Counterfeit Harry Potter (And Fake Pork)

Last week, while running through the Beijing airport, I picked up a copy of the latest Harry Potter book. While I have read the other 6 books, part of the reason that I was willing to part with the $49 (!!!) that it cost (almost 50% more than the US retail and 2.7x Amazon’s price) was that I was so surprised to see it available in China, especially so soon after the US release date. However, the widespread distribution has not reached other parts of China, and the high price has - surprise! - led to counterfeiting. Not content to merely making exact copies a la fake DVDs, some Chinese have even repurposed the characters to be used in brand new stories.

This comes just a few weeks after a story about a Beijing vendor selling fake meat buns stuffed with cardboard was reported to be fake itself. However, some theorize that the government itself is faking the fakeness of the story to both limit the power of the press and allay concerns about food safety in China. All I know is, you can’t trust anything in China.

Just to be clear, my copy of Harry Potter is indeed the genuine version. I think.

Top 10 things to Bring to China

Some of my friends are coming to visit at the end of September and wanted to know if they need to do anything to prepare other than doing the normal visa/tour package thing. So in the next few posts, I’ll add a few tourist tips, even though I suspect that many people reading this blog have been to China already. (Yes, shockingly, I have a very small audience.)

10. Deodorant – Already mentioned in this blog before, but more important than ever now that temperatures in Shanghai surpass 30 degrees C (85 degrees F for the non-metric speakers) everyday with high humidity to boot.

9. Splenda – Drink coffee? But not with sugar? China is strictly BYOS. You may get lucky enough to find a few packets of Equal at Starbucks, but you will not find any little yellow packets of chemical sweetness.

8. Immodium AD, Pepto-Bismo, Milk of Magnesia – If you have a weak stomach, or if you just can’t help but eat the grilled pork skewers being sold off the back of a bike on the street, you will get sick. A friend of mine just got sick at the most famous soup dumpling place in the main tourist area. You may never need this, but believe me, the cost of not having it is far worse than the cost of the medicine itself.

7. Pocket packs of tissues – Most restaurants in China will charge you for napkins. Bring tissues which are of equal quality to the “napkins” that the restaurants sell. Also, in the oppressive weather, you’ll need something to wipe your face and your hands when you touch something really dirty.

6. Chinese guide book – You can use City Weekend and Smart Shanghai to find the latest restaurants and bars, but for tourist locations, shopping areas, and a quick language reference, nothing beats Lonely Planet or Let’s Go. Don’t come empty handed, but don’t bring an old copy borrowed from a friend. China is changing too quickly for a two year old guide to be relevant.

5. ATM card – Don’t bring cash, use the ATM. Even thought most places don’t accept credit cards, you can use your bank card and withdraw RMB without waiting in line at the bank.

4. Digital camera storage – You will take lots of pictures here. While you can buy these memory cards in any electronics store, the United States is still the best place in the world to buy cheap electronics. Bring at least a 2 or 4 GB card for your camera to ensure you’re not deleting pictures to free up space.

3. An appetite – Chinese food here is not what it’s like in the United States, but it is often good, and almost always cheap. You’ll have to have room in your stomach to find out how Sichuan cuisine differs from Shanghainese, Yunnan, and Cantonese.

2. Business cards – Everyone carries them and you’ll definitely meet a lot of people here. Your hotel may even ask for one. It also helps to have something to write on when you need someone who speaks English to write an address in Chinese for your taxi driver.

1. An unlocked GSM phone – I’ll write more about the wonders of mobile telephony outside the confines of the United States. But simply put, if you bring the right phone, you can call back home for less than 4 cents a minute.

Could be worse, you could live in Myanmar

On the back of the previous post about the clampdown on my right to blog, it strikes me as funny when China is projected as an paragon of freedom. For example, the Economist recently addressed the plight of Burmese Muslims in Myanmar and described how life in China is comparatively better.

As the article notes, the totalitarian state in Myanmar is so oppressive that refugees are escaping to China – the bastion of religious freedom by no one’s account. In China’s Yunnan province, they are free to practice their religion and pursue their dreams of wealth like everyone else in China.

