Nabutsee, in any country in the world, other than America perhaps, if high school girls paraded around in mature fashions, even stripper fashions, there would be a section of the community legitimately, or at least traditionally, outraged. There are some of these in China. But also in China is some sense that not only are the "outraged" segment the loudest, but there isn't really any other segment--all the rest of the people, compared to the outraged segment, are merely bewildered, possibly accepting the outraged position by default. Now expand this image to cover all the rest of the change going on in China and the whole country is more or less dazed.
I don't know if it's true, but it seems like it might be, and it suggests a leadership vacuum of some kind. Or does it? It certainly obscures, for me anyway, discussion of where the real changes are occurring and what those changes are, and thus, in a sense, who the Chinese people are.
Who are the Chinese? Qipao wearing traditionals, middle schoolers in suspenders, black suited grim-faced techocrats, brown jacketed migrant workers....? What's the dominant image these days? Who are they really?
Secretly I'm quite a fan of stripper chic for school girls, but they all come to class in jeans and sneakers, damn them.