Fanny Fang (wf646)
Trendy shops in Shanghai
As a critical part of a city, local shopping streets exist everywhere and play the communication path for different cultures. People with the same or different cultural backgrounds living in the same street exchanged their life habits and formed a unique cultural atmosphere by daily performances. Local streets contributed to the diversity of a city from different aspects.
In this chapter, the authors mentioned a few factors that strongly influence the local street’s ecosystem. One of them is the media image. “Social media reinforce the image of a successful street and contribute to its ‘branding’” (Global Cities Local Streets, P19). Indeed, social media today became the most important way for new shops to attract customers. Rather than eat at a nearby restaurant, people today prefer to discover new restaurants by searching on social media. People read and post reviews on Yelp, Instagram, and Facebook about every shop they liked or disliked. For the young generation, taking photos and post reviews of new shops that they discovered became part of their social life. In China, young people prefer to use social media more localized, like RED and Dianping. Shopkeepers also pay a lot of attention to the reviews related since those reviews are closely related to their business.
Anfu Road and Wukang Road are two famous trendy streets in Shanghai; both of them have been reviewed as a must-go street for tourists. As a typical example of a street that concluded a large number of “ABCs of gentrification (art gallery, boutiques, and cafes),” both Anfu Road and Wukang road attracts more investment and customers every day. However, because of its popularity online, shop owners tend to have similar aesthetics, and shops are also in similar decoration style.
Fine café is such a trendy restaurant on Anfu Road, a restaurant that offers brunch, afternoon tea, and dessert. The restaurant opens from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, but customers usually began to line up at 10:30—10:45 in the morning, and customers keep coming in the following hours. The average waiting hour for a group of two is one to one and a half hours. It seems to become part of the young people’s life—lined up for half an hour to three hours and taking photos for the next post on social media.
Not only these kinds of new fashion shops can be trendy online, but the traditional shops also get the chance of ‘rebirth’—when those shops have been recommended online, more customers will come and became new trendy shops.
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