Europe vs. China: Different Time, Different Universes, Different Rhythms (Part 2)

Europe’s Art of Uselessness vs. China’s Practical Usefulness

In my last post, I mentioned that Europe and China are living in different time spaces, with a roughly 20-year gap in digitalisation. This week, I turn to a different universe: aesthetics versus practicality.

First: Lesson learned

Small revelations in a vintage Paris hotel taught me that being unconcerned with making every inch of space useful leaves room for what truly matters.

It began with a vintage hotel where I stayed in Paris. The first hotel I booked online felt like a dormitory on campus, small, dark, and boxy, with a window but no view. Considering it was my first time in Paris, I was hugely disappointed when I arrived late, but too exhausted to change. After returning from Bordeaux, I decisively moved to a vintage hotel in the 2nd arrondissement, which promised that I could live like a true bourgeois Parisian during my short stay.

It turned out to be the best decision I made in Paris. An extra €50 per night bought a quintessential Parisian experience. The hotel manager assured me it was a beautiful room as he handed me an old-fashioned key. He was true to his word. The first thing I saw upon opening the door was a large, elegant window, framed by verdant plants growing vibrantly in the air, with mansard zinc rooftops as the backdrop, instantly transporting me to the 19th century. As I stepped into the room, the afternoon sunlight permeated the space, bathing it in a warm yellow glow. Stunningly beautiful. Very Parisian.

Photo by the author in a Paris vintage hotel

The next two nights were full of small revelations. There was no large television mounted on the wall facing the bed. No electric kettle to boil hot water to comfort my fragile Chinese stomach with a universal belief, perhaps, that Chinese people are obsessed with hot water and hot food wherever they go. The shower had no door, only a curved wall that subtly enclosed the space.

As a Chinese guest, my first reaction was mild irritation. None of this felt convenient. I missed hot tea, and I had to mop up the wet floor with a used towel after every shower. I could almost hear my parents grumbling in my head. Yet after lingering in the room long enough, I found myself slipping to the French side, beginning to appreciate their philosophy of la sobriété, a deliberately measured sense of sufficiency.

Who really needs a monstrous screen on the wall when a sufficiently beautiful window offers a glimpse into real Parisian life, unfolding quietly in the alley below or the building opposite? What, after all, is the true value of an expensive flight and accommodation if my eyes are glued to a screen rather than a window? The electric kettle, too, would have betrayed the room’s carefully curated retro calm, which seemed designed to invite guests to slow down and simply be. And perhaps the shower’s curved wall was indeed more elegant without an extra door interrupting the space.

In the end, I found myself more than satisfied with every detail.

Suddenly, I realised that I had stepped into a different universe of values, one shaped by a fundamentally different relationship between practicality and aesthetics.

My stay in this vintage hotel made me admire how the French, and Europeans more broadly, seem unconcerned with making every inch of space useful or constantly stimulating the brain and the eyes. Instead, they remove all excess, anything thorny to the gaze, out of sight, no matter how “useful” it may be, leaving behind blankness for what truly matters, and for what they believe to be genuinely beautiful and worthwhile.

I truly admire this.

Second: A Different Universe, Built on Usefulness

Being useful is the premise upon which the Chinese are raised, deeply hardwired into the culture and environment they live in.

In China, by contrast, “being useful” has long been valued above simply “being pretty.” 中看不中用, pleasing to the eye but useless, was something I was raised to avoid. At school, I was taught to become useful to the people, society, and the country. At home, I learned to measure everything in terms of its value, often defined by how useful it could be. As I grew up, nearly every choice I made, consciously or subconsciously, followed this criterion.

It is therefore unsurprising that when it comes to consumption behaviour, value, quality, and price are among the most frequently cited keywords in authoritative consumer reports on Chinese consumers. According to the 2025 Asia Lifestyle Consumer Profile Report by Bluebell, Chinese consumers consistently rank highly in their sensitivity to the quality–price value equation compared with consumers in other Asian markets. Meanwhile, Jing Daily recently describes Chinese Gen Z as “value-driven mega spenders.”

What does this mean culturally? How does a product or service come to be perceived as “high value”?

From my observations, beneath the notion of value lies a clear ruler for measurement: usefulness. This criterion is closely associated with tangible, practical qualities, precisely because they can be measured and quantified, reassuring rational, pragmatic consumers that every penny counts.

In recent years, we have witnessed a growing number of Chinese brands catching up with, and in some cases surpassing, Western brands in sales and overall performance, across categories ranging from EVs to home appliances and beauty. Their success cannot be oversimplified as a by-product of the Guochao movement. As some of the most practically minded consumers in the world, Chinese consumers do not purchase products merely because they look good or because they are “Chinese.”

They spend when products deliver strong value at an affordable price.

This practical approach to consumption is unlikely to fade. On the contrary, it will become even more entrenched in purchasing decisions as economic growth slows and consumers grow increasingly mindful of how every penny is spent.

Third: A Slow Transition from Usefulness to Uselessness

Meanwhile, some very perceptive brands are beginning to disrupt the deeply entrenched belief that usefulness alone defines value, a disruption that has helped nurture the rise of the “emotional economy.” At its core lies a mindset shift, deeply embedded in China’s social and cultural fabric, marking a gradual transition from practicality to aesthetics, and from usefulness to uselessness.

Long conditioned to be practical, many Chinese are starting to realise that usefulness does not resolve the pressures of everyday life; it often amplifies them. To be constantly useful is to live in a perpetual state of effort, one that intensifies involution rather than alleviating it. As the economic engine slows down, disrupting the social dynamics that once drove relentless growth, the yearning for respite from a life and society that demand constant performance, productivity, and efficiency becomes stronger.

In this context, “being useless” takes on new meaning. Unlike usefulness, which demands continuous exertion, uselessness invites winding down, relaxation, and enjoyment. It represents a collective social call for unwinding. As a result, Chinese consumers are increasingly willing to pay for experiences over products, and to pay a premium for toys, pets, and travel, especially among adults, despite the long-standing warning captured in the saying 玩物丧志(“losing ambition through play”).

This helps explain why Pop Mart has surged in value by selling toys that are functionally “useless” yet emotionally powerful. At the same time, toy brands such as Jellycat have made a splash by tapping into consumers’ craving for soft, comforting, furry companions.

Credit: Jellycat / Xiaohongshu

Fourth: A Consumption Dichotomy - Saving on Usefulness, Splurging on Emotional Uselessness

This spending pattern has evolved into a clear dichotomy. On one hand, Chinese consumers calculate meticulously, saving every possible penny in non-discretionary categories. On the other hand, they do not hesitate to splurge on toys, pets, or experiences that deliver joy and affection,  purchases that soothe intensely pressured, anxiety-ridden minds and help fill the emotional void created by a system in which people often feel reduced to something less than human, trapped in an involution they resent yet cannot escape.

How far this shift will evolve into a broader cultural phenomenon or crystallise into a new philosophical framework shaping China’s social and economic trajectory remains an intriguing topic in the years to come.