Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs

[GeneChing]

Given China's rise as global power, I've been wondering when copyright issues would rear up again.


Feds bust counterfeit goods pipeline to S.F. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/04/MNCL1EODKT.DTL)
Will Kane, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 4, 2010

(08-03) 18:47 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Yarin Molad, the owner of Traveler Photo and Electronics in bustling Fisherman's Wharf, said he had known for years that the purses, shoes and sunglasses sold to tourists in the store next to his were not really made by big-name companies like Louis Vuitton or Dolce & Gabbana.

The products, he said, had the same logo and fabric patterns as the famed brands but lacked the three-figure prices. The store was difficult to compete with, and cast a light of suspicion on its neighbors.

"Customers would come into my shop, look at my Ray-Bans and wonder if they were real," said Molad.

On Tuesday, the small store Molad referred to - New CWK Gift - was closed. Instead of colorful wares on the sidewalk, the business had white curtains and a "No trespassing" sign in its window.

Federal authorities recently raided New CWK Gift and seven other shops in Fisherman's Wharf. On Tuesday, they announced the seizure of more than 200,000 counterfeit retail items valued at $100 million - if they were genuine, that is - during what they called the largest-ever bust of retail counterfeiters on the West Coast.

Prosecutors charged 11 people with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States and trafficking in counterfeit goods, said U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello. Ten of those indicted were residents of San Francisco, he said.

If convicted, they could face up to 35 years in prison. Some could also face deportation to China depending on their immigration status, he said.

"The significant impact of trafficking in such merchandise on the American economy should be obvious," Russoniello said at a press conference at Crissy Field, flanked by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

The network targeted by the agencies is accused of importing goods from China that imitated 70 national and international brands, including Nike, Burberry, Kate Spade and Armani. The stores that allegedly sold the items - all of which were shuttered - include L&J Fashion, New Life Gift, C&K Gifts and La Bella Boutique.

The operation was first discovered in December 2007, authorities said, when customs officials seized a container at the Port of Oakland stuffed with 50,000 counterfeit designer accessories.
Multiple purchases

Investigators then conducted a number of sting operations at the stores. Time and time again, Russoniello said, they purchased counterfeit items.

While significant, the seizure represents a small slice of the market in sham goods, which some estimate is as large as 7 to 8 percent of the world's retail economy, said Fred Felman, the chief marketing officer for MarkMonitor, a San Francisco firm that helps companies protect their brands.

"You look at this and you think it is just purses and sunglasses," he said. "And then you look at it with respect to the global economy, and it is something else."

Experts say counterfeiters, who exploit others' hard work and innovation, have grown as economies become more global and the Internet flourishes - dark corners and all - as a prime destination for shoppers.

The problem has hounded everyone from cigarette makers to the military. A report by the U.S. Department of Commerce in January 2010 found that 39 percent of electronics companies contracted by the Department of Defense encountered counterfeit electronics from subcontractors, more than doubling from 2005 to 2008.
The source is China

John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Tuesday that counterfeiting "occurs in every facet of American industry and production." However, he said, most phony goods - from purses to pharmaceuticals - originate in China.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new unit to respond to counterfeiting last fall, and officials hope Tuesday's bust can be the first of many.

But there are two kinds of buyers of counterfeit goods: those who believe they are purchasing the real thing and those who understand they are getting a cheap knock-off that kind of looks like the real thing.

Lisa Taylor, a tourist visiting Fisherman's Wharf from Alabama, said Tuesday that she knowingly purchased counterfeit sunglasses in New York City's Times Square recently.

"I don't think it is a threat," she said. "It is part of the culture in these areas."

E-mail Will Kane at wkane@sfchronicle.com.

[BJJ-Blue]

They have been counterfeiting our parts over there for a few years now. Some of them are easy to spot, others are pretty good couterfeits. I work in high tech, fyi.

[David Jamieson]

so, if you're wondering where your job went... lol

counterfeiting is a multi-billion dollar industry.

knockoffs hurt society more than most people suspect.

some people think it's great to get a fake coach purse for 1/10th the price.
Personally, I don't believe that person ever would have purchased a real one anyway.

But stealing other peoples designs without compensating them is wrong period. Cultural pluralism or relativism simply doesn't apply.

It really is a real problem and if it is going to stop, it will have to stop at the demand end. No demand, no supply it really is that simple.

[GeneChing]

Too awesome for words. I'm only cut&pastin the first two. Follow the link for the rest. You won't be disappointed.


Obama Fried Chicken?! Ridiculous Knockoff Goods From China (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/12/24/obama-fried-chicken-ridiculous-knockoff-goods-from-china/)
Dec 24, 2012 by Michelle
http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/chinese-knockoffs6.jpg?w=580&h=293

It’s well known that China produces an overwhelming amount of counterfeit goods. The country is most famous for producing fake designer handbags, but there’s a surprising amount of non-apparel items floating around on the Chinese black market. In recent years, production of knockoff consumer items has been rapidly increasing and the International Chamber of Commerce expects international trade of counterfeit goods to reach $1.7 trillion by 2015.

Although this poses an enormous problem for the world economy, Chinese-produced counterfeit goods provide the citizens of the internet with a good laugh at some of the obviously fake products. Take a look at just a fraction of the outrageous knockoff goods you can find in China where a misspelled word is a mere minor offense.

Chinese Knockoffs

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/chinese-knockoffs.jpg?w=512&h=384
▲ I think I like the foo dog design better than the original mermaid design.

[Syn7]

Chinese knock everything off. It's to the point where I won't even buy Chinese electronic components from an independent source. They will knock off a 30 cent op amp that is like 1/10 the quality and push them for like 18 cents a unit as if it was a great deal. So weak. If it's cheaper than normal, and from China, I REFUSE to even consider it anymore. Tired of substandard parts. And it's really sad coz they do make great stuff in China. And I could get good deals if I could do diagnostics on the parts before hand. So I have to go with bigger companies who deal in the parts and do all those tests before sending them out. Quality control is so under regulated in China. So you have great items and crap items coming from the same factories some times. And sometimes knockoffs are actually stolen originals re-labelled or just un-labelled. Hard to tell which is which tho, not worth the risk when one crap component can **** you hard later on.

[Syn7]

Too awesome for words. I'm only cut&pastin the first two. Follow the link for the rest. You won't be disappointed.

OK, Obama Fried Chicken just seems outright racist. You know they would never have a Romney or McCain Fried Chicken. I bet they even sell watermelon!!!

[Jimbo]

Early in the period when I lived in Taiwan, in the '80s, they had a brand of toothpaste called Darkie Toothpaste. It had an old-fashioned looking charicature of a wide-eyed, grinning black man in a top hat on the package. A well-known African-American Tv personality (and DJ?) in Taipei, whose Mandarin was excellent, protested it to the point they changed the name to Darlie, and changed the drawing to a white man in a top hat.

[Jimbo]

As for China products, you really can't escape it. My ipad was made there. But if I have a choice, I will spend more for a product NOT made in China. I simply do not trust the quality control, or even the safety/reliability of the materials themselves.

[Syn7]

Well you are in luck because Apple is now doing "assembly" in the US for iPads and a few other high demand items. Of course it's still all Chinese parts.

But Apple is one of those companies that does go out of its way to ensure reasonable quality control in both components and finished product.

I don't like their anti hacking cases tho. Weak. You don't truly own a product till you tear it open and void that warranty! ;)

[Dale Dugas]

Hak Gwai Yu/Hei Gwei Yu is a trauma oil that is sold OTC.

Bak Gwai/Bai Gwei means Cracker or Whitey.

Hak Gwai means Black Ghost, nasty slang for Darkie.

[JamesC]

Just before I left Homeland Security we got a bulletin on Chinese counterfeit US documents.

There have always been places you could get said documents, but it is becoming more prevalent now. They're starting to become VERY good at microprinting and all the security features we place in important documents like passports and currency.

We also have had some drivers licenses from China that were so well made that police officers couldn't tell the difference. Holographics were just as good. Only way to tell was to scan it.

[GeneChing]

From an old informercial I wrote titled: Monk Takes Off His Shoe: The Sequel: My Continuing Life as a Shaolin Shoe Salesman (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=546)

This has created a rather ironic situation for the marketing of a Chinese import - brand loyalty in Asia, the land of abundant knockoffs from Rolex to Microsoft. Now I have nothing against knockoffs as long as they work. One of my all-time favorite knockoffs was a fashion line of clothing called McDonald's Sport, cheesy commie disco shirts complete with the golden arches. I still bust out my McDonald's Sport shirt when I want to annoy my friends. I love cheesy knockoffs.
http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/images/ezine/0414_margie_McDonald.jpg

:D

[Syn7]

Just before I left Homeland Security we got a bulletin on Chinese counterfeit US documents.

