Shen Yiran has no idea on how her monthly income was gone, if her mother didn't ask her to write down on a notebook each penny she spent.

Working in a public relations company in Beijing, Shen earns a decent monthly income of around 6,000 yuan (726 US dollars) after paying the income tax. She has worked for five years and has no family burden. However, she has no savings at all.

Each month, Shen, 27, spends more than 1,000 yuan (121 dollars) on taking taxes, another 1,000 yuan on attending get-together parties with friends. And she lavishes the rest money on brand-name cosmetics, fashion clothes and shoes.

She is always looking forward to the coming of the pay day, as she cannot make ends meet, with piles of bills awaiting to be paid at the end of each month.

Shen is just one of the Chinese youths, who dare to spend "tomorrow's money" on luxury goods in the name of living a "quality life". They are so-called "Yueguangzu" in Chinese, meaning that they spend all they earned each month without saving a penny.

A survey on luxury-goods consumption which covered 1,289 internet surfers in Shanghai, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces showed that 68.8 percent of the respondents said they are willing to buy brand-name goods, and 56.7 percent said they had the experience to save money for buying such sort of products.

The respondents' average annual per capita expenditure on extravagant goods stood at 22,063 yuan (2,268 US dollars), said the survey.

Another survey claimed that the number of big-spenders in China now accounts for 13 percent of the country's total population, with majority of them aging below 40.

Sun Shijin, a professor of the psychological research center with the Shanghai-based Fudan University, said,"The lifestyle of the Yueguangzu shows that they have confidence in the future."

An investigation targeting urban youths revealed that 57 percent of the respondents "dare to consume with tomorrow's money", and only 48 percent said "they don't want to be troubled by debt issue."

Xiao Yu, a software engineer in a Shanghai-based company, bought a digital camera, a notepad PC and other luxury-goods through online shopping and installment, despite that he has worked for only two years since graduated from the college.

"All these things are what I want to buy in the future. Why shouldn't I enjoy them in advance through credit consumption?" he said.

Professor Sun said,"Generally speaking, the Yueguangzus are well-educated and have a decent job. They are eager to be accepted and respected by the society."

So they like to put on a 10,000-yuan (around 1,200 US dollars) suit, use brand-name suitcases, high-quality cosmetics and jewelry to make themselves look differently and successfully, even if they had to borrow money from banks, he said.

Some Chinese youths buy luxury goods just for show-off as they are afraid of losing face or feeling embarrassed if friends or colleagues have this sort of luxury-goods.

A survey on urban citizens' family debt conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that family debt ratio has reached 122 percent and 155 percent in Beijing and Shanghai respectively. And the ratio stood at 90 percent in some medium-sized cities, such as Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Qingdao.

While in the United States, the average personal debt ratio was only 115 percent in 2003, according to a latest report of the Beijing-based China Youth Daily.

"The phenomenon of luxury-goods consumption is closely related to a nation's social and economic development," said professor Sun.

With the rapid development of market economy and improving income, China has entered a consumption era and it's natural for people to seek after material things and pleasure, he noted.

"It's a natural process of the social development," he said.

However, Huang Ping, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, held that it's abnormal for a nation to have too many "yueguangzu" and debt-ridden people because debt problem, just like unemployment, has great impact on a person, the family, as well as on the whole society.

Seeking after a sort of lifestyle that is unattainable is neither good to a person's health and psychology, nor to the sustainable development of the society," Huang said.

Gimmo Etro, president of Italy's Etro, said most of the Chinese consumers of luxury products are people aged between 20 and 50.

In his view, people who can afford luxury products should earn at least 20,000 yuan (2,415 dollars) to 30,000 yuan (3,623 dollars) each month, not the kind of youths who lavish all they earn just in order to buy a small brand-name product.

"In my personal view, I don't hope that young people buy luxury goods just for show-off. They should have plan based on their own economic conditions," Etro said.

Some Chinese experts also believed that it's inappropriate to encourage people to consumer luxury goods as China's current per capita GDP is only 1,000 US dollars, although in Shanghai the GDP has already reached 6,000 dollars.

"The gap between the rich and poor is still a big social problem in China," said Xin Xiangyang, deputy director of the Beijing Social and Economic Development Research Institute.

The advocacy for consuming luxury goods will produce negative effect on the society and cause disharmony, he said.

Huang Yong, 35, manager of a science and technology company, was once also a luxury-goods fan.

Now Huang, with an annual income of tens of thousands of yuan, is no longer eager to buy such goods.

With the development of economy, the happiness brought by consumption is decreasing, he said, suggesting that instructions should be given to the young people to help them build up a reasonable consumption concept.

The establishment of a perfect credit consumption system is also helpful to promoting the healthy social and economic development, Huang said.

Source: Xinhua