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KeIth MorrIson author and Educationist -
kmorrison.iium@gmail.com
Evil incorporated
macau’s EvEr-Expanding numBEr of Brand goods shops pandEr to thE unthinking
appEtitEs of pEoplE with morE monEy than sEnsE - or rEsponsiBility
here is a wonderful couplet in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth
Night’, where Orsino is wishing for the food of love:
“Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.’’
For me it sums up so eloquently the situation in Macau,
except that, even though the surfeit is there, the appetite does
not seem to sicken. Take a stroll round Macau’s major indoor
tourist sites, hotels and casino venues, and you cannot but be
struck by the excessive number of shops selling brand goods.
at the latest count, there are some 400 brand good shops
in Macau, many of the leading international brands have up to
three retail outlets in different shopping malls across the territory.
I used to think that the whole point of a brand item was not
only its alleged guarantee of quality but its rarity and exclusivity.
But now, like belly buttons, everyone has one, and, let’s face it,
one belly button looks remarkably like the next.
The list of luxury items is seemingly endless: Bags, clothes,
shoes, ties, leather goods, jewellery, perfume, watches,
electronics, cameras, and on and on, and on.
If I had to compile a list of the things that I like doing least,
then, like the male stereotype, shopping is so low that it would
not even reach the tail end of my list. So, if I am a like-minded
tourist, what am I supposed to make of the monstrous array of
brand good shops, and what I am to do when I want something
To call brand items “goods” is an insult to the word; why
other than gambling, shops or something to eat?
not call them an “evil”, or “marketing gone bananas”, or
how pitiful that tourists – and locals – run for the new uniform
“runaway dystopic materialism”, or “collective duping of
from this brand clothes shop or that bag shop when new stock
clones or drones”, or “gullibility incorporated”, or, better still,
is announced. Standardised uniform goods for standardised
simply what they are: clothes, bags, shoes or whatever?
uniform minds.
I find brand goods shops an utter bore. Give me a family-run or “gullibility incorporated”, or, better still, simply what they are:
business any day, where you are valued and where you help clothes, bags, shoes or whatever?
the family to keep going by buying goods from them rather than Is it really the best that Macau can do? What makes it even
propping up a multi-million dollar corporate chain. more pathetic is that this is exactly what the tourists and some
The branding and sanitisation of surfeit in Macau, is, as the locals want; like Pavlov’s dogs, they are conditioned to salivate.
poet Yeats wrote: ‘tragedy wrought to its uttermost’. It’s very living with excess has become Macau’s new societal opiate.
sad to see people clamouring for this or that latest brand good The city exemplifies the disturbing chiasmus: the excess of
as though their very existence depended on it. Too much of branding is the branding of excess. Macau’s affordable excess
the world is wasted by greed, is starving and diseased, lacks for some masks its grinding poverty for others: pensioners
basic sanitation, exploits the already-exploited, globalises to living on less than MOP2,000 a month; the elderly unable to
serve corporate interests, is prey to rampant consumerism and afford proper care, housing or health services; families living in
unbridled materialism. Yet visitors and locals just think about the overcrowded squalor; parents in quiet rage or despair; children
latest brand good. and adults with special needs unable to receive the help they
To see tourists – or Macau citizens, and, particularly sad, need; unemployed with no hope of a job; people with no sense of
the youth of Macau – rushing to check out or buy the latest a future.
expensive item in an acquisitive, grabbing society is shocking. We call ourselves an international entertainment centre; is
like Seneca’s Vedius Pollio, I would throw them into a pool of the excess of branded goods in Macau really entertainment, or
lampreys, to see how they like having their blood sucked from simply pandering to the unthinking appetites of those with more
them. money than sense or responsibility?
To call brand items “goods” is an insult to the word; why not The only sign of any redemption here is that, on a recent walk-
call them an “evil”, or “marketing gone bananas”, or “runaway round check, many of the brand good shops were either empty or
dystopic materialism”, or “collective duping of clones or drones”, almost empty. Perhaps things aren’t so bad after all . . . . Not!
March 2010
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