ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the ways through which the waiqi Beijing yuppies presented themselves as cultured cosmopolitans: their Western-influenced professional style and their views on consumption and taste. They differentiated themselves from other types of people through metadiscourse, that is, talk about differentiation— even though the yuppies and their related others share many of the practices and signs that index what is widely called the new Chinese middle classes, for example consuming foreign brands, going to health clubs, traveling abroad for work and leisure, or owning cars and private residences. The waiqi business elite— and white-collar workers in foreign companies in general— have attracted attention from the popular media. They are perceived not only as a group that epitomizes China's increasing participation in the global market but also as trendsetters in a modern, cosmopolitan lifestyle characterized by Western-influenced practices of consumption and leisure.