There have always been places you could get said documents, but it is becoming more prevalent now. They're starting to become VERY good at microprinting and all the security features we place in important documents like passports and currency.

We also have had some drivers licenses from China that were so well made that police officers couldn't tell the difference. Holographics were just as good. Only way to tell was to scan it.

Passports aren't that tough. RFID and decent databases make it a lil tougher, but it's still not as hard as you would think. I know a guy who actually cultivated false identities and nurtured their data over periods of years, decades even. He'd been doing it since the 60's and grew along with the industry. When I knew him, you could purchase an identity that had a ton of background. Registered here, signed this doc, attended so and so etc etc... Pretty good paper trail for somebody who never existed. And yes, he was Chinese. HK actually. He came here in 95 right before the changeover. I still don't even know his real name.

[GeneChing]

January 28, 2013 / Brooklyn news
Counterfeit cigarettes seized by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes (http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/36/5/all_counterfeitcigarettes_2013_02_01_bk.html)
DA Hynes: Six million counterfeit cigarettes from China seized
By Colin Mixson
The Brooklyn Paper

http://brooklynpaper.com/assets/photos/36/5/all_counterfeitcigarettes_2013_02_01_bk01_z.jpg
http://brooklynpaper.com/assets/photos/36/5/all_counterfeitcigarettes_2013_02_01_bk02_z.jpg

These smokes are smooth, mellow, and totally off the books!

Detectives with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Money Laundering and Revenue Crimes Bureau seized more than 30,000 cartons of counterfeit cigarettes from a Borough Park warehouse Thursday night — $4.5 million worth of blissfully tax-free tobacco pleasure, according to Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.

“Selling this poison… is a drain on the state and city economy, because these cigarettes are entirely untaxed,” said Hynes at press conference Friday afternoon, surrounded by mounds of impounded bogies falsely labled as Marlboros, Newports and Camels.

The seizure, which was the result of six months of grueling undercover work, coincided with the arrest of Yin Haun Zhao, so far the only suspect in custody for the multi-million dollar counterfeit operation.

These counterfeit smokes, aside from depriving the city of $1.8 million in tax revenue, also carry additional health risks beyond the increased risk of emphysema and various forms of cancer typically associated with tobacco smoking.

In China, where the bogus butts originated, unregulated tobacco is sometimes dried by trucks rolling over the nicotine-filled leaves laid out on the ground, lacing it with leaded gas fumes in the process, according to Michael Vecchione, Chief of the Brooklyn DA’s Racket Division.

“As unhealthy as smoking is, smoking counterfeit and bootleg cigarettes is even worse, because there is no way of knowing what chemicals they contain,” said Hynes.

The Brooklyn’s DA’s office is certainly high on the recent bust, though some smokers in the borough may have preferred sucking on contaminated cigarettes over paying New York City’s smoking tax, which at $5.85 is the highest in the country. I don't smoke, but I'm told that Chinese cigs are pretty good by American smokers. Flying Horse was a popular brand when I was there last. The area near Shaolin produces tobacco. But Hynes is right - who knows what kind of chems are in them?

[Syn7]

Yeah maybe, but the knockoffs are poison. They have even found human feces in many samples. And that's not counting the extra poison. Many Chinese products conform to the standards of the importers. But when it comes to knockoffs, lots of short cuts. I wouldn't go near any Chinese knockoff for any reason. Maybe down the road that will change. But today, not a chance. Especially with consumables.

[GeneChing]

Most westerners can't stand Chinese liquor and I can sympathize with that. Although I will say that Moutai and Wuliangye are pretty good as Chinese liquors go, once you develop the taste for them.

Police bust alcohol counterfeiters (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-02/08/content_16214003.htm)
Updated: 2013-02-08 07:38
By Cao Yin ( China Daily)

Beijing police said they have busted 10 gangs involving almost 90 people suspected of producing and selling fake Chinese liquor in a recent crackdown.

The fake liquor was copies of well-known brands, including Moutai and Wuliangye, police said in a statement on Thursday.

The announcement comes one month after media reported on fake imported wine and beer being seized in "Bar Street" in Beijing's Sanlitun. Experts said fake name-brand alcohol is usually rampant in the days before major holidays.

Police said they tracked the alcohol counterfeiters to their workshops thanks to tips provided by residents in Tongzhou district's Yongzhou township in December.

Initial investigations showed the suspects used empty bottles they bought from regions neighboring Beijing, such as Tianjin municipality, Shandong and Shanxi provinces, and filled them with fake liquor.

On Jan 25, police closed 40 illegal workshops and confiscated 6,060 bottles of alcohol, with a total value of 5.37 million yuan ($861,000), according to a statement provided by the city's public security bureau on Thursday.

Eighty-eight suspects, all from Gushi county in Henan province, were caught in Beijing's Tongzhou district.

Fifty-three of the suspects have been detained, the statement said.

Some of the suspects could be sentenced to seven years in prison for breaching copyrights, said Zhao Li, a criminal lawyer with Beijing King and Bond Law Firm.

Police did not say where the fake Chinese liquor was sold. The case is still under investigation, the statement said.

In January, Beijing police detained five people suspected of supplying fake imported wine and beer to establishments in Sanlitun's Bar Street. More than 37,000 bottles of fake booze were seized.

The suspects confessed they bought or recycled quality wine bottles and put cheap wine in them, aiming to sell the bottles at a high price.

Ding Feng, a police officer at Sanlitun police station, said the station stepped up checks on Bar Street after the fake alcohol was found.

Currently, only one police officer at the station is responsible for checking liquor in more than 20 bars twice a week, which is "quite a big workload", said Ding, adding more police officers will be assigned to the job.

But reports from residents or customers are the main source of information for police, he said, admitting that police officers untrained in wine tasting face great difficulty in determining the difference between authentic and fake alcohol.

Forgers also tend to produce counterfeit alcohol products in rented houses in urban-rural areas of the city and often move around, posing great challenges for law enforcement, said a police officer with Fengtai district's subbureau, who did not want to be identified.

Despite the crackdown, it is not easy to root out alcohol counterfeiters, said Dai Peng, director of the criminal investigation department of the People's Public Security University of China.

"As counterfeiters often use low-quality liquor in counterfeiting, which in many cases won't damage drinkers' health, the forgers will not receive punishment that is severe enough to stop them," he said.

There's a vid on the article below that explains more...

US Importers from China Sell Dangerous and Counterfeit Toys (http://ntdtv.org/en/news/china/2013-02-08/us-importers-from-china-sell-dangerous-and-counterfeit-toys.html)
Created: 2013-02-08 14:22 EST

US authorities on Wednesday charged five individuals and their companies for importing hazardous and counterfeit toys from China.

They sold the toys wholesale, and from a storefront in New York City.

“When you shop for consumer goods CBP imports specialists to make sure the products you buy are not counterfeit or unsafe.”

But with all the shipments that come into the US, it is hard to ensure the safety of each product.

US officials began seizing shipments from the defendants as early as July, 2005. In all- 33 separate seizures were made, totaling more than $10 million, according to ABC News.

The defendants are accused of forming a new company to continue importing the toys when the previous one accumulated too many seizures.

Some of the toys seized include SpongeBob SquarePants, Power Rangers and Winnie the Pooh.

The toys either contained dangerous levels of lead, or were cheap knockoffs that could easily break, creating a choking hazard.

On top of hazardous and counterfeit toy charges, the defendants are also accused of smuggling and money laundering.

Two of the accused are naturalized citizens from China and the other three are Chinese residents living in Queens, New York.

[GeneChing]

Filled with rocks instead of nuts. :eek:

Here's a vid in Chinese. You'll get the idea: 郑州惊现水泥核桃 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjqElY2IpFA)

[GeneChing]

Not quite counterfeits as it's not a brand name condom like Trojan. Or is it? Gotta chuckle though at the fact that they were too small. :o



Ghana seizes 1m faulty condoms imported from China (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/apr/18/ghana-seizes-faulty-condoms-imported-china?INTCMP=SRCH)

Ghana facing 'major public health issue' after condoms supplied to health service found to contain holes and burst easily

Afua Hirsch, west Africa correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 April 2013 09.28 EDT


Ghana is facing a "major public health issue" after condoms supplied to the country's health service were found to contain holes and burst easily.

More than 1m "Be Safe" condoms have been impounded by the country's food and drugs authority (FDA), which said they were also too small and not adequately lubricated.

"When we tested these condoms, we found that they are poor quality, can burst in the course of sexual activity, and have holes which expose the users to unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease," said Thomas Amedzro, head of drug enforcement at the FDA.