The Great Firewall Strikes Again

Like the border between the United States and Mexico, the Great Firewall of China has occasional gaps. After a brief reprieve in May, the Chinese government shut down access to Blogger again. I have heard from friends that they have been able to access Blogger intermittently, but I haven't yet gained access. Therefore, I am writing this post via people back in the U.S., who are kind enough to log on and post my emails. I should also note that at the same time that Blogger was blocked again, the Chinese government also blocked access to images hosted on Flickr. Unlike with Blogger, access to the website was not banned, just the images themselves, under the pretense that Flickr images are not editorially controlled and may contain explicit or otherwise inappropriate images. Some web commentators think it’s because images of the Tiananmen Square massacre were posted and widely publicized.

The combined impact is that my posts will see a dramatic reduction in images. I hope to find a workaround in the near future. Some people have suggested using proxy servers based in the United States. While this works for casual browsers, it does not work for sites such as Blogger that require logging in. Using a proxy server then requires that you send all your login/password information through an untrusted computer that is specifically setup to help avoid compliance with legal regulations – not my idea of best practice, especially when my Blogger account is linked to my Google account, which is of course linked to Gmail, Google Checkout, etc.

In any case, I apologize for the repeated interruption and hope you will continue to come back to the blog for updates.

P.S. I have been able to find a workaround for the Flickr problem. A developer in Iran (another bastion of repression and state media control) has created a plug-in designed for my browser to automatically pull images from a proxy server. Thomas Friedman would be happy to know that the world is flattening for free speech.

Shanghai stock market roller coaster

Back in February, I posted that I didn't know where the Shanghai stock market was going to go. It had risen 130% over the previous year and was acting highly volatile. I noted that P/E ratios were totally out of whack and that the inability to short stocks and the lack of investment opportunities for domestic investors was pushing prices higher. I did not ever think there was so much more room for it to run. Since that day, the Shanghai composite index has risen another 60% from ~2700 to 4300. The market is down again today by 6% after an 8% drop yesterday. Yet this just puts the index back at the point is was at just 2 weeks ago. This bubble is bound to burst, or at least deflate. The question is only how much bigger can it get and can you get out before it does pop?

Back to Shanghai

I'm finally back in Shanghai now that my project in Taipei has ended. Back to the crowds on the subway and the rude taxi drivers. I wish I could have taken a better picture of the number of people who squeeze into the subway station during the morning commute. I could not take a picture of the worst part - the fact that people do not let you off the trains because they are too busy pushing to get on. A coworker of mine missed her stop by two stations because she couldn't get out in time.

According to Wikipedia, Shanghai ranks only 13th in the world for number of annual passenger rides, but because of the relatively few interchanges (6 stations that allow you to transfer to a different line), each interchange station is incredibly crowded. If you are trying to get on, off, or even exit the system at one of these stations, you'll be pushing against thousands of people.

Not all food is better

I haven't eaten much ice cream over here in Asia because it's not nearly as good as the stuff we have in the States. Ben and Jerry's is non-existant (except for in the Hong Kong International Airport food court - please read my earlier airport faceoff post). Haagen Dazs is all over the place, but costs an arm and a leg - $10 for a pint. But it's so worth it. Let me compare the ingredients of chocolate ice cream from Haagen Dazs to vanilla ice cream from some russian brand I got when flying Eva Air to Korea.


Just in case you can't read the text, let me list the main ingredients for Haagen Dazs: Cream, Skim milk, Sugar, Pasteurized egg yolk, Alkalized Cocoa. Simple and delicious, some dairy mixed with sugar, egg and chocolate.

The ice cream a la Ruski: Water, Milk powder, Sugar, Maltose, Coconut oil, Anhydrous milk fat, Egg yolk, Vanilla seed, stabilizer, emulsifier, vanilla flavor, Carotene. Coconut oil? Anhydrous milk fat? Huh?

I suppose at least it was made in Taiwan. Better than food made in China.