Nail Houses and Expensive Dogs

Zhang’s discussion regarding “nail households” in chapter 5 sounded interesting so I looked them up and found the photos pretty shocking.

I also came across this article which relates to our discussion last week about conspicuous consumption and the debate over dog ownership in China.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/20/is-this-the-worlds-most-expensive-dog-pair-of-very-big-very-slobbery-tibetan-mastiffs-go-for-3-2-million-in-china/

The person who bought these dogs for $3.5 million dollars (the bread of which is apparently notorious for their short life-spans adding weight to Velbin’s idea of buying things for the sake of it), is a real-estate developer who seems to fit with how Zhang characterizes developers in her book.