But the FDA said it was investigating how an unknown number of condoms had been distributed to health centres around the country, before the tests were conducted. "We want to get to the bottom of this, and to find out why all the condoms were not presented to us before they went out," said Amedzro.

The FDA is recalling all Be Safe condoms on the market, and said it does not yet know how many have already been distributed. It is standard practice to conduct safety tests on condoms, many of which are imported from China.

The FDA said the faulty Be Safe consignment was imported by Global Unilink Ltd, a Ghanaian company, which had sourced them from an Indian company named Harley Ltd based in Kenya. Amedzro said the FDA has traced the condoms back to the original manufacturer, Henan Xibei Latex Company Limited, in Henan province, central China.

"This is a huge, huge problem," said Faustina Fynn-Nyame, director of Marie Stopes International in Ghana. "There will be a lot of unintended pregnancies as a result of this, and that means maternal mortality and unsafe abortion. Commercial sex workers also use these products [so] the consequences could be enormous."

The companies involved in importing the condoms were not available to comment. But Be Safe condoms are reported to be widely used in Ghana, where they are distributed by state-run health centres. Previous batches are understood to have passed safety tests.

This is not the first scare surrounding condoms in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, South Africa recalled more than 1m faulty ANC condoms, which the ruling party had given away.

"This is a major public health issue because of the implications," said Amedzro. "People use condoms to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. If the condoms are not doing that, we could have increased [risk] of HIV and Aids, so that is a major concern."

[GeneChing]

Fake toasters!

US Seizes 15,000 Counterfeit Chinese Toasters (http://ntdtv.org/en/news/china/2013-04-19/nearly-15-000-counterfeit-chinese-toasters-seized-at-us-seaport.html)
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Created: 2013-04-19 17:18 EST

Counterfeit Chinese items are making headlines again. This time nearly 15-thousand toasters were seized at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport, according to US Customs and Border Protection authorities. The toasters had bogus safety markings on them.
The shipments, worth nearly $300,000 in retail stores, were seized on March 8th and 28th.

The toasters were found to have faulty safety markings by Underwriters Laboratories, or UL. The independent organization carries out tests to make sure there are no fire, shock or personal injury hazard possibilities with products.

Almost 25 percent of commodities seized by Customs and Border Protection were worth $33.5 million last year alone. Actually the fake UL marking is pretty bad. One of my Kung Fu bros worked at UL as a tester. He always unplugged everything - EVERYTHING - when he left the house.

[GeneChing]

And we complain about horse meat (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65208)? :rolleyes:

Shanghai diners fed rat, mink and fox instead of lamb (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10035515/Shanghai-diners-fed-rat-mink-and-fox-instead-of-lamb.html)
Shanghai's residents have joked for years that the city's hot pot restaurants substitute cat meat for lamb.
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
12:35PM BST 03 May 2013

Not quite, according to the city's police; the lamb is actually more likely to be rat, fox or mink.

On Friday, 63 suspects were arrested for a racket that makes horse meat in hamburgers seem positively palatable.

For the past four years, the police said, the gang had taken the small mammals, doused their flesh in dye and preservatives, and sold it as lamb "at farmers' markets in Jiangsu and Shanghai".

In a raid, nearly 10 tons of the counterfeit lamb was confiscated from a warehouse and the police said the gang had made profits of at least £1 million.

"How many rats does it take to put together a sheep?" asked one user of Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

There was weary resignation, rather than surprise, at the latest revelations in a city that is already accustomed to its food being cooked in oil dredged from the sewers, and where more than 16,000 putrefying pig carcasses were found dumped in a river that provides drinking water earlier this year.

However, the Shanghai police took the time to give advice on the internet on how to spot fake lamb.

"In fake lamb, it is easy to pull apart the fat from the red meat. In real lamb, the fat is difficult to separate," the police said on Sina Weibo, in a post that was forwarded more than 10,000 times.

The arrests in Shanghai were part of a countrywide operation since the beginning of the year to reassure the public that their food is safe.

A total of 904 people were arrested for selling fake, poisonous or contaminated meat and more than 1,700 underground butchers and processors were closed down.

[Syn7]

Given the state of global affairs, it isn't a stretch to assume that in the not so distant future people who still eat meat will have to "expand" their horizons a lil. Personally, I see us going the way of Star Trek. Making rounded meals of raw materials. Printed food isn't that far off. Commercially, that is.

[GeneChing]

Some Chinese ‘ambulances’ not suited to save you (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/06/17/some-chinese-ambulances-not-suited-to-save-you/)
3 days ago by Rachel Tackett

It’s an ill-kept secret that China is full of various counterfeits and bootlegs. The truth of it seems harmless enough when it’s limited to Hollywood films but recently the existence of phony ambulances has been brought to light by Beijing’s Morning Post. Apparently, China’s emergency medical transport system has been dispatching ill-suited medical vans and pulling in quite a profit doing so.

The story came to light thanks to a man named Lin, living in the city of Wenzhou. His wife had contracted a serious illness and was admitted into the intensive care unit of their local hospital, where she stayed for 40 days. It was then decided that she should be transferred to another hospital in Hangzhou, approximately 250 miles away. Obviously, she would not be able to survive such a long journey without appropriate medical care, and so an ambulance was called in. However, unbeknownst to anyone at the hospital, the artificial respirator on the ambulance was broken, and the medical staff on board had not been trained to handle anything related to terminal illnesses. Using a manual for necessary reference, the ambulance staff hooked the poor woman up to their broken respirator and drove off.

A short time after departing the hospital, Lin’s wife was struggling to breathe. Within minutes she was coughing up blood. The ambulance was forced to return to the original hospital, and the patient was returned to the ICU. By the following day she was still in a critical condition.

Lin was certain to contact the authorities about this suspicious, so-called ambulance. Surprisingly, the ambulance was legitimately registered with the government and belonged to a certain privately owned hospital. However, it was only certified to carry patients with non-life-threatening external wounds.

When Beijing’s Morning Post asked the vice-chair of the hospital why such an ill-equipped ambulance was sent to carry a critically ill patient for such a long distance, the man laughed and shirked all responsibility saying that they had no real understanding of the situation. He blames the problem on an overall lack of management for ambulances.

Why the city lacks the power to manage their emergency vehicles makes little sense, as they seem to receive plenty of funds. According to the owner and the driver of the ambulance which sparked all of this conversation, although this particular vehicle is owned by an individual, every time they are called to dispatch by the city’s emergency reception office, the person in charge of reception is given 20 percent on the transport fees as remuneration. These ambulance fees must be paid entirely by the patient, and are in no way cheap.

I’m starting to think that if I’m ever sick in China, I might spring for a taxi instead of an ambulance. At the very least, the fare is cheaper.
I have a few Chinese ambulance stories. I retold them in my book Shaolin Trips (http://www.amazon.com/Shaolin-Trips-Gene-Ching/dp/1424308976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276188031&sr=1-1).

[GeneChing]

I would so rock counterfeit Apple cloths. Well, maybe not the sweater shown, but if they had other stuff...;)

Jun 14, 2013 8:00 AM EDT
Because You Can: Artists Go Meta With Apple-Inspired Clothing (http://www.refinery29.com/2013/06/48474/shanzhai-movement-babak-radboy)
By Lexi Nisita

http://static3.refinery29.com/bin/entry/637/x/1050691/radboy.jpg
In a fascinating piece covering everything from corporate license to bootlegging, Dazed Digital explores the world of the Chinese-art phenomenon Shanzhai in an interview with Bidoun magazine's creative director, Babak Radboy — and it's enough to give you a serious head trip. Shanzhai, for the uninitiated, is essentially a movement that embraces Chinese counterfeit and pirated brands as a sort of rebellion against big business. It even has its own biennal (two years running, for that matter). "It’s this conversation between this massive production facility and late capitalism’s brand aura and intellectual property...It's kind of a punk in China," Radboy explains.

The interesting thing about the Shanzhai movement and the people — urban fashionphiles like the artist Wu Ting Ting and rural factory workers, alike — who embrace it is that it's not based in cheaply made, low-quality goods sold off for a racked-up price (though, that's what most would associate with the term "counterfeit"). It's actually about the dark, ironic humor involved in repurposing the skills gained while manufacturing iPhones and Prada bags to make things like HiPhones and Dada bags: Fully functional models that actually offer some kind of agency in a world where, or as Radboy puts it, "you know how much they’re selling for and you know that no matter how long you work at that factory, you will never ever have this product."

