Young people in Western countries in particular have always come up with ways to shock their parents, for example with their clothing or by decorating their bodies in some very inventive ways. But are Chinese youngsters as rebellious as their counterparts in the West? As far as fashion trends go, the days when everybody dressed in Mao suits are at least long gone, says Beijing correspondent Thomas Rippe.

Have you made note of any particular trends in how people dress or decorate themselves in Beijing?

Yeah, well a lot of trends of course are determined by climate. It's cold, and so it's winter trends right now. And the other thing is that I tend to notice more fashion trends on girls. And I don't know if that's because girls in Beijing are more fashion conscious than the boys, or because I spend more time looking at the girls. But the big thing for the girls here in the winter are very large leather boots - usually almost up to the knee, or a lot of times, actually, over the knee. And also the Ugg boots that have gone all over the world, which I'm not a big fan of. So, lots of boots. And in the summertime in Beijing the girls were all wearing very very short shorts. And they still wear them in the wintertime, but they wear them over a pair of tights. And then with the boots. So it's like boots, tights and shorts for the girls. And sort of like these very puffy looking jackets. Probably not a down jacket. The outside is almost like a plasticy shiny look to it. It's not a standard nylon down jacket. It's more almost like a vinyl shiny puffy jacket.

What about the boys, then?

The thing you see on guys more than anything else is not so much what they wear, but the hair! Most of the people going to hair salons and working there at that, are men. The girls mostly seem to leave their hair more or less natural. You don't even see that many girls with dyed hair. And when you do see dyed hair, it's more often than not on older women. Older ladies get their hair permed and they'll leave it sort of black and then add highlights in some strange color like red or blue or purple or something. But the younger girls mostly seem to keep their hair more or less natural. The guys get bizarre crazy permanents done, so they have weird curly things going on. Or they get their hair cut so that it's long in some places and short in other places, with chunks of hair sticking out in different directions. Which seems to be almost like they're trying to look like the Japanese cartoon character, The Dragonball. And you see a lot of the Chinese pop stars doing the same thing as well. Also a lot of Chinese pop music is strongly influenced by Japanese and Korean pop music. So, there's weird chunks of hair sticking out. And this is the guys. I think the girls tend to have a more natural hair thing.

What about their clothing?

The main thing you see on guys are these big, heavy parkas. They all look like they are going on some sort of polar expedition. The other thing about fashion in Beijing that you have to understand is that, like anywhere else, it costs money to keep up with fashion trends. And the ability of Beijingers to do that varies widely. There are people in Beijing with a lot of money and you can spot them on the train. Well, a lot of them aren't even on the train. You spot them in some of the higher end shopping districts. And then there are people like those just to the west of where I live, which is where many of Beijing's migrants live, and they've got nothing. And they tend to mostly dress in army surplus. That's the cheapest stuff that you can buy, and it's warm. So, there's a very wide range in Beijing. Much wider there than I would say you would see in a lot of other cities that have larger, more established middle classes. The middle class in Beijing is still relatively small. So the number of people who are able to pay attention to fashion and trends is still kind of limited.

You were in China for the first time in 1995. Is the change in people's standard of living visible from the outside?

Yeah definitely! I mean when I was here in 95 you still saw a lot of people that were wearing the old communist worker's clothes. Like the navy blue jacket and pants. And also a lot of people buying the army surplus stuff, which was still cheap, easy to wear stuff. And at that time, it was funny because they were just starting to get to have access to other kinds of clothes in other colors And they went after color with a vengeance! And so, a lot of the stuff you saw back then, especially on the women was really gaudy! Really, the colors were almost painful: So much really intense bright color and bright patterns and everything was just shockingly bright. It's much more subdued now in terms of the fashion trends and much closer to a sort of an international standard. And there are definitely a lot more people that are able to participate in fashion trends. And almost never anymore do you see people wearing the old worker's stuff. The old communist worker's stuff. Every once in a looong while in Beijing you'll see some of the old people that still wear the old navy blue worker uniforms, but it's pretty rare.

What types of sub-cultures can you distinguish in Beijing?

So they're not deliberately sending any signals by the way they dress?

Most girls prefer to keep their hairstyles natural-looking. (Image: Radio86)Well, they are! They're definitely sending signals. But it's more a kind of a signal that ”I can afford to dress this way!” That's definitely a big one. And there are certain things you'll see, like the way most people dress. It's a much more urban sort of fashion. If I compare Chinese fashion to American fashion, a lot of Americans, even in the cities - if you have some connection to a smaller town some place - tend to wear blue jeans and khakis. And this outdoor look is quite fashionable in the USA. And that doesn't happen as much in Beijing. It's a much more metropolitan, much more urban sort of fashion. But there is starting to come a such trend now. They look like they're about to go climb a mountain some place. Also with hiking boots. You look like you're about to go climb Mt. Everest. They're not like a casual boots you'd be wearing in the city or somewhere else. These are actually sort of like trekking shoes that you should be wearing out on a mountain some place. You can tell that they're actually not going anywhere. They're just walking around with these things in the middle of the city. So, this sort of outdoor western thing and some of the brands like The North Face are trying to break into the Chinese market. And they've picked up a few people that are willing to wear this stuff. So you do see certain different things, but it's not the same kinds of signals you would think of... It doesn't function the same way in China. It's not that you're trying to identify yourself as a person who's interested in one thing or the other. It's mostly that you're identifying yourself as someone who can afford these clothes. More than anything else.

I also noticed a lot of copies of those outdoor brands being sold on the fake markets

Yeah, and some of that is for the tourists that come in from Western countries looking for cheap stuff. The Chinese are starting to get into that stuff, but it's a newer trend. But it's not very broadly spread just yet.

What about the nightlife? Do the girls dress up in a sexy way when going out?

It kind of depends again on where you're hanging out. There are certain bars of course where the girls are there and they're looking for men. And there are definitely bars where they're looking for the Western businessman who are in town. So, there's that, and those girls will dress up in a certain way. You can spot quite easily who's there for that purpose. The other thing too is that the Chinese still haven't gotten that into a Western style nightlife. There are plenty bars around Beijing, but a relatively small percentage of people hang out in bars. The Chinese, when they drink, they usually go to a restaurant and eat and drink there, sitting in their normal clothes. So, this idea of getting dressed in a special way to go out to a club, it exists here, but it's a small thing. If you have people going to a club that plays like Top 40 dance music like Beyoncé and whatever, they watch MTV and see how people dress on music videos, so they'll dress more or less the same way. If you're in just sort of a regular bar they would more just dress the way that they normally dress.

But talking about fashion, one of the strangest trends that I have noticed with younger kids - mostly high school or college kids - and more girls than guys but I've seen guys doing it. They wear plastic eyeglass frames with no lenses in them. Just the frame. Just a cheap plastic frame. And that's it. No lenses. Which I think is one of the stranger fashion things that I've seen here. So, I think is really strange.

What about tattoos? Do they get tattoos?

Yeah they're starting to. I know a couple of my Chinese friends have a fair number of tattoos. But it's still not that big of a thing. But it seems more acceptable here than, for example, when I was in Japan, where tattooing was associated with organized crime, with the Yakuza. Certain bath houses won't let you in if you're tattooed in Japan. They are much more taboo in Japan. Here people don't seem to care very much. It's just something that kids are kind of starting to do. You don't see it very much. And you don't see a lot of piercings either. But in Japan, you'd see piercings and lots of intense hair dying projects going on. But there's not much of that here. It's just the weird glasses thing here.