Economy in Meteor Garden

 There is a very clear economic divide present in Meteor Garden. Shancai lives in a very small bungalow with her family, whereas Si lives in a huge, very modern house. Another way this divide is especially present is when Shancai is nervous about buying new clothes, as she is worried that they are too expensive and that her parents won’t be able to afford them. When Si sees these clothes, he is upset at how ‘cheap’ he thinks they are as she thinks that she didn’t make an effort to look good for him. This shows their differing values of money and how materialistic Si is compared to Shancai.

In Meteor Garden there is also a very noticeable hierarchy within Mingh De, the University. F4, a group of wealthy, attractive seniors, are seen as the most elite students in the University. A contributing factor to their popularity is their wealth, this is because they can then afford to buy nice designer clothes and shoes which only increases their group’s exclusivity. Shancai and her friends are not as wealthy, so they can’t afford the luxuries that F4 may consider to be basics. This is one of the reasons that her friend group isn’t very popular. This hierarchy based almost entirely off of wealth, is known as a class hierarchy.

Si already came from a wealthy family, but he still worked hard and made some money of his own. Another character born into a wealthy family is Jing. Jing gave up her inheritance and separated herself from her family’s wealth to be on her own and to gain some sort of independence. Some people may have seen her choice as her being ungrateful, however, i can see where she was coming from. Her whole life, she has been taken care of and sheltered by her parents, and now she wants to know what the real world is like, without all of the money. She thinks that the only way to so this is to completely cut herself off from her family. This also shows that being rich doesn’t make your life perfect, she is so desperate to get away from the money that she is cutting her family off and moving to another country. Even though Shancai’s parents didn't have a lot of money, she loved them and appreciated everything they did for her, this shows that you don’t need money to have a happy life