "Let's enjoy the golden age of our life," etc. In 2021, the miniseries Got Old Recently subverted the stereotype of Damas. Two elegant damas experienced the latest trends like buying blind boxes and becoming internet celebrities. Got Old Recently shows the audience that damas keep pace with the times and are independent and trendy in the current era.

Propaganda poster of building China when dama was young

Evaluation Shift

The original meaning of data is just a neutral word without praise or criticism. Every woman becomes a dama, and every dama has a time when she is young. At present, damas are mainly retired or near-retired Chinese women born before the 1970s. This group has a distinct contemporary character. Some older damas have experienced Great Chinese Famine. Many damas have experienced the Cultural Revolution and the earliest Gaokao. Since they were young, they have been self-reliant, and they love themselves and their families. When they retire, their only child is busy with work or school due to the one-child policy, so they face psychological loneliness again. As a dama netizen wrote, in the face of various difficulties and loneliness in life, damas face it positively, such as dancing square dance together after retirement, going to the elderly university to take classes, etc. After statistics, scholars Li Linrong and Li Qianqian argued that from 2007 to 2012, the media evaluation of damas was the image of traditional Chinese women: simple, helpful, and hard-working. However, since Gold purchases in 2013, the image of Chinese Dama in the eyes of the public has been slumped. After the media amplified many individual incidents, such as dama grabbing a seat and dama jumping in line, many male Chinese netizens and some young netizens expressed their hate for the group of damas. With the awakening of women's consciousness in China in recent years, reports or literary works that demonize women's images will be resisted spontaneously by women. In addition, more and more damas have begun to bravely express themselves on various online platforms and have the right to speak. The slur on damas is gradually decreasing. Professor Teng Wei believes that the slander of damas is one of the manifestations of gender discrimination and fear of aging in Chinese society. Scholar Leung believes that the image of a group is closely related to government propaganda. The Chinese government is paying more and more attention to the physical and mental health of the elderly and the risk of population aging. Accordingly, it will guide the image of dama in a more positive direction and will link the brand of dama with national fitness and traditional culture.

Bibliography

• 李林容, and 李茜茜. "“大妈” 媒介形象的嬗变 (2007-2017)——以《 人民日报》《 南方都市报》 和《 中国妇女报》 相关报道为例." 编辑之友 11 (2018).

• Leung, Ho Hon. "14 Lifestyle Sport Identity and National Identity: Thoughts on the Chinese Government’s (re) Creation of the Dama Image." Lifestyle Sports and Identities: Subcultural Careers Through the Life Course. Routledge, 2021. 196-201.
• Rochot, Justine. "“Beijing Dama Have Something to Say”: Group Identification and Online Collective Action among Retirees in Contemporary China." China Perspectives2022/01 (2022): 33-45.