Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

292 MICHAEL PINCHES
many people have suddenly increased their spending power. There has always
been an elite and upper middle-class consumer market, but in the past it was much
more contained. Now many of the goods and services that were once exclusive to
a tiny minority are on open display to all, and while most cannot afford them, an
increasing number can. Today the practice of conspicuous consumption, once
associated principally with the elite, has widened and intensified through the
combined effect of increased social mobility and the globalisation of consumer
culture. Not only are those with new money spending it, but in doing so they are
also reconstructing their collective and individual identities and social standing.
Today Filipinos are confronted with a vastly expanded array and quantity of
consumer items. Newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts are filled with
advertisements for mobile phones, luxury condominiums, cosmetic surgery,
designer clothes, fashion accessories, washing machines, spa baths, golfing
equipment, new cars and overseas holidays. Growing numbers of people from
provincial cities and towns are going on shopping expeditions to the malls of
Manila and Cebu City. Whole planes and hotel floors are regularly occupied by
other Filipino shoppers travelling to Hong Kong, while increasing numbers of very
wealthy shoppers venture to London, Paris and New York. Meanwhile, many
thousands of Filipino overseas workers return home laden with goods purchased
in Europe, the Middle East, Japan and the United States. Even for those remaining
in the Philippines, there is a growing sense of becoming a consumer of
international fashion by shopping at boutiques, clothing and food stores with such
names as The Best of New York, Washington, Italiana, La Donna, Le Cœur de
France and the French Baker, and of being able to purchase a widening variety of
international brand names.
At the same time as those with heightened incomes increase their consumption
of foreign fashion insignia, so too is there more self-conscious promotion and
consumption of goods that are identified as Filipino. Though McDonald’s and KFC
have become popular eating places, even more popular is the local fast-food outlet
Jollibee, which many consumers proudly regard as Filipino. While Italian, Thai and
other similarly identified new foreign-food outlets are to be found in Manila’s major
shopping malls, some of the most popular new eateries feature or specialise in
particular regional cuisines. Two of the most popular upmarket restaurant chains–
Barrio Fiesta and Kamayan (eating with hands)–invoke peasant village traditions
as emblems of national identity. So too does the newly popular youth fashion store
Sari Sari, named after the small mixed-goods stores that are to be found in villages
and towns throughout the country. Similarly, among middle-income and well-to-do
households, there appears to be a significant upsurge in the consumption and
display of ‘tribal’ Filipino artefacts, and patronage of a movement to develop a
distinctly Filipino architectural style (c.f. Javellana et al. 1997). Not only is there a
substantially increased capacity for consumption among many Filipinos, but the
patterns of consumption also suggest both the desire for participation and
recognition in a world of international fashion, as well as a declaration of national
identity that is self-consciously Filipino.