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Factors influencing luxury-product purchase behavior of young Indian and Chinese consumers

Factors influencing luxury-product purchase behavior of young Indian and Chinese consumers

Luxury products have enjoyed huge sales growth in Asia in recent decades, particularly due to economic growth in India and China. Although luxury product sales represent a strong indicator of economic confidence among consumers, few studies have focused on this topic in an Asian context. In other words, most studies of luxury-brand purchase behavior have focused on Western cultural contexts, and therefore the applicability of their findings to Asian contexts may be limited. To close this important research gap, this study focuses on cultural differences between young Chinese and Indian consumers in terms of their purchase behaviors toward luxury products because India and China continue to be two major markets for luxury products in Asia. Previous findings show that Chinese consumers’ perceptions are increasingly reflecting those of Western consumers. That is, studies have found Chinese consumers to be more individualistic and hedonistic than Indian consumers. Based on these insights, this study assesses whether these findings can be extended to young consumers’ purchase of luxury products in India and China. According to the results, young Indian and Chinese consumers favorably view luxury products, and there was no significant difference. Both young Indian and Chinese consumers highlighted their self-satisfaction as the most important factor influencing their decision to purchase luxury products, and there was no significant difference between these two groups.

Shuilin Wang, Yuwen Lin, Xiaolin Qi, Zihan Lin

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For now she knows

Even as the sudden idea of leaving forever and not returning felt good, it didn’t bring the complete sway of relief that she longed to soar away with. She had heard often enough of the feeling called liberation except now she waited for her definition of it.

It had been terrific, she had been happy. She did things and they knew who it was for. Words were abundant, even though she could have done without them.  He was beyond the representation of a handsome saviour and she fit into his world like a dream. It was so close to perfect, she had never had the time to decide what she’d do if it stopped making sense someday. It was just not imminent. And when exactly did this happen? Was it when she had stopped waiting for him? Or that one time when she asked him to let her be? Or was the cognizance of her weakening conviction for everything she had once stood for, the tipping point? When did he cease to be the liberator and became everything except that?

She didn’t pretend to know the answers.

The uncertainty of the first few days, the deliriousness she would experience each time he was around, the efforts she would go through for looking perfect, and all these thoughts made her double up with resentment. Her mind kept replaying for her the times she would unthinkingly dismiss every other plan to sit and just endlessly think about him. He loved her and she knew that alright. He would every now and then appreciate her a little less but he knew how to more than make up for it when he eventually did. He kept her preoccupied. He made her care less about every other thing she had previously been engaged with. And slowly he became everything. He became what defined her and her life. . It wasn’t so much about who or how he was as it were about what he had altered her to become.

It somehow didn’t seem right anymore. Was it actually that beautiful before or had she been blinded by love, as they say.

Leaving would mean she didn’t have the courage to face things she had forged herself. To let something grow infinitely and provide for every tad of its creation only to turn around and find a tumour. An inane growth fashioned with pointless memories and unworthy sacrifices. Two faces of a coin? Or that plants rot with over sprinkling of water?

Excess of everything? Harmful. Who didn’t know that? But the simplest of things elude us when we need wisdom the most. Not too long ago, she had mistook it to be a galactic occurrence, for its not every day that two wandering souls fit into each other with a clank loud enough for the heads to turn and marvel at the aura, the beauty and the sheer electricity. She was too dazzled to notice others. She was too elated to know what she knew now; the world was full of people like her. And now she stood gobsmacked at a distance to despairingly watch her thunder stolen. She, for the want of her dignity, would put up an impervious, unrattled front for God knows how long. But, need I tell you that there’s really no ground beneath her feet?

Student: Khawla Zainab

Culture through my eyes: Marriage in the Context of Chinese Filial Piety Culture

Culture through my eyes: Marriage in the Context of Chinese Filial Piety Culture

Filial piety culture is a traditional culture in China. It originated from Chinese folk customs and has been practiced by the Chinese society from the past to the present. Filial piety is a virtue of respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors, it means respect and obedience in general.
The influence of Chinese filial piety culture on people is deeply rooted, for both the elderly and the young. So in today’s marriage issues, when children and parents have different opinions, conflicts arise between them. For example: children don’t want to get married, but parents and relatives feel it is necessary to form a family when they are old enough. In China, you can often hear people complain about being urged by parents to marry and give birth to children. This is not only a conflict in love, but also in culture. It’s a conflict that inevitably occurs in this culture, which also happens in many other areas, but I think the part about marriage is the most common and the most controversial.
People usually have different ideas or choices about this issue, and the root causes of their choices are the main research direction of this project.

