signs of the times

You can tell a lot about a place by reading its signs and observing its shops. From this surface level observation, these are some of the things that seem to be valued here:
1. shopping - I have never seen such a congregation of malls in my life. They say the national pastime here is shopping and it's not hard to believe.
2. Weight loss - there are ads and clinics for this everywhere!
3. Control - do this, don't do this, you will be fined for this, you will be charged for that. Makes a person nervous is what it does.
4. success - use our products and you will be rich and powerful!
5. Personal development - and starting from the beginning. A mall near us has several floors dedicated to classes, mostly for children, including music lessons (with those miniature violins - how cute!), and kindergolf. Because every five year old should be able to wield a 5 iron. You can learn anything here if you have the time and money (and I mean money!).