The medium is the message, and yet, there is no message in this new form of pop art with a darkly political twist. There's a kind of cheapness here that Radboy says is, in a strange way, even approaching couture in the looser sense of the word. Whatever you make of it, there's no doubt that this is a very compelling glimpse into the Chinese fashion psyche, something most of us gloss over and ignore when glancing at the tiny "made in China" label on our Dada Prada bags

[GeneChing]

More on condoms (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1226428#post1226428)


A million counterfeit condoms seized (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/10145466/A-million-counterfeit-condoms-seized.html)
By Matthew Day, Warsaw
10:58AM BST 27 Jun 2013

The seizure of the bogus contraceptives adds another name to the extensive list of forged branded products such as Gucci bags and Apple iPhones that roll off factories in China.

Polish officials said the haul carrying the name of a Czech manufacturer was worth more than £42,000, and followers the seizure of smaller consignment in February.

"It was not so much the product but where they it was coming from that was important," said Marcin Daczko, a spokesman for customs agency in Gdynia.

"Basically, goods from certain places are checked more than others." Officials added that the condoms would have gone to a distribution point in central Poland, if they had not been stopped.

The bust could fuel concerns of an influx into Europe of cheap and shoddy Chinese counterfeit condoms. Last month Chinese police seized 4.6 million forged Durex and Contex condoms in raids on a factory in Fujian province, and tests later showed the contraceptives were covered in a cheap lubricant.

Other counterfeit condoms have been found to full of holes, made from cheap materials that split and tear, and produced in unhygienic surroundings.

Health officials have warned that the bogus condoms could fail to protect people from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

In April Ghana seized over a million Chinese-made condoms and announced it was facing a "major public health issue" after tests revealed the contraceptives had holes and burst easily.

[Syn7]

Oh wow... These people should be hunted down like dogs. Seriously.

I honestly do the best I can to not buy things from China. It's unfortunate that the good people are tainted by the douchebags. But honestly, when it comes to goods, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. Especially with electronic components. I can buy a batch of TIP102's from China and it's like a 50/50 chance they are worth the discounted price. I would rather just go through digikey or mouser and let them deal with the headache of vetting the source.

[bawang]

maybe theyre just catholics who want to take action, lots of catholics in Fujian.

[GeneChing]

dispensing counterfeit cash

Counterfeit cash: Chinese ATMs distributing bootleg bucks? (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/07/26/counterfeit-cash-chinese-atms-distributing-bootleg-bucks/)
4 days ago by Rachel Tackett

http://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/atm01.jpg?w=580&h=773

Of the many things that China is known for, one of them is most certainly bootlegging. Sometimes it works to our smalltime benefit by introducing us to almost familiar films and imitation iPhones, but only trouble can be bought when China’s system begins circulating bootleg bills.

Recently, counterfeit money in China has reached a point where not only are people being fooled by fake cash, money-checking machines are too, as Chinese ATMs appear to be distributing bogus bills to honest civilians.

Earlier this week Yahoo! Japan ran an article about how the use of counterfeit bills worth 100 yuan (US$16.30) is increasing. People who handle a lot of money on a daily basis, like taxi drivers and store clerks, are probably accustomed to this issue and can identify a fraudulent bill with ease, but to the unsuspecting layman, counterfeit cash could pass into their hands without them ever giving it a second thought. Lately, the quality of counterfeits has gotten so good that even the machines meant to weed out fake money can be fooled into accepting them.

This would be less of a problem if the Chinese banks believed in it. According to Yahoo!’s article, a group of Japanese exchange students withdrew 3,000 yuan (US$490) from an ATM in China. They did not realize it right away, but of those 30 bills, seven of them were fake. However, when the group approached the bank with their wholly disheartening situation, the bank responded along the lines of “For an ATM to distribute counterfeit bills is unheard of,” and dismissed their claim.

This was not the only instance. A second group of students encountered a similar problem and was met with the same dismissive response, being told, “There is no way that we have counterfeit money in our ATMs.”

Admittedly, the existence and general circulation of counterfeit bills in a quickly developing country like China is not surprising in and of itself, but the thought that such bills have gotten mixed up in the banks’ system without any form of acknowledgement is a bit frightening. How unfair that these people must play an ATM the way one would a slot machine, hoping for a best case scenario of getting back the same amount of money that they first put in.

[GeneChing]

Maybe they meant it to be like a Fu Dog, sort of a mythical Lion. :rolleyes:


Chinese zoo tries to pass off a dog as a lion (http://io9.com/chinese-zoo-tries-to-pass-off-a-dog-as-a-lion-1147748760?fb_action_ids=10152119428732729&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%2210152119428732729%22%3A28592 1671550356}&action_type_map={%2210152119428732729%22%3A%22og.l ikes%22}&action_ref_map=[])

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18x36az1m3135jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg
Chinese zoo tries to pass off a dog as a lionA Chinese zoo is under fire for trying to disguise a Tibetan mastiff dog for a lion. The twisted scheme began to unravel when the supposed "African Lion" started to bark.

Top image: An example of the very lion-like Tibetan Mastiff.

The zoo, which is located in the People's Park of Luohe in the central province of Henan, is notorious for replacing exotic animals with fakes. Three other animals were labeled incorrectly, including two coypu rodents in a snake's cage, a white fox in a leopard's den, and another dog in a wolf pen.

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18x354jvnjp1gjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg
A Tibetan mastiff dog is displayed for sale at a mastiff show in Baoding, Hebei province on March 9th, 2013. Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images.

According to the chief of the park's animal department, Liu Suya, the zoo does indeed have a lion, but it's currently at a breeding facility. The dog, which belongs to an employee, happened to be housed at the zoo over safety concerns.

A zoo patron named surnamed Liu wanted to show her son the different sounds animals made, but he pointed out that the animal in the cage labelled "African lion" was barking.

"The zoo is absolutely cheating us," said Liu to the Beijing Youth Daily. "They are trying to disguise the dogs as lions."

[Jimbo]

It really shouldn't have taken the dog barking for anyone to see that it's a dog, not a lion. It doesn't even look like a lion.

[GeneChing]

I hear ya, Jimbo. Even with a lion haircut, a mastiff wouldn't pass.

The article below has actual photos.


Is this the world's worst zoo? Visitors' fury after staff in China try to pass off Tibetan mastiff as a lion and a mongrel as a leopard (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2394369/Is-worlds-worst-zoo-Visitors-fury-staff-China-try-pass-Tibetan-mastiff-African-lion-common-mongrel-leopard.html)

People's Park in Luohe, Henan province, has apologised and offered refund
Chinese media accuse zoo of replacing exotic animals with common species

By Becky Evans

PUBLISHED: 07:41 EST, 15 August 2013 | UPDATED: 10:14 EST, 15 August 2013

A China zoo has been forced to apologise after it tried to pass off a dog as a lion.

Angry visitors to the People's Park in Luohe, Henan province, complained when the 'African lion' started barking.

Zoo staff said they had pretended the Tibetan mastiff was a lion because they could not afford the real thing, local media reported.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/15/article-2394369-1B4EB6AF000005DC-524_634x463.jpg
This Tibetan mastiff was kept in the African lion's cage of the People's Park in Luohe, Henan Province

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/15/article-2394369-1B4EB6A7000005DC-427_306x423.jpg
Visitors said they felt defrauded by paying to see an African lion and being shown a dog

The state-run Beijing Youth Daily claims the zoo commonly replaced exotic animals with common species.

Elsewhere in the zoo, visitors found a mongrel dog in the Timber wolf's cage and another pooch posing as a leopard in the big cat enclosure.

Then in the reptile house, keepers had placed two giant sea cucumbers which they were trying to pass off as snakes.

One customer called Liu said: ''They're cheats. I paid good money to see the lion and all I got to see was a dog.

'The zoo is absolutely cheating us. I took my son there so he could hear the different sounds animals made but when we reached the cage where the African lion was supposed to be, the big animal in there started barking.

'I paid good money for the tickets and I feel defrauded.'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/15/article-2394369-1B4EB6B8000005DC-82_306x423.jpg
This white dog was being passed off as a Timber wolf, according to Chinese media

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/15/article-2394369-1B4EB6A1000005DC-39_634x392.jpg
This mongrel dog was in the leopard's enclosure of the zoo, that has since apologised to visitors

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/15/article-2394369-1B4ECF25000005DC-830_306x423.jpg
The zoo is accused of replacing exotic animals with common species (pictured: a pair of animals, believed to be pigs)

Another mother Liu Wen was also furious.

She said: 'I had my young son with me so I tried to play along and told him it was a special kind of lion.

'But then the dog barked and he knew straight away what it was and that I'd lied to him.

'How can they tell such dreadful tales and expect to get away with it?'