Most people think that Chinese filial piety culture is the right thing, but their definition of filial piety culture is not the most primitive. They talk about respect, care, company, listening. They have removed the parts that have no practical significance, such as lying on ice to ask for carp and burying the son to save the mother in the story of 24 filial piety. filial piety was seen as the basis for an orderly society, together with loyalty of the ministers toward the ruler, and servitude of the wife toward the husband.
Most people put family first and think that family education has the most influence on her. When they have conflicts with their parents, most people choose to avoid positive conflicts, avoid communication to a certain extent, and follow their own ideas, which may lay hidden dangers for the future.
Influenced by the doctrine of the mean in China, the answers given by the participants seem to be very safe. They all have the most perfect parents and perfect families. Of course, we all know that the reality can’t be as peaceful as this. I can often hear people complaining about being urged to marry by their parents and being asked to have children early. Parents usually say, “when I have energy, they can help you take care of your children, or let me have grandchildren before I die. “They stand at the highest point of morality and exert pressure on their children. Children can not face such a request, it will be considered unfilial by all.
One of the subjects, Niko’s answer, inspired me: she mentioned that parents’ interference with adult children stems from the habit of helping their children make all the decisions and arrange everything when they were young. Maybe we should let our parents see that we have independent ability to take care of ourselves, so that they can rest assured and let us make our own decisions.
Tan Hong used her experience to tell me that any relationship needs to be managed, and any relationship needs to be maintained, including between parents and children, and between husband and wife.
In my opinion, parent-child relationship is essentially a relationship between people and should not be specialized or even superior to other interpersonal norms.
The word “filial piety” endows parents with a natural moral commanding point, which is essentially the poison of feudal thought. Under this concept, children’s natural altruistic and reciprocal behavior is misinterpreted as “filial piety”, and all the “disobedient” behaviors of children are regarded as “unfilial”, and the general rules of interpersonal communication are all invalid, resulting in either blind obedience or resentment. Many family conflicts arise from it. So you don’t have to fetter yourself with any thoughts. It’s natural for parents to raise their children and their children to support their parents. But in addition, you are still an individual and a person. You should be able to make your own decisions, have the courage to insist on your own decisions, and be responsible for your own decisions. Parents and we have the grace of birth, but also can only accompany us for a period of time, we must have the ability of self-determination, in order to have a foothold in society.

Wenshan Wang

AI + Transportation

AI + Transportation

Traffic pollution contributes to a large part of environment pollution, such as air pollution (greenhouse gas and road dust emission) and noise pollution. In urban aeras, traffic is one of the major sources of air pollution, which significantly affects our life. However, with the unprecedented development of artificial intelligence (AI), transportation is revolutionized, pollution can also be reduced. Signal control, navigation, and autonomous vehicle (AV) are several fields in transportation that are most related to our life and have already been cooperated with AI.
Traditional signal control uses fixed signal plan, which means that the duration and offsets of lights will be constant. Although fixed timing plan is stable and works for the most scenarios, it fails in some scenarios like congestion because it cannot change based on various traffic states. However, as AI can be involved, real-time signal control is possible. Real-time signal control changes light duration and offsets based on current traffic state and thus can be adaptive and flexible to resolve congestion. Google in 2021 launched a project that uses AI in signal control to make traffic lights more efficient. Apart from AI controlled signal that reduces congestion, AI also helps to navigate drivers (ie. Google map navigation) and then reduce congestion in one region. When detecting high traffic volume or density in one region, AI can propose different routine plan for nearby drivers such that traffic flow can be divided and balanced to prevent congestion. Faster traffic flow and less congestion reduces fuel usage and air pollution.
With the deployment of intelligent signal and navigation, the development of AVs can be accelerated. Since AV is controlled by computer, it accelerates and brakes smoother, which makes fuel uses more efficient and reduces energy consumption. Ideally, after all vehicles become AVs, vehicles together with signal and navigation can be fully controlled by AI, efficiency will be optimized, and congestion will be minimized.
With all the benefits of AI being said, the application is still challenging. Unlike classifying an image where making mistake is tolerable, any mistake in real-world application may be fatal, such as turning on the wrong signal light or failing to recognize a pedestrian in AV. Therefore, computer scientists and traffic engineers are still seeking better AI tools to accomplish cleaner and faster traffic.

CHENHAO ZHANG