During the three years of the COVID pandemic,
Chinese people have been learning how to enjoy life from an entirely new perspective,
centered on maintaining and improving health in various situations
The last few decades in China has to some extent been defined by a culture of excess. So much has changed and we are now prosperous, well-fed and well-clothed, and unfortunately it has often gone to the point of overconsumption. Raised in a highly competitive society and knowing only linear economic growth, Chinese people born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s have always tended to prioritize achievement over wellness, and it is not so long ago, that there was a rash of news stories of people dying from overwork.
But the pandemic and what is shaping up as a post-virus recession has dramatically changed things. Over the past three years, many high-net-worth consumers have been homebound. Getting used to a reduction in the intensity of their work took some time, but later they found that its gave them the time and space to reconsider many basic questions, such as the meaning of life, whaty is the point of it all, and where am I going. That led in turn to the new goals being set, and the most common and crucial new goal is: “To be healthier”.
To the dismay of the luxury industry but with the the approval of their doctors, high-net-worth consumers have pivoted away from buying luxury fashion items toward enhancing their physical and mental health — although this post-virus shift is also a way for Chinese people to pursue a new model of luxury.
Health and wellbeing are of course universal concepts, but still “wellness” is a tricky concept to pin down, especially in China. There is no direct cultural equivalent for the western concept of “wellness” in China, a fact that is confused further by the existence for the past 2,000 years of an all-encompassing philosophical concept of holistic wellbeing, which overlaps with western concepts in some ways but not others. In discussions about healthy lifestyles often, the idea of “being well” used to often be dealt with simply in terms of taking better care of the body, while ignoring the crucial emotional and mental aspects of wellness.
But the advent of COVID in 2020 changed everything. Since then, consumer demand for health products and professional guidance has boomed, and younger people particularly have begun exploring new and broader ideas of how to achieve wellness by addressing stress and anxieties as part of the wellness package. They are very aware of the need to not only strive for prosperity, but also to enjoy life as much as possible, and to be as healthy as possible too. Shopping is not longer a matter of finding the latest bling-encrusted item to impress friends out on the town, it is now more about home-bound skin care, daily routines, science-driven workouts, and diets aimed at achieving longevity.
“Over the past few years, Chinese guests have become more health conscious. They want fresh and organic food, they are desperate to be close to nature, they give themselves higher health goals and they definitely do more exercise,” said Mr. Christophe Olivro, Regional Director of Aman China & General Manager of Amanyangyun. “People are trying their best to enjoy a fulfilling and healthy life, though there are many limits resulting from the pandemic.”
Wellness for the skin
The pandemic has had one very good result, the rise of a new trend in China favoring “beauty snacking”. The Chinese term “妆食同源” — meaning that or “cosmetics and food come from the same source” is trending, and it refers to a range of new snackable drinks designed to make your skin glow.
At first glance, edible skincare products might sound like a strange concept, but “beauty snacking” is very different from immunity boosting pills bought from drugstores. It amounts to a blurring of the boundaries between supplements, snacks, and professional skincare.
One example is Coca-Cola which has developed a product line called “the wakeup face” — a late-night snackable drink that promises to make consumers wake up looking beautiful. The drink is produced only for the China market, and is aimed at two different beauty trend-setting groups: people who love tonic foods and those who believe in beauty sleep rituals.
“The wakeup face” is a drink billed as a “beauty and sleep aid”. The advertising slogan for it says, “The world sleeps peacefully while you are quietly becoming beautiful”, “Stay in rest and peace and enjoy your new appearance”. And the promotional pictures show moms getting up in the middle of the night to check on their babies, workaholics staying up late to meet deadlines, and health fans worried about their wrinkles and losing their sound sleep. These scenarios don’t seem to directly related to “sleep aids”, but they all indirectly and persuasively imply that the product has the effect of improving sleep and skin beauty. Apart from Coca-Cola, a dozen or so Chinese food industry giants such as Yili and Mengniu have also launched beauty snacks underpinned by similar “food for skin” concepts.
What is interesting about this so-called new “trend” of eating one’s way towards a more harmoniously balanced body is an ancient Chinese concept. The term for tonic foods in Chinese, “食补,” literally means food for healing, and there has always been a deeply held cultural belief that specific foods improve health and skin condition. Consciously or unconsciously, it is an idea that still dominates the way Chinese believe think and act.
Grace Wu, General Manager of Le Bonta Wellness Co., Ltd and a professional spa and wellness consultant and professional speaker, has talked about the nutritional concept of the “fourth meal”, saying that “a balanced and nutritional diet comes from a diversity of foods, and dietary supplements should be used only when the daily intake is insufficient.” Based on a detailed study of Chinese lifestyles and following the traditional Chinese dietary guidelines, Grace has launched the “Fight On” brand to offer a wide range of edible options for beauty and wellness improvement, which when appropriately dosed improve absorption rates. With the lightweight, easy-to-carry and delicious nutritional “fourth meal”, Fight On provides busy modern people with a one-stop health solution for energy refueling and skin rejuvenation.