A visitor, who did not want to be named, said: 'I don't know how they've got the nerve to try it. They must think we are all stupid.'#

One user of China's Twitter-like Sina Welbo service commented: 'They should at least use a husky to pretend to be a wolf.'

Mr Liu Suya, chief of the park's animal department, insisted the zoo did have a lion but it had been taken to a breeding facility.

As for the dog that was in its cage, Mr Liu said it belonged to a employee and had been put there 'for safety reasons.'

A spokesman for the zoo said: 'We're doing our best in tough economic times.

'If anyone is unhappy with our displays we will give back their money.'

[Syn7]

It really shouldn't have taken the dog barking for anyone to see that it's a dog, not a lion. It doesn't even look like a lion.

Reminds me of this story.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/dog-mistaken-lion-18178754

The 911 calls are great. If I caught that dog running towards me to say hello out of the corner of my eye, I may startle a bit. But if I saw it from across the street, from the ride, whatever, I would know within seconds of being attracted to the unusual sight that it was a dog.

[GeneChing]

Trafficking in knockoff Nikes sends Chinese immigrant couple to prison (http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/federal-court/chinese-couple-sentenced-for-role-in-counterfeit-sneaker-smuggling-ring-20130822)
By Lou Michel | News Staff Reporter
on August 22, 2013 - 7:14 PM
, updated August 22, 2013 at 8:23 PM

Ling Zen Hu was described as an “illiterate” and “simple” woman who barely spoke English trying to succeed as a clerk in one of two New York City sneaker warehouses.

Her husband worked long hours as a chef and taxi driver and never realized he was breaking the law delivering the sneakers.

But the couple got caught up in an international, multimillion-dollar importing ring that sold fake Nikes and other counterfeit brand-name footwear.

Their attorneys hoped they could walk away from U.S. District Court in Buffalo on Thursday with fines and probation instead of spending years behind bars.

Though the two were spared lengthy sentences, Judge Richard J. Arcara said their crimes were serious enough to require some prison time. Because they took plea deals to lesser charges, they are not expected to be deported to China.

Arcara sentenced Hu, 51, to a year in federal prison, and her husband, Xiao Cheng Lin, 50, to six months. The judge departed from recommended sentencing guidelines because the two had never before been in trouble with the law. In court, each apologized to the judge through a translator and said they did not know they were violating American laws.

Buffalo defense attorney Mark J. Mahoney said Hu’s boss placed $750,000 in cash, money orders and phony merchandise in her Queens home for safekeeping before being deported to China in 2008. The items were later seized.

New York attorney Todd D. Greenberg said his client, Lin, had no idea he was breaking the law when he delivered the fake sneakers for his wife, emphasizing that his client made a “minimal” number of deliveries.

Mahoney, who was critical of the government for devoting resources to what he considers an overblown investigation, argued that a language barrier prevented his client from realizing she was involved in an illegal operation, pointing out that she had no idea who basketball icon and Nike pitchman Michael Jordan was.

Hu and Lin were granted asylum 22 years ago under a claim of persecution from China’s one-child rule that forced Hu to have an abortion, Mahoney said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John E. Rogowski questioned attempts to downplay Hu’s role. What “boss” would trust a mere worker with so much money and other valuables, unless the individual had a bigger role? he said. The husband, Rogowski added, had to know more than he did, given that he lived in the same house with his wife.

“This business is lucrative,” Rogowski said of the counterfeit merchandise. “A message needs to be sent that this is a serious offense.”

The couple first caught the attention of law enforcement several years ago after Niagara Falls police received complaints about fake Nike sneakers being sold from makeshift stands at deeply reduced prices. Local agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who listened in on phone calls, determined that a smuggling ring for the Nike knockoffs was behind the bargain-priced sneakers.

Under a plea agreement reached last September, the wife and husband each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to import mislabeled items. Hu could have been received up to 46 months in federal prison, and Lin 37 months.

Arcara also fined Hu $7,500 and Lin $6,000, and each will face a year of supervised release after serving their sentences. If Hu abides by prison rules, she could be freed after about 300 days. Because Lin’s sentence is less than a year, he must serve the full six months.

Greenberg secured a break for the family when he asked that the couple not be imprisoned at the same time, noting that their children and Lin’s ailing father, 82, would have no means of support. The judge said he would not object to such an arrangement. This sounds like they only caught some small fish and are frying them just to 'send' that message.

[GeneChing]

Xi'an ATM spits out counterfeit 'Chinese Hell Money Bank' bills (http://shanghaiist.com/2013/09/08/xian_atm_spits_out_counterfeit_chinese_hell_money_ bank_bills.php)

A man surnamed Chen from Xi'an, Shaanxi province was surprised when he withdrew some 100 yuan bills from an ATM to find that 11 of the notes were stamped with 'Chinese Hell Money Bank', Legal Evening News reports.

Of the 20 bills that Chen withdrew, nine were standard Mao Zedong 100 yuan notes, but 11 fakes issued by the "Chinese Hell Money Bank" were also spit out by the ATM, something that should be impossible as banks screen for fake currency.

According to banks contacted by the Legal Evening News, notes must go through two counterfeit checks before they are put back in circulation. A spokesperson for the Agricultural Bank of China said that "counterfeit currency cannot sneak into an ATM."

No bank staff could explain how Chen ended up with fake notes, police are investigating the matter.

By James Griffiths in News on Sep 8, 2013 6:00 PM
Wait, counterfeit 'Chinese Hell Money Bank' bills? You mean someone is making counterfeit Hell Money? That's downright ****able. There will be hell to pay!

;)

[MightyB]

IN THE NAME OF ANTI-DESIGN, A SELF-PROCLAIMED NON-ARTIST COMMISSIONS CHINESE ARTISANS SPECIALIZING IN COUNTERFEITS TO DEPICT THE REAL THING--THEMSELVES. (http://www.fastcodesign.com/3016660/chinese-art-imitators-make-art-imitating-their-lives#1)

After four years of design school, Zhenhan Hao was fed up with design. The young Chinese national and self-admitted non-artist had grown tired of chasing down trends or attempting to fashion his own. What really interested him, he says, was “something most designers hate--anti-design.”

What is anti-design, exactly? Hao doesn’t give a clear-cut definition, but he hazards that you just know it when you see it. For him, it was the fake egg scandal that hit China a couple of years ago. “I was shocked and amazed by the fact that a fake egg can be produced by using artificial materials, man-made eggs sold as genuine chicken eggs,” Hao tells Co.Design. “Since then, I have focused my research on the subject of imitation and its social, political, and economic implications.” His imposter-egg inspired studies of Chinese counterfeit culture led to the “Imitation” project, which delves behind the scenes of the huge industry of art and ceramic knockoffs.

http://f.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2013/08/3016660-inline-imitation-ceramic-market-1-2.jpg

With "Imposter," rather than simply document the (dis)contents of the sprawling art-making complexes that churn out fake antiques and masterworks daily, Hao took a more nuanced undercover approach. He assumed the role of a well-to-do client, with the capital to commission works from specific artisans, each one specializing in their own brand of forgery.

But this client came with no ordinary paint-me-a-picture commission. He enlisted the artisans--some 40 of them, all from Jingdezhen, China’s porcelain industry center, and Dafen Village, a hub for counterfeit canvases, among other things--as collaborators. Hao then asked them to produce personal works in the style of the masters they’ve learned to emulate. “I built relationships with them before I gave any commission, so that I could reveal the best part of them and ask of them to put some of themselves into the production process,” he explains.

http://d.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2013/08/3016660-inline-imitation-imitation-oil-painting-5-5.jpg

Working with Hao over email and in person, the artisans produced a vast array objects spanning painting, ceramics, even fine garment-making. The artworks offer a portrait of their makers, like the porcelain craftswoman who incorporated scenes of her daily work life onto the sides of otherwise traditional-style vases. An expert Van Gogh imitator, “Mr. Zhao,” rendered a snapshot of his bedroom with the same emotive brushwork and color palette as the Dutch painter.

“That is his self-portrait,” Hao says. “Even though he is not in the painting, each object represents him and his story. You can actually see the profound influence of this painting on his life.”

There are more photos of the counterfeiter's original art in the article, some of them are quite good.

[ShaolinDan]

There are more photos of the counterfeiter's original art in the article, some of them are quite good.

That's a pretty cool idea, actually. Nice one. :)

[GeneChing]

I first tried Redbull in Beijing, long before it was marketed in America. One of my Shaolin brothers had heard of it and was convinced we'd catch a buzz if we drank them.



