Be Sure to Check the Label

Greetings and welcome back to the Yellow River Chronicles, an authentic and genuine article scribbled on the shores of the Huang Pu River in Faire Shanghai.   Thanks again for your notes and reviews, they are much appreciated and we read them aloud at YRC staff meetings.

On to today's topic.  You will find it to be chewier and saltier than the usual frothy mirth we serve up here at YRC, because we are going to a very unfamiliar place....reality.  Many of you have written that you would like to know more about "daily life" in Shanghai.  So, we thought we would take a whack at the topic "Faking It In Shanghai".  

To start, there are two things that the Shanghainese love to do when they go out:  eat and shop.  And shop they do, and well.   FACT TIME!!! The PRC recently became the world's second largest and fastest growing market for luxury goods.   The US of A is number one, and Japan is now number three.  Designers swarm here like well dressed carpetbaggers to elbow each other with grace and form for a bit floorspace in the main shopping districts.

According to the McKinsey Quarterly, China will command about 20 percent, or 180 billion renminbi ($27 billion), of global luxury sales in 2015. Even during the global recession in 2009 sales of luxury goods in the mainland increased 16 percent to about 64 billion renminbi.  This was down from the 20 percent growth of previous years but far better than the growth in many other major luxury markets.  This means Chinese consumption will double in about five years and they will easily become the number one market in the world.  This is why EP and I often refer to this time period in the PRC as the "Bling Dynasty".

HuaiHai Lu at Night

You may be pleased to know wealthy Chinese have developed a taste for international, well-known brands.  When you stroll down HuaiHai Lu or Nanjing Lu, the two BIG shopping streets in Shanghai, there is every major international brand.  In fact, in the space of a mile, the parade of designers will repeat, Zegna, Cartier, Omega, LV, Rolex, Tiffanys, Prada, Coach, and Yada Yada.  The malls scattered along HuaiHai and Nanjing are frenetic hubs of Chinese purchasing fury, seven days a week.  

Now, brace yourself for one of the YRC's blinding Statements of Truth!  When you buy luxury goods in China they cost significantly more than anywhere else in the world.

In fact, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (we read their stuff avidly here at YRC)  did a price survey  of 20 luxury brands including watches, suitcases, purses, clothes, wine and electronics.  Their conclusion:  due to import duties and "distribution structure"  prices of luxury goods in Mainland China are 45 percent higher than those in Hong Kong, 51 percent higher than those in the United States, and 72 percent higher than those in France. C'est des conneries!

The Fake Market

Now, a moment of piercing irony. When international visitors arrive, rumpled and creaky from the 12-hour plan ride from anywhere, they check into one of the big International hotels lining the river in PuDong and then scurry past the dozens of designer stores to dive into one of Shanghai's famous "fake" markets.

There are two large ones in Shanghai.  One is a vast underground complex built below the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (Truth??!!!)  The other is on Nanjing Lu.  Every brand in the world is feverishly copied and then offered for discrete sale at prices dramatically below the original, because they are...fake.  The Chinese do not shop there, the visitors do. And, the visitors also bring mountains of designer clothing that they want to have copied in the fabric markets (usually near the fake markets).

The Tailor's Market

Hundreds of tailors wait to copy any and all garments at a fraction of the price of the original.  These originals sell in a store across town to a Chinese paying a +50% premium over international prices for an original.   So on the metro, there will be a Chinese couple with shopping bags from Fendi, Prada, and Gucci.  They are happy and proud of their ability to own such fine items.  Sitting right next to them will be a furtive British couple with shabby looking plastic bags filled with fakes of the exact same designer bag for friends and neighbors back home.

Fake IPhone, anyone?

While the wealthy love the major brands, this is not so for all consumers here in the PRC.  Fakes are widespread here, generally irritating but they are sometimes even hazardous.  These are the dangerous fakes that are not just copies, but are counterfeit.  Different or harmful ingredients are often used so the product can be produced cheaply.

Over time, we here at the YRC  have changed our focus while shopping for even for the most basic of items, such as shampoo.   When we first learned, usually by an unpleasant rash or other debacle, that what we had purchased was yet again a complete fake, we began to study the shelves in the stores looking to make sure we could spot the fakes.  We avoided street markets, vendors and fake markets.  

After several abject failures, including the purchase of a FAKE Beatles CD with FAKE Beatles singing real Beatles songs, we adopted a new, healthier approach:  we now carefully search for that which is not fake.  

We now know anything sold on the street is generally a fake -- it does not have the same ingredients or parts as the original.  Antiques are fakes or poor copies.  Jade is generally glass and any electronic device purchased in a fake market will generally emit a loud buzzing sound and burst into flames a few days later.   

In the "dangerous fake" section, there are counterfeit medicine and health care products.  There is fingernail polish that will cause nails to fall off and other horrors.  The food contamination stories here are legion.  Recently, a farmer became the focus of Chinese media after his field of watermelons exploded due to improper chemical use. Can you imagine that at the church July 4th picnic.  How's the apple pie, Agnes??....BOOOOOMMMMM!!!  Melon shrapnel!  In fact, a local webzine, the Shanghaiist, has a special section called "Chinese Food Scandal"  bingo.

Many of you will now scan the article in hopes of some sort of answer....why?   This is reasonable behavior when confronted with so many atrocities.  EP and I have meditated on this at length and we can only offer the following observation after hours of debate and discussion:  We don't have a clue!

What we can offer is this:  we now have a true appreciation and wonder for that which is what it is supposed to be,  the rarest of all items...the genuine article.  Our advice?  Go to your grocery store, pick up a bottle of salad dressing and be joyous of your certainty.