Fight On’s ranges of products are exactly what the market is looking for. Lutein Esters Drink is for white-collars who suffer from eye weariness due to high-intensity use of computers and cell phones. Dietary Fiber Solid Beverage recoups for those who fail to eat enough vegetables. The dietary fiber is tasteless and contains zero fat and can be added into any beverage. Gamma Aminobutyric Acid Beverage is good news for those who are not getting enough sleep and suffer from a dull complexion. Collagen Peptides Drink gives a burden-free option for beauty lovers of different ages …
The ongoing global pandemic has further enhanced the reputation of the tradition of eating for health. According to consumer research firm Mintel, 72 percent of Chinese urban residents are trying to improve their skin condition through a more consciously healthy diet. Even before the pandemic, sales of goji berries and cubilose, two prestige diet supplements favored by Traditional Chinese Medicine, were growing at a 37-percent annual rate among millennials shopping on JD.com, a major Chinese e-commerce site.
Wellness eating was only to some extent viewed as a source of illness prevention before COVID-19, but today it is being pitched as a positive, pleasurable way to achieve self-optimization, and the lines between snacking, skincare, and supplements are continuing to blur.
Wellness for the mind
There are not many wellness-focused KOLs on Chinese social media, but there is a wealth of content about self-soothing and self-pampering routines. In one of the most-liked videos from popular Chinese vlogger @Suji, for example, she documented a daily pampering routine for people under lockdown. First, she lit a scented candle and played relaxing music in a speaker for a luxurious bath. Then she conducted an elaborate skincare ritual that included a cleaning mask, a multi-radio-frequency skin device, a jade roller, a body exfoliator, and some essential oils. She ended by lighting a scented humidifier and putting on leg shapewear for a “beauty sleep” session. From the start of lockdowns in China, such content has done very well on social media. The hashtag #UpMyHappiness (提升幸福感) on the lifestyle platform Little Red Book, for instance, now has over 60,000 posts.
China’s luxury market is still the biggest in the world, but self-care is catching up fast. The country’s culture has long viewed open discussion of mental health issues as a sign of weakness, and in the time of Mao, those with mental health problems were often accused of lacking revolutionary zeal. Even in the days before COVID-19, talk about mental health was commonly seen as whining.
But the pandemic and its social and economic repercussions have brought China’s mental health problems to the fore. During the pandemic, post-90s millennials suffered the hugest rates of psychological problems. But they were also the first generation in Chinese history who were allowed to publicly admit to such problems and discuss them. Even the Chinese government has initiated unprecedented initiatives to help ease mental health issues in a post-virus nation plagued by psychological distress.
Yige Lin is a 28-year-old finance professional living in Shenzhen, said that for her, shopping for home and wellness items during lockdowns was a gesture of self-love. “I bought dozens of home gadgets – a facial device that targets micro-cleaning, a skin testing kit to track my hydration levels, and an expensive perfume diffuser,” she said. “I got an electric egg beater and a grill pan for the kitchen, and I also discovered the world of meditation apps. I never knew life could be like that before this crisis.”
Samantha Dunn, the Development Director of Destination Spa Management Ltd shared at SpaChina Wellness Summit this year that: “Today, consumers’ understanding, experience and expectations of wellness programs have changed significantly. They start with caring for themselves as a way of self-protection so that they can live better, and the concept of self-pampering has risen to include cooking at home, relationships, sleep, nature, economics, and finding purpose and meaning.”
Wellness for body in daily life
During this global health moment, it is not surprising that affluent Chinese consumers are becoming more absorbed in their at-home workout routines. A report released by the Chinese media outlet Yi Magazine reveals that 67% of urban respondents planned to spend more time and money on at-home exercise in the wake of the pandemic.
Jessie Pavelka, a thought-leader in wellness and the co-founder of Pavelka Wellness, said that China’s pandemic-stricken consumers are hungry for health-enhancing knowledge beyond the basics. “A recent webinar with one of our experts in China went into detail on gut health, pre- and probiotic foods, and the like,” said Pavelka. “It’s not about assuming that all people have the same understanding of health and wellness – there is really a drive to find out the science behind it.”
But the growing desire for pro-level wellness actually predates the pandemic. In 2021, the number of Chinese consumers paying for personal fitness/nutrition consultants increased 35% compared to that before the pandemic, namely three years ago.
As the post-pandemic repercussions become clearer, China’s urban residents who were previously absorbed in their work, have now woken up to issues that were invisible and unacknowledged in the past: anxiety, mental distress, insomnia, and other results of a lack of self-care. To what extent brands can capitalize on this wellness opportunity remains to be seen.
Samantha also said at the Summit that for many people, social-distancing and lockdown became a time for self-reflection on career, family and relationships, as well as deeper issues such as life purpose, gratitude, and compassion, and people begin to consider what is truly important to them. She is right. Wellness is no longer something that is done occasionally; it has become a top priority rooted in daily life.