At least 13 held across 10 Chinese provinces in fake Red Bull busts (http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1308168/least-13-held-across-10-chinese-provinces-fake-red-bull-busts)
Wednesday, 11 September, 2013, 11:09am
Patrick Boehler patrick.boehler@scmp.com

http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2013/09/11/fakeredbull.jpg?itok=qR6TG4C0
A fake Red Bull production site at an undisclosed location. Screenshot from Sina Weibo

Chinese authorities are continuing their year-long crackdown on fake food products by targeting producers of counterfeit Red Bull cans.

Police have detained 13 people across 10 provinces in China, China News Service said on Tuesday evening, in an effort to rein in the production and sale of large quantities of counterfeit versions of the popular energy drink.

https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/236w/public/2013/09/11/9599b2d6jw1e8agw5p5wpj20hs0dctb4.jpg?itok=YCdXALlF
Can on the left is authentic Red Bull, can on the right is fake, according to a netizen. Screenshot from Sina Weibo

They confiscated 3,820 boxes of cans, ingredients and packaging materials in eight locations over the last month in what appears to be nation-wide distribution network, police said.

Producing fake Red bull can be highly lucrative. Criminals involved in these operations made a 3.7 yuan profit on each fake can sold. Each one of their 12 illegal production lines was turning out 2,400 cans a day. Police have seized 25 million yuan worth of assets as part of their crackdown on these illegal products, the news wire report said.

https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/236w/public/2013/09/11/7f15e566jw1e4s9ed94xkj207s05uaam_1.jpg?itok=YXgHVQ Os
A unnamed patient undergoing treatment in a hospital in Shishi, Fujian province, in May after drinking fake Red Bull. Screenshot from Sina Weibo.

One arrest occurred in Huizhou, Guangdong province, in late August, when a purported Red Bull sales agent toured shops offering the energy drink with a one to two yuan discount, the Dongjiang Times reported.

Counterfeit versions of the energy drink appeared in China as early as 2005, when police in Fujian seized 180,000 cans of fake Red Bull cans.

Bringing Red Bull into China in 1995 brought Thai entrepreneur Chanchai Ruayrungruang, also known as Yan Bin, considerable wealth. The Shandong-émigré ranked as China’s fourth richest person, according to last year's Hurun

[GeneChing]

...or 176,369 quarter pounders.

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, but you can make a big mac from a pig's butt.




20,000 kilos of fake beef seized in Xi'an (http://shanghaiist.com/2013/09/14/20000_kilos_of_fake_beef_seized_in_xian.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/jamesgriffiths/fake-beef.jpg
Police in Xi'an, Shaanxi province have seized over 20,000 kg of fake beef made from pork and treated with chemicals, JRJ reports.

The pork was treated with chemicals, including paraffin wax and industrial salts, to make it look like beef. The factory sold over 1,500 kg of the fake beef to local markets at around 25 to 33 yuan per kilo.

Six workshops producing the 'beef' have been shut down and the meat seized as evidence.

The news will come as particular concern to Xi'an's large Muslim community, who may have been buying some distinctly non-halal beef.

By James Griffiths in News on Sep 14, 2013 11:00 PM

[enoajnin]

Chinese Honeys doesn't come to the United States because American producers felt the Chinese were dumping their product at artificially (does that make it Nutrasweet) low prices. The Chinese government added tariffs to basically triple the price of Chinese Honey.

But if you are a German Company called ALW, you find a way around these tariffs until well you are arrested.

Honey Trap (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-honey-launderers--uncovering-the-largest-food-fraud-in-u-s--history-171454285.html)

More at the link


Magnus von Buddenbrock and Stefanie Giesselbach arrived in Chicago in 2006 full of hope. He was 30, she was 28, and they had both won their first overseas assignments at ALW Food Group, a family-owned food-trading company based in Hamburg. Von Buddenbrock had joined ALW—the initials stand for its founder, Alfred L. Wolff—four years earlier after earning a degree in marketing and international business, and he was expert in the buying and selling of gum arabic, a key ingredient in candy and soft drinks. Giesselbach had started at ALW as a 19-year-old apprentice. She worked hard, learned quickly, spoke five languages, and within three years had become the company’s first female product manager. Her specialty was honey. When the two colleagues began their new jobs in a small fourth-floor office a few blocks from Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, ALW’s business was growing, and all they saw was opportunity.

On March 24, 2008, von Buddenbrock came to the office around 8:30 a.m., as usual. He was expecting a quiet day: It was a holiday in Germany, and his bosses there had the day off. Giesselbach was on holiday, too; she had returned to Germany to visit her family and boyfriend. Sometime around 10 a.m., von Buddenbrock heard a commotion in the reception area and went to have a look. A half-dozen armed federal agents, all wearing bulletproof vests, had stormed in. “They made a good show, coming in with full force,” he recalls. “It was pretty scary.”

The agents asked if anybody was hiding anywhere, then separated von Buddenbrock and his assistant, the only two employees there. Agents brought von Buddenbrock into a conference room, where they questioned him about ALW’s honey business. After a couple of hours they left, taking with them stacks of paper files, copies of computer hard drives, and samples of honey.

Giesselbach returned from Germany three days later. Her flight was about to land at O’Hare when the crew announced that everyone would have to show their passports at the gate. As Giesselbach walked off the plane, federal agents pulled her aside. She, too, answered their questions about ALW’s honey shipments. After an hour, they let her leave. The agents, from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Department of Homeland Security, had begun to uncover a plot by ALW to import millions of pounds of cheap honey from China by disguising its origins.


Americans consume more honey than anyone else in the world, nearly 400 million pounds every year. About half of that is used by food companies in cereals, bread, cookies, and all sorts of other processed food. Some 60 percent of the honey is imported from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and other trading partners. Almost none comes from China. After U.S. beekeepers accused Chinese companies of selling their honey at artificially low prices, the government imposed import duties in 2001 that as much as tripled the price of Chinese honey. Since then, little enters from China legally.

Von Buddenbrock and Giesselbach continued to cooperate with the investigators, according to court documents. In September 2010, though, the junior executives were formally accused of helping ALW perpetuate a sprawling $80 million food fraud, the largest in U.S. history. Andrew Boutros, assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, had put together the case: Eight other ALW executives, including Alexander Wolff, the chief executive officer, and a Chinese honey broker, were indicted on charges alleging a global conspiracy to illegally import Chinese honey going back to 2002. Most of the accused executives live in Germany and, for now, remain beyond the reach of the U.S. justice system. They are on Interpol’s list of wanted people. U.S. lawyers for ALW declined to comment.

In the spring of 2006, as Giesselbach, who declined requests for an interview, was preparing for her job in Chicago, she started receiving e-mail updates about various shipments of honey moving through ports around the world. According to court documents, one on May 3 was titled “Loesungmoeglichkeiten,” or “Solution possibilities.” During a rare inspection, U.S. customs agents had become suspicious about six shipping containers of honey headed for ALW’s customers. The honey came from China but had been labeled Korean White Honey.

The broker, a small-time businessman from Taiwan named Michael Fan, had already received advice from ALW about how to get Chinese honey into the U.S. ALW executives had told him to ship his honey in black drums since the Chinese usually used green ones. And they had reminded him that the “taste should be better than regular mainland material.” Chinese honey was often harvested early and dried by machine rather than bees. This allowed the bees to produce more honey, but the honey often had an odor and taste similar to sauerkraut. Fan was told to mix sugar and syrup into the honey in Taiwan to dull the pungent flavor.

After Fan’s honey shipment was confiscated, an ALW executive wrote to Giesselbach and her colleagues: “I request that all recipients not to write e-mail about this topic. Please OVER THE TELEPHONE and in German! Thank you!”

Nonetheless, Giesselbach and executives in Hamburg, Hong Kong, and Beijing continued to use e-mail for sensitive discussions about the mislabeled honey. When Yan Yong Xiang, an established honey broker from China they called the “famous Mr. Non Stop Smoker,” was due to visit Chicago, Giesselbach received an e-mail. “Topic: we do not say he is shipping the fake stuff. But we can tell him that he should be careful on this topic + antibiotics.” E-mails mention falsifying reports from a German lab, creating fake documents for U.S. customs agents, finding new ways to pass Chinese honey through other countries, and setting up a Chinese company that would be eligible to apply for lower tariffs. Giesselbach comes across as accommodating, unquestioning, and adept.

ALW relied on a network of brokers from China and Taiwan, who shipped honey from China to India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia, South Korea, Mongolia, Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines. The 50-gallon drums would be relabeled in these countries and sent on to the U.S. Often the honey was filtered to remove the pollen, which could help identify its origin. Some of the honey was adulterated with rice sugar, molasses, or fructose syrup.

