New mothers in today’s China are very likely to be seen pushing a pram while looking at their iPhone.
Nothing strange about that, you might think. But let’s back up a little.
When I moved from Shanghai to Nanjing in 2003, I brought my Apple computer with me. It was a big, bulky-silvery-grey desktop of a thing called a G4.
I’d bought it in Hong Kong a year or so prior on account Apple had yet to open stores in China.
The M.O. was not particularly sophisticated. Buy computer (cash), place in suitcase, surround with clothes, return to airport, check in.
Except all did not go entirely to plan.
Under the weight of the G4, the suitcase kind of imploded. In the middle of Nathan Road. In rush hour.
Cue bigger, better, stronger suitcase (more cash).
It survived its brush with death under the feet of commuting Hong Kongers, the Dragonair flight (miss them already) back to Shanghai, hardly a glimpse from customs (asleep) and, a couple of years later, a ride in the back of a (very local) removal company’s truck, all the way to Nanjing, to live out its days in my office on the 11th floor of Golden Eagle in Xinjiekou.
Which is where something curious happened.
My local colleagues eyed the G4 with suspicion; its proportional width fonts a complete mystery, given the box-like regime of Chinese characters. And they simply said, “Chinese People will never EVER use Apple”.
Well… Now let’s talk prams, or even worse, strollers.
When the light of my life was born, we figured (being the internationally-minded parents that we are) that we would haul her around in a pram.
But we were frowned upon, and once again, “Chinese People will never EVER do that”.
Today, those prams are often repurposed as shopping trolleys, presumably when the bairn is sleeping or sick.
They are also handy for taking the dog around so that it doesn’t muddy the floor and the bed upon the return home; god forbid it might want some exercise.
This is how ubiquitous prams have become in the nation that vowed never to use them.
The best thing about perceptions, like opinions, is that we can change them. Just as well, for without that, China would now be a very different place indeed. Otherwise, same as it ever was. Bad news.
