Investigative Reports: Shenzhen Exposed!

So as I mentioned a few blogs ago, my mom is in town for the next two weeks.  Last Saturday I took her to Shenzhen for the day to do some shopping.   For those who don't know, Shenzhenis the city in Mainland China right across the border from HK. 

Its actually quite a large city, with something like 9 million + residents (including the ones w/o residence permits) -- HK is only like 7 million, so its actually larger.  The nearby area is the home of tons of factories, producing all kinds of goods,  so its home to some of the best unbridled capitalism in China... (in the good and the bad sense). 

Because its relatively wild and dangerous compared to HK, most Hong Kong people are scared to come up here for shopping...  (lots of stories of people getting pick-pocked, robbed, kidnapped, etc go around).

But being from the US and having traveled extensively around China I'm not easily scared, so I used to come up here quite often when I lived in the NT...

為了逛街我上個週末帶我從美國的母親去深圳,香港的旁邊的中國大陸的城市.平常的香港人不敢過去深圳,覺得太危險,他們聽過太多的可怕的故事! 可是我不怕,我經常去.這次我拍了好多的有意思的照片,要給你看看. 注意-這個博客不是為了批評中國或華人,是為了給朋友們看看深圳的又開玩笑又奇怪的東門市場區!

今お母さん香港に居ている、先週末深圳市( シンセン市）まで連れて行った。シンセンは中国の中の香港の反対町です。実はシンゼンの人口は香港より大です。一寸怖い所ですけど僕は心配しない、よく買い物為に行く。。。何時でも面白い！

Anyway, I took my mom to the crowded Dongmen section of SZ:　東門へ買い物して行った、

Since it was a weekend, it was quite crowded on the streets... the weather has improved quiet a bit too, so no more freezing your a$$ off anymore.　最近天気が良かったなりました。

They've got a 'Kungfu' (the fake Bruce Lee Fast Food Chain) here now too,  these things are expanding quick.

My mom was interested in buying a lot of nick-nacks for her hobby business, making and selling homemade jewelry and accessories.  Dongmen is well suited for this... they have no shortage of small shops, including the ever popular '2 yuan stores' (~US$0.30)

The light up sign in the doorway says '全場2元1件', which means 'every article in the entire store is 2 yuan'...  what a deal! ;-)

お店何でも物全部30円ぐらいです。やすい！

This store was almost the same:

But when then I noticed price tags on things and I said 'hey, i thought the sign said everything is 2 yuan?'  the staff pointed out that I didn't read the last character on the sign, hidden conveniently behind their sound system:

ah, the old ' 2 yuan and up' trick...  very lame!

Some of the stuff you get at places like this is interesting and maybe even worth buying:

For those who like to 'bejewel' their phones and cameras, this place sold ready to go stickers...   Most of them had labels in Japanese, obviously meant for the export market... these very same packages probably sell for like US$5+ in Japan... 

I really ought to get into the export business... 

Since this is China, land of copies but not copyrights, you get a lot of fakes, some of which are obvious and some are hard to spot.  (the mickey mouse stickers in the above photo for example).

But you also get some funny hybrids... SORT of a copy, but not exactly.  For example:

No, its not a Gilletterazor, its a GilheGilrazor...

For comparison:

Some are just strange:

OK, not sure why they're called 'Gold', or why they put the flags of the world on there...

apparently they're going for some kind of olympics theme or something, but take a closer look at that American flag placed on the package for no discernible reason:

6 white stripes and 6 red stripes? Betsy Ross must be rolling in her grave! アメリカフラグですか？間違過ぎよ！

Outside in the street there were some other interesting knock-offs and bargains to be seen:

There are two places i always pass and stop to look at because they are amazing,  they have a giant wall of shoes that block the sidewalk...  they're obscenely cheap (US$2 a pair!) and if you're lucky you'll find some with names and logos similar to Adidas or Nike... (similar to...) :-P

200円の靴ですね。

Gongxi Facai!  -- it may be March already, but imitation Mickey is still ringing in the year of the rat! ;-)　　コピーミキーモウスですね。

As you can expect, one of the big businesses here is selling knock-off luxury goods.  I usually don't waste my time with these things, since I have no need for the real ones, much less imitations of them,  but since my mom wanted the full SZ experience, I took her to a watch place to check out what they had. We were even daring enough to check out the 'secret back room' these types of places all have in the nearby building...  　僕はお母さんとコピー時計のお店の後ろ部屋へ行った、僕は携帯電話で一寸写真を撮った。。。

While my mom browsed I played all aloof like and snapped some discrete phone cam pictures like some kind of undercover sting operation:

On the right, dozens of different imitation watches, some look quite close to the real things...  This place must be the bane of Switzerland's existence!

Not just Switzerland, also their neighbor to the south-east....

On the left side of the store, an Italian purse collectors wet dream... If those were real, these shelves would be worth like US$100k!　コピーバグも一杯が有る、銀座の女大好きな物！

The mastermind criminal behind all this:  a 20 year old girl from Fujian who's English was not good enough to say much more than "Hey Missy! AA quality!"   ;-)

Anyway, its always an adventure up here, I'm always learning something new, learning how this bizarre place works just a little bit better.

The only thing I bought this time was a plastic gun-shaped Wiimote holder for use w/ the gun games on the Wii,  for Patrick and Stephen.  My mom got a couple hundred yuan worth of 2 yuan stuff believe it or not,  and a 4GB flash drive for like $8 that said 'Sony Viao' on it...  :-P

僕はあまり買いません、Wiiのアクセスリーだけ、僕のお母さんはたくさん30円もの買いました。彼女はアメリカで自分のJewelry会社するんです。。。