In a few cases the honey was contaminated with the residue of antibiotics banned in the U.S. In late 2006 an ALW customer rejected part of Order 995, three container loads of “Polish Light Amber,” valued at $85,000. Testing revealed one container was contaminated with chloramphenicol, an antibiotic the U.S. bans from food. Chinese beekeepers use chloramphenicol to prevent Foulbrood disease, which is widespread and destructive. A deal was made to sell the contaminated honey at a big discount to another customer in Texas, a processor that sold honey to food companies. According to court documents, ALW executives called Honey Holding the “garbage can” for the company’s willingness to buy what others would not. Giesselbach followed up with Honey Holding, noting “quality as discussed.” The contaminated container was delivered on Dec. 14, 2006.

[GeneChing]

fake gong fu. ;)


Shanghai art experts question US$8.2m work of calligraphy (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1387970/shanghai-art-experts-question-us82m-work-calligraphy)
They say the lines of manuscript purportedly written by poet Su Shi are lifeless and boring
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 22 December, 2013, 5:09am
UPDATED : Sunday, 22 December, 2013, 5:09am
Stephen Chen binglin.chen@scmp.com

A famous ancient Chinese calligraphy piece which auctioned for US$8.2 million at Sotheby's in New York in September was challenged by experts from the Shanghai Museum.

https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/236w/public/2013/12/22/25f5f84d31554b0d2650531cc76a8850.jpg?itok=BEdO5GFt
Part of the controversial calligraphy. Photo: Sotheby's

The museum's three researchers on ancient calligraphy and paintings told the local Xinmin Evening News yesterday that they would soon publish an academic paper questioning the authenticity of Gong Fu Tie by the acclaimed Song Dynasty poet Su Shi, which was bought by a private curator in Shanghai and is slated for exhibition in the city next year.

They say the calligraphy under scrutiny, written about a thousand years ago, was a copy made less than 200 years ago in the late Qing dynasty.

"The writing in the auctioned work consisted mainly of side strokes, the lines are all thin and lifeless, they lack dimension and are boring," the report said, citing one of the researchers, Ling Lizhong . "Such penmanship does not in any way resemble that of Dongpo."

Su also goes by the name Su Dongpo.

The buyer, Liu Yiqian , owner of the Long Museum in Shanghai, told news portal Sina late last night that he had contacted Sotheby's, and the auction house would set up a panel of global experts to examine the calligraphy.

Liu said irrespective of whether the panel backed the Shanghai experts' challenge, he hoped "Sotheby's would defend its own reputation and handle the matter properly."

Sotheby's did not respond to inquiries from the Sunday Morning Post.

Liu said he had consulted experts about the authenticity of the calligraphy before he made his bid, but no doubts were raised. He also said he welcomed the experts' challenge.

In an official posting on the website artsy.net three months ago, Sotheby's called Gong Fu Tie "a succinct yet remarkable calligraphy masterpiece."

"Throughout its thousand-year history this manuscript has passed through the collections of many prominent artists and scholars ... whose inscription praised the piece to be a 'vivacious, timeless and divine work by Su', likening its charm to the beauty of a goddess."

Gong Fu Tie, a farewell note by Su to a poet friend, has only nine characters. It reads: "Su Shi respectfully bids farewell to Gongfu, Gentleman Court Consultant."

There was intense bidding when the piece went under the hammer on September 19. Six bidders pushed the price way above the pre-sale expectation of US$1 million.

[GeneChing]

Don't you hate it when you want some donkey and get fox instead?

Wal-Mart Recalls Donkey Meat in China (http://shanghaiist.com/2014/01/03/wal-mart-recalls-fox-tainted-donkey-meat.php)
U.S. Retailer Says It Will Boost DNA Testing of Meat Products
By Laurie Burkitt
Updated Jan. 2, 2014 7:06 p.m. ET

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/katienelson/donkey-meat.jpg

BEIJING— Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT -0.22% is recalling donkey meat sold at some of its China stores after government tests showed the meat contained the DNA of other animals.

The retailer said Thursday it will provide 50 yuan, or roughly $8.25, compensation to customers who bought the "Five Spice" donkey meat, and it is boosting DNA testing for meat products sold in its China stores. Authorities in China's eastern Shandong province said in late December that the retailer's product contained fox meat.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the donkey meat—which is commonly consumed in Chinese cuisine—is sold in only two stores in Jinan, the capital of Shandong. Wal-Mart is working with authorities to investigate the product and its manufacturing process, she said, adding that the retailer may take legal action against its supplier.

The Bentonville, Ark., company has come under fire in the past in China for alleged infractions. Last year, officials in the southern city of Nanning accused it of using expired eggs in baked goods.

The Wal-Mart spokeswoman said that the issue was resolved, without elaborating.

The company also is working with officials of the Chinese government to ensure that food manufacturers also monitor product safety, she added, as that oversight currently falls predominantly on the retailers.

Wal-Mart has heightened its food-safety practices in China since a 2011 scandal in which officials in the southwestern city of Chongqing accused it of mislabeling regular pork as more-expensive organic meat. The incident led to the temporary closure of 13 stores, the arrest of two employees, the detention of 35 others and a fine of 3.65 million yuan ($602,730).

Since then, Wal-Mart has overhauled management at its stores in Chongqing and implemented a new food-safety compliance system across the nation.

The retailer also announced last year that it would invest 100 million yuan over three years to strengthen food-safety management in its China stores.

Consumer trust in the Chinese food industry remains shaky even years after a 2008 scandal in which six babies died and 300,000 others were poisoned by drinking milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.

The chemical was used to mimic the properties of protein in milk and enable producers to make higher profits by passing off more liquid as milk.

Globally, consumers have been skeptical of the quality of meat products after a scandal last year revealed many products labeled as beef contained horse meat.

China is an important growth market for Wal-Mart, which is China's No. 3 megamarket retailer by market share, according to the most recent data from market-research firm Euromonitor International.

[GeneChing]

So wait...this is a street of fake fakes? :confused:

On this street in southern China, you can visit Starbucks Coffee - or rather, 'Sffcccks Coffee' (http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1401594/street-southern-china-you-can-visit-starbucks-coffee-or-rather)
A "street of fakes" in Wuxi has drawn ridicule and condemnation from Chinese netizens
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 09 January, 2014, 7:08pm
UPDATED : Friday, 10 January, 2014, 7:18am
Jeremy Blum jeremy.blum@scmp.com

http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2014/01/09/1.png?itok=W09m0YME
It looks like Starbucks from a distance, but upon closer inspection, something is very off here. Photo: Chinanews.com

A “street of fakes” has sprouted up in the southern Chinese city of Wuxi, featuring signs that flaunt modified names of famous international stores like Starbucks and Zara.

On this commercial street, located near the Wuxi East Railway Station, clothing stores Zara and H&M have morphed into “Zare” and “H&N,” American electronics company Apple is "Appla," Starbucks Coffee has become the bizarre sounding “Sffcccks Coffee" and even the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has made an appearance – only with one of the characters of its Chinese name removed and replaced with another, rendering the name nonsensical.

https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2014/01/09/2.png?itok=PCdtSPY6
H&M, Zara and even the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have all undergone tiny tweaks to their names. Photo: Chinanews.com

All of the store signs displaying these famous names are written in fonts that make them appear similar to the real deal from a distance, and China’s netizens have quickly taken to calling the area a “street of fakes” or a “shanzai street.” Shanzai is the Putonghua word for knock-off.

“How could the people that put these signs up possibly be proud of such a thing?” one commentator wrote on Chinese news portal Wenxuecity.com. “They are completely ignorant of intellectual property rights.”

Local reports claim that the stores displaying the shanzai signs are actually all empty, and the entire street is property available for purchase by shop owners or landlords. According to reports from internet portal Sohu.com, real estate representatives for the street told reporters that the signs were “pre-made advertising images designed to create a shopping atmosphere” and appeal to prospective property buyers.

https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2014/01/09/3.png?itok=HNyT15PN
All of the shops on this "street of fakes" are empty, local reports claim. Photo: Chinanews.com

“The real estate operators in charge are engaging in misleading behaviour and should stop this infringement,” said Zhao Jia, a local lawyer interviewed by Sohu.com.

Despite this warning, copyright infringement is common in the mainland, and local stores and products have frequently copied the logos or fonts of international brands for recognition purposes. Photos of Chinese stores such as “KLG” (a chicken restaurant similar to international fast-food chain KFC) and “Sunbucks Coffee” (a coffee shop resembling Starbucks) have been virally shared on the internet for years.

[GeneChing]

Wait....how can they be sure it wasn't a counterfeit Walmart?



