A Portrait of the Modern Butler as an Emergent Professional Type in Mainland China

Abstract

This article analyses the emergent professional type of modern butler in mainland China from an Eliasian figurational perspective, against the backdrop of the changing power balances between social groups along with the rise of China’s High Net Worth Individuals in the post-reform era. It paints a portrait of the modern butler by drawing on ethnographic observation and interviews conducted at a butler training institute. This emergent professional type’s characteristic costumed appearance, stringent morality, communicative tact, signature pride, and art of service, are analytically linked to the figurational position of the new economic elites through thick description, as forms of vicarious cultural and moral distinction made desirable by the changing social dynamisms.