The waifish 26-year-old dropped her laptop bag on a chair, opened her menu and began ordering her favorites: milk tea, black forest cake, chicken wings, waffle fries. It was a typical Chinese order at a quintessential American chain: Pizza Hut.

"The food is good, but really I come here for the ambiance," said Wang, a client liaison for a construction company. The bill for her snack: more than US$25, or 70 percent of her day's wages.

Wang and other Chinese consumers are the great hope of U.S. companies at a time when the economy back home is freezing up.

For generations, American consumers have been one of the most powerful economic forces on the planet. Whenever the U.S. economy went south, shoppers could be depended on to come to the rescue with their open wallets. With home values falling, credit running dry and jobs disappearing, that's not happening this time. Retail sales plunged by 2.8 percent -- the largest amount on record -- in October from the previous month, according to Commerce Department figures released Friday.

The opposite is true in China.

Long known for high saving rates, China's middle-class consumers are starting to spend like their American counterparts. Of China's 11.4 percent growth in the gross domestic product last year, the largest segment, 4.4 percent, was in consumer spending. That sector still represents just 38 percent of China's overall GDP, roughly half what it is in more developed countries, but in the eyes of retailers that means more opportunity.

"Conspicuous consumerism is on the rise among Chinese," said Fu Hongchun, a business professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He said the trend is driven in part by competitiveness. "If one resident in a community buys a new TV, all residents in the same community will update their TVs," Fu said.

Increasing consumer spending is a key goal of the US$586 billion economic stimulus package unveiled Sunday by China's leaders. China hopes the cash infusion will help offset slowing exports and investments, which were the foundation of the country's boom over the past decade.

Despite the cooling world economy, retail spending in October rose 22 percent from a year earlier, according to figures released this week. But there's a growing concern that mounting job losses and battered stock markets may weaken household spending. If that happens, U.S. companies could be in even more trouble than they are in now.

Meanwhile, some Chinese consumers are also adopting the biggest vice of American consumers: debt. Mesmerized by a banquet of Western-style financial products, some Chinese consumers are juggling multiple credit cards, consumer loans and installment plans to buy an ever-increasing quantity of cars, washing machines and vacations.

Even as the typically lucrative holiday season is approaching in the West, many global retailers have written off U.S. and European consumers as lost causes and are shifting their strategies to emerging economies.

The only bright spot in corporate earnings reports in recent months has been revenue in places such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. This year, their contribution to global growth from consumption is predicted to reach US$164 billion, compared to US$30 billion from the United States, according to Merrill Lynch.Nowhere is the buzz of activity greater than in China, where consumer spending hit US$1.3 trillion last year. For American companies, China represents an alternate consumer universe where the slate is clean and marketers can rewrite the story of their brands.

Wrangler jeans, which in the United States are associated with cowboys and rodeos, are urban in China. A Wal-Mart opening is the social event of the year. Buicks are young and hip. And KFC and Pizza Hut are hot places for dates.

Coach, the upscale handbag brand, plans to add 50 shops in China within five years. Sports shoemaker Nike, which has 3,000 retail outlets in 300 Chinese cities, is expanding into smaller cities. And jeweler Tiffany recently opened stores in Chengdu, Tianjin, Shenyang and Qingdao, for a total of eight in mainland China, and hopes to continue opening four to five a year.

James Quinn, global president for New York-based Tiffany, said in an interview that Chinese customers are the "fastest-growing segment" of its business. "A lot of American customers have a complete wardrobe of jewelry, passed down from previous generations. That's not the case in China. Chinese consumers are at the early stage of acquiring a sense of style and appreciation for design in jewelry."

U.S. companies have been so successful in China because "Chinese consumers have a 'look up to the rich' attitude, and the United States is the world's top developed country in their eyes," said Gao Tao, a consultant for the International Brand Association in Beijing.

Take Wal-Mart, which has 215 stores in China and is expanding aggressively into smaller markets. The company said Thursday that in the first nine months of this year, net sales in its international division were up 16.5 percent compared with the same period last year, while in the United States they were up only 7.1 percent.

In the United States, most locations are big-box stores in the suburbs or in rural areas, but Wal-Marts in China are almost exclusively in downtowns. The food aisles are filled with everything from fresh squid and duck neck to kimchi-flavored potato chips.

Terrence Cullen, Wal-Mart's vice president of development in China, said store openings -- there were 30 last year -- often feature dragon dances and fireworks, and attract thousands.

"It's a big deal," Cullen said. "Chinese really like brand names. And many people who may not have seen a Wal-Mart have heard of a Wal-Mart. So suddenly when they have a big brand name in their city, they have to go see what it's like."

The company that best epitomizes the realization of the American dream in China may be Yum! Brands. Faced with a declining consumer base at home, the Louisville, Ky., company sought a new market in China in 1987 when it opened its first KFC in Beijing. Now the company has more than 2,300 restaurants in mainland China and hopes to increase that to 20,000 in the long term.

A KFC store opens every day in China, and Pizza Hut has become the No. 1 casual dining restaurant.

Analysts say the secret to Pizza Hut's success in China is its menu, which features such classics as pepperoni pizza as well as a mishmash of other international cuisine: garlic-drenched escargot, baked rice, wasabi-topped pizza.

In recent months, Pizza Hut has been promoting its afternoon tea service. For 25 to 35 yuan (US$3.70 to US$5.15), customers can choose one drink and one snack. There are seven types of coffee, six types of tea and a half-dozen other drinks, including waxberry juice. The sweets include a dozen varieties of cake, and the savory options include grilled meatballs, barbecue ribs and "pork in Italian style."

Sitting down to her chocolate cake and chicken wings, Wang said she sees consumption as a liberation from the Mao-inspired conformity of her parents' era.

"Many Chinese consumers spend," she said, "because they are not as restricted as before."