Fresh Start: A Refreshing "Soul Supermarket"

Located in the north of Shanghai Xintiandi, the "spiritual supermarket" aims at locating business objectives in the commercial activities of the consumer groups with spiritual needs. It is the first case in China, and its creativity is refreshing.

The "heart supermarket" was founded by Danish artist MadsHagstrom and exhibited in Copenhagen and other places.

What supermarkets sell is not a commodity under the usual concept, but a spiritual commodity.

Shanghai's "soul supermarket" business area is the same as the general 24 hour convenience store. The indoor layout is mainly white, with a total of 43 varieties and 16 thousand items. Each commodity is empty bottles and cans. Only some pots contain posters, which are labeled with "courage", "confidence", "thinking", "let you have no pressure", "reassuring snacks", "no spam e-mail", "renewable resources", "air refreshing" and so on. The labels range from 10 yuan to 100 yuan.

The supermarket opened more than 50 hours in 3 hours.

A female white-collar worker who was working nearby paid 60 yuan and left 3 empty bottles with labels.

MadsHagstrom expressed the hope that Shanghai's "spiritual supermarket" will continue to meet people's changing thinking and spiritual needs.

Some people admire and love this kind of "spiritual supermarket" which is a little "different". Some people say it is unintelligible, and even think it is "flickering" people. This is also regarded as a benevolent person and a wise man.

In this regard, MadsHagstrom explained that "spiritual supermarket" is expected to be refined through some theme concepts, prompting people to pay attention to and think about what they should have paid attention to but ignore.

Xu Weisu, a counselor of East China Normal University, holds a positive attitude towards this. He believes that the bottle that chooses the theme reflects a kind of compensation psychology.

While picking these bottles and cans, people are also examining their own life and sorting out their inner thoughts.

The author also thought that for sale of such a spiritual commodity, let him try it.

This is because, after China's integration into the world family, the sudden acceleration of social rhythm has made people's mental pressure more and more serious.

China's centers for Disease Control and prevention has revealed in this year's special issue of two sessions that the number of people with depression in China is increasing year by year. At present, it has reached 30 million people, and the number of suicides in 2006 has exceeded 250 thousand. [source: -www.cye.com.cn] people, many of whom are white-collar workers, college students and social elites.

Although this kind of "spiritual supermarket" is not a panacea, it can play a new role in reviewing the state of existence and adjusting the attention, adjusting psychology and choosing life.

Building a harmonious society is a systematic project, which includes promoting psychological harmony among people.

This requires strengthening humanistic care and psychological counseling, guiding people to deal with difficulties and setbacks correctly, and establishing self-esteem, self-respect, rational peace, and healthy social mentality.

Although the role of "spiritual supermarket" may be limited, as a carrier of mental health education and health care, we must try it.