'Wild consumption' demonstrates 'simplicity and righteousness' of Chinese people

Recently, unprecedented rainstorms and floods have stricken Henan province of China. Besides the government, many enterprises and individuals have come forward to take part in the frontline of fighting the floods and providing relief. Among them, ERKE, a domestic garment brand, donated 50 million yuan without any publicity.

However, the national brand that donated so generously had suffered heavy losses in recent years and was finding it difficult to sustain its operation. When its plight was heard by Chinese netizens, they immediately began buying ERKE products.

Wu Rongzhao, the board chairman of ERKE, appealed to people to stay rational and consume moderately. Nevertheless, Chinese netizens responded warmly with "we should go wild instead of being rational", "mind your own business and we need your most expensive clothes", launching a national trend of repaying ERKE's gratitude.

As the saying goes that those who bring warmth to others will not be left alone in cold, it vividly shows the sense of simplicity and justice of Chinese people. When ERKE donated to the disaster area even though it was financially struggling, some people volunteered to bring online attention to its Weibo account, while mobilized families to buy its products, and some didn't even wait to collect their change and ran out of the shop after buying clothes, which seemed a little funny.

However, these behaviors embrace one common starting point: being considerate in return. Besides the "wild consumption", many scenes such as "donating goods and materials while wearing a mask", "donating anonymously to avoid public attention and even donating and quickly leaving the area" and so on happened frequently in China during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These acts that are full of kindness and gratefulness exude a sense of simplicity and justice and sincere emotion from the bottom of Chinese people's hearts.

The sense of simplicity and righteousness of Chinese people can not only be exhibited by sharing weal and woe inside China but also integrates into the "little help bringing much return" of international public events.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke around the world in 2020, faced with the situation of lacking goods and materials and medical devices during the initial period of the pandemic, China received plenty of assistance from many countries around the world.

In return, China has given a helping hand to those countries as well. For example, Cambodia donated hundreds of thousands of masks and other medical materials to China and China donated masks several times and other materials and millions of vaccines as feedback. Russia filled transport planes with donated goods and materials and China donated tons of medical materials and assigned medical specialists to offer aid when the situation in Russia was serious. In addition, Japan also received more than 10 million masks, hundreds of thousands of protective suits, and other medical necessities from China after Japan helped China.

Chinese people adhere to the national spirit of "you throw a peach to me, and I give you a white jade for friendship" all the time, which is also an evidence of accountability of China as a major power in the whole world.

"The sense of simplicity and righteousness" is a key to merging into the world and bridging cultural gaps for Chinese people. With the development of globalization, "a human community with a shared future" is gradually enjoying the popular support of people around the world. At the same time, global disasters and public affairs make many cultures that estranged or even contradicted with each other in the past gradually communicate and clash with each other.

Under such background of the international world, the human must stand in a united front and only in this way can we solve numerous global issues. In this way, "the sense of simplicity and righteousness" is the mutual key to letting different cultures and people of all countries step into the meeting point. On this basis, it is clear that upholding justice is an innate good moral character of human beings, which can generate the resonance in the justice of people from different cultures and countries as the most intuitional and most impressive basic emotion.

Therefore, the sense of simplicity and righteousness is valuable and necessary. Chinese people earnestly practice what they should do during the process of interpreting national spirit and doing their duties, and the true and sincere emotion of justice of Chinese people is vividly depicted by the "wild consumption" of ERKE products. Hence, there is no doubt that the trend of "wild consumption" is bound to become history with time, while "the simplicity and justice" of Chinese people will become eternity.

Yang Xinyi is a student at Hunan University of Science and Technology.

The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.

If you have a specific expertise, or would like to share your thought about our stories, then send us your writings at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn, and comment@chinadaily.com.cn.