Rich but dumb

China...is now the third-biggest consumer of luxury goods, accounting for 12 percent of sales worldwide, up from 1 percent just five years ago, according to a recent report from Goldman Sachs. If the high living continues as expected, China will surpass Japan to become the world's second-largest purchaser of luxury goods by 2015, when it could account for 29 percent of the world's luxury sales, the report said...

Parts of Chinese culture have always been fond of money and the things it can buy. Ritualistic and traditional symbols for prosperity, such as fish, adorn almost every palace, temple, school, office building, and home. No Chinese festival is complete without paying due homage to qian, or money.

But for many Chinese the rush to buy is also driven by a profound societal need to escape from the recent past when Mao tried to turn the country into an agrarian utopia and people thirsted for simple items, such as soap and TVs.

"Money is the new god in China today," said Dr. Ding Ning Ning, director of social studies at the Development Research Center of the State Council. "People are in a selfish mood. They want to show off and be extravagant."

Some rich Chinese consumers readily confess they like to walk out of a shop knowing they've overpaid. Said Isabella Ma, 32, wife of a wealthy electronics manufacturer in Beijing: "Why be shy to confess it."