“For the urban residents, the financial gain from post-Mao economic reform have been rapid and impressive. When within less than a decade millions of people gained access to new modes of communication, new vocabularies of social discourse, and novel forms of leisure through newly commercialized outlets, it does not seem an exaggeration to claim that there was a revolution in consumption. This rapid commercialization did more than simply increase consumer choice and raise the material standard of living. It also broke the monopolies that had previously cast urban consumers in the role of supplicants to the state. When party and government officials reduced their control over the flow of commodities, they also ceded greater autonomy to everyday sociability.” Deborah Davis