Time-honored skin care products at Dafang Store.

Warrior shoes and Feiyue shoes at Dafang are hot items among Beijing’s young people.

Founded in 1979, Dafang looks the same as it did 30 years ago.

At the Dafang Store, in Beijing’s Chongwen District, the salesperson says “That’s 1.9 yuan, plus 9.0 yuan, plus 5.4 yuan …” while skillfully flipping across an abacus and quickly arriving at the total due. I stand before the counter, dumbfounded. The total price of these cosmetics here is cheaper than would be a single facial cleanser at a typical retail outlet.

It seems that time never passes in the store. Founded in 1979, Dafang looks the same as it did three decades ago. They still use traditional glass counters, old-style display shelves and, of course, abacuses. In an era when high-volume supermarkets are the vogue, Dafang sticks to its “one-to-one” service. Want to check out a commodity? Ask the salesperson behind the counter, and they will bring you the goods from the shelf. In this store can be found many time-honored made-in-China products which were popular throughout the country in the 1980s or 1970s, or even earlier, including Pehchaolin facial cream, Bee&Flower Shampoo, and Yashuang facial cream. Today, Dafang draws about 600 to 700 customers a day.

Like a spring breeze coming on suddenly, with nearly no advertising expenditure, many domestic products which prevailed in the last century are seemingly all at once again selling like hot cakes. On the Internet, posts about trials of domestic cosmetics and online shops selling time-honored domestic products have become popular with netizens.

Meihua sportswear, Warrior shoes, Sea Gull watches, and Flying Pigeon bicycles, all respected Chinese domestic brands, are again fashionable with today’s Chinese youngsters. Most have witnessed the process of Western high-end brands coming into the Chinese market. Many born in the 1970s, 1980s, or even 1990s, once dreamed of wearing limited edition Nike shoes, showing off to their friends. They have also pinched and scraped so that they could afford their first high-end foreign make-up. Having tried out all kinds of big brand cosmetics and athletic shoes, one day, for one reason or another, they bumped into the red-stripe Warrior shoes and the Meijiajing facial cream packed in small plastic bags. They found these well-known domestic products to be as good as their foreign counterparts. While using foreign big brands, many female white-collar workers also keep domestic cosmetics at hand. For instance, Dior and Lancome work well with China’s Bee&Flower Shampoo and Meijiajing facial cream.

“It’s fashionable to buy renowned domestic products. Meijiajing is my favorite. Buying homemade products is not just about blind enthusiasm for the unusual or patriotism. What attracts us are their design, quality, moderate price, and the spirit they present of their respective times,” says a netizen.

“My experience with domestic products began in the 1980s. Watching a foreign film, a classmate and I for the first time saw canvas shoes. What really impressed me was that everyone in the film was wearing a pair. Back then, you couldn’t get those sort of shoes anywhere in Beijing,” explains Wen Hai, 33. “So we bought a pair of white Warrior shoes and colored them ourselves. Guess how much attention we got! In the past 20 years, all kinds of fashion trends have come and gone, but many domestic products remain the same. The same cool Warrior shoes, the same elegant Meihua sportswear, and the same fragrant Meijiajing facial cream are sort of classics.”

A frequent customer of Dafang, Wen explains her loyalty to the store. “I used to go to Dafang with my mom when I was a kid. Stationery, clothes, cosmetics … you could get everything there. Twenty years have passed, but the shop is almost the same as it was when I first went there. But, now, shopping there gives me a totally different feeling.”

Many time-honored domestic products have a unique story. Youyi facial cream, first appearing in the 1950s, is manufactured by Shanghai Jahwa Company. A renowned facial cream at that time, Youyi sold much better in northern China than in southern parts of the country. For many southern consumers, the cream is a bit too oily. However, it worked perfectly well in the dry climate of the northeast, north, and northwest regions. So the company moved Youyi’s production base to the northeastern city of Dalian. And they did much to upgrade the packaging. Today, customers can find Youyi in many supermarkets and stores in the northeast, north, and northwest of China. Annual sales revenue of the simply-packed cream averages between 40 and 50 million yuan.

The homemade products are comparatively inexpensive. It won’t cost much even if you are equipped from head to toe. You need only to walk a few more miles to purchase them at an older store or a large wholesale market. For many young people, domestic products are not merely about symbols or logos; they also bring back the happy memories of childhood.