CCTV exposes unlicensed and fake goods at Chinese Walmarts (http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140127000045&cid=1103)
Staff Reporter
2014-01-27
11:56 (GMT+8)

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/newsphoto/2014-01-27/450/C810N0045H_2013%E8%B3%87%E6%96%99%E7%85%A7%E7%89%8 7_N71_copy1.JPG
A Walmart store in Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China's Zhejiang province. (Photo/CNS)

China's state-broadcaster CCTV has accused US retailer Walmart of bypassing quality and safety checks to fast-track products, some of which are unlicensed, to Chinese shelves.

The four-minute CCTV report aired on Jan. 23 featured around 200 alleged company documents from as far back as 2006 showing that company managers signed off on more than 600 products that lacked the requisite paperwork for distribution. The unlicensed products even included fake products, including counterfeit versions of the Feitian Moutai Chinese liquor made by Kweichow Moutai, the CCTV report said.

In response, Walmart, the world's No. 1 retailer, explained that it uses its "special approvals process" only in specific circumstances.

"Our special approval process is used to accelerate listing items from suppliers we already do business with. The process requires three levels of management approval on an item by item, supplier by supplier basis. This ensures that we do not sell fake or inferior products nor we compromise the welfare or safety of our customers," the company said in a statement, adding they have "stopped selling hundreds of items" that fall short of customers' "quality expectation" over the past year.

A former supermarket manager told the Chinese-language Beijing Times newspaper that these special approvals processes employed by companies such as Walmart is a form of corruption. A new product needs to go through a lot of administrative processes and paperwork to gain access to a supermarket, the manager said, suggesting that Walmart executives could be forgoing these requirements in exchange for some kind of personal benefit.

This is not the first time Walmart, which has more than 400 stores in China and plans to open 110 more, has run into trouble on the mainland. Earlier this month, US retailer was forced to recall donkey meat sold at some Chinese outlets after tests showed the product contained traces of other animals, including the cheaper fox meat. In 2011, Walmart and France's Carrefour were fined a combined 9.5 million yuan (US$1.6 million) for manipulating product prices. Later that year the US retailer was fined again for selling duck meat past its expiry date.

Walmart, however, is far from the only foreign brand to be criticized by CCTV. Other past subjects of negative reports include global coffee chain Starbucks, electronic giants Apple and Samsung, fast food chain KFC and carmakers Audi and Subaru.

[Almost A Ghost]

China's Colbert Report ripoff

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/432450/january-23-2014/china-s-colbert-report-rip-off

[GeneChing]

Luv Colbert.

Meanwhile, bringing it back to America...



$20M and counting: Feds tackle counterfeit goods ahead of Super Bowl (http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/432450/january-23-2014/china-s-colbert-report-rip-off)
By Cristina Corbin
Published January 29, 2014
FoxNews.com

http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/U.S./660/371/ticketmanning.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
The ticket is fake, but its bar code is real enough to get a fan inside MetLife Stadium to see Peyton Manning lead the Broncos against the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. (AP)

The feds have already set a Super Bowl record -- by seizing some $20 million worth of phony gear smuggled in from all over the world as Sunday's game approaches.

Fake tickets good enough to gain entry to MetLife Stadium, knock-off jerseys and even sex workers descending on the biggest event in American sports are all on the radar of the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has set up a 24-hour operation at JFK airport, where they are confiscating loads of unlicensed Super Bowl paraphernalia in advance of Sunday's game, FoxNews.com has learned.

"We have seized upwards of $20 million worth of counterfeit merchandise, most of which is related to the Super Bowl," said Special Agent in Charge James T. Hayes of Homeland Security in New York. "We've executed 11 arrests so far and expect to make more in the coming days."

Hayes said investigators have confiscated "thousands of pieces" of illegal merchandise, sent mostly from Asian countries like China. The fraudulent items include hats, jerseys and T-shirts made to look like they are officially endorsed by the National Football League for this year's Super Bowl game between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos as MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

"If it’s produced, it’s being counterfeited."

- James T. Hayes, DHS Special Agent in Charge

"If it’s produced, it’s being counterfeited," Hayes said. "This is the perfect environment for counterfeiters because of street vendors," he said of New York City and areas surrounding the northern New Jersey stadium.

Knock-off goods typically arrive in the U.S. by container ship, but with just two weeks between the Super Bowl and the playoff games that determine who competes in it, Seahawks and Broncos' gear is coming in by plane, in the suitcases of smugglers, officials said.

Hayes and a team of investigators are opening up thousands of packages deemed "suspicious" to "make sure what is claimed is there," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Ubon Mendie. The NFL has also sent representatives to assist the DHS in determining what is official and what is fraudulent.

"Even a savvy consumer can be fooled," Hayes said.

Mendie noted that the government last year seized more than $17 million in of counterfeit goods related to the NFL's championship, meaning one Super Bowl record has already been broken.

"We have eclipsed that this year," he told FoxNews.com.

Also troubling DHS is the discovery of Super Bowl tickets with a working UPC code -- passes to the game that are hard to distinguish from legitimate tickets.

"The fraudulent ticket schemes that are out there are getting pretty sophisticated," Mendie said. "The intricate systems that we're seeing now are not things we've seen in the past."

"These tickets essentially have a photo-copied bar code," Hayes added.

Hayes is urging the public to always purchase tickets through reputable vendors like Ticketmaster and StubHub for any sporting event.

"You’ve got to use a legitimate vendor that guarantees that you're going to get a legitimate ticket no matter what," he said.

DHS is also investigating cases of alleged human trafficking in which women and minors are crossing state lines to work as prostitutes during game weekend. Mendie said DHS has already identified suspects and plans to execute arrests "in the next few days."

"We are seeing an influx of people being trafficked to the area," Mendie said. "This is always a problem that we constantly work to eradicate."

Hayes said DHS has reached out to at least 20 hotels in the New York City area about how to identify "signs of a person being trafficked or held against their will."

Hayes said most cases involve women over 18 and under who are foreign nationals -- sometimes unaware of U.S. law and often from countries "where law enforcement isn’t trusted."

[GeneChing]

See? See what happens when you go to China, Mr. Bond (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1070)?


5 February 2014 Last updated at 13:27 ET
Aston Martin recalls 17,000 cars over possible defective part
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-26058905)

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72782000/jpg/_72782138_133151728.jpg
Aston Martin One-77 Aston Martin is based in Gaydon in Warwickshire

Aston Martin is recalling more than 17,000 cars because of a potentially defective part.

The Warwickshire-based luxury car maker said the recall accounted for most of its sports cars built since late 2007.

It follows the discovery that a Chinese sub-supplier was allegedly using counterfeit plastic material in part of the accelerator pedal.

There are fears the pedal arm may break although there have been no reports of any accidents, the firm said.

A spokesman said it would now bring manufacture of the pedal arm back to the UK.
'Get it replaced'

The firm is recalling a total of 17,590 cars - 1,553 in the UK - including all of its left-hand-drive models built since November 2007 and all right-hand-drive models built since May 2012, affecting about 75% of all cars built in those periods.

The recall applies to all cars apart from the new Vanquish coupe and Volante models.

"Customer safety is very important and to change the pedal takes less than an hour, so take the car and get it replaced is what we're saying," the spokesman said.

"It's very important to say that there have not been any incidents or accidents."

[GeneChing]

I imagined it would be higher...:o


'68% of counterfeit goods seized in US come from China' (http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/68-of-counterfeit-goods-seized-in-us-come-from-china-114032500298_1.html)
China was closely followed by counterfeit and pirated goods from Hong Kong, which accounted for 25% of the total goods seized
Press Trust of India | Washington
March 25, 2014 Last Updated at 12:31 IST


China is the primary source for counterfeit and pirated goods seized in the US, according to an official report that puts India at a distant third.

In the year 2013, Chinese counterfeit and pirated goods seized in the US accounted for a total value of $1.1 billion, representing 68% of all such goods seizures by the Customs and Border Protection, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said yesterday in its annual report.

China was closely followed by counterfeit and pirated goods from Hong Kong, which accounted for 25% of the total goods seized.

Hong Kong, a former British colony is now a special administrative region of China.

China and Hong Kong was followed by India at a distant third position, accounting for three per cent of the total goods seized, the report said.

The number of intellectual property rights (IPR) seizures increased nearly seven per cent from 22,848 in fiscal 2012 to 24,361 in fiscal 2013.

The manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of seized goods increased from $1.26 billion in FY 2012 to $1.74 billion in FY 2013.

The report averaged slightly over 66 seizures per day, with an average MSRP of each seizure being slightly more than $71,500.

"Together with our IPR partners, CBP continues to guard the nation's borders against counterfeit products," said Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner R Gil Kerlikowske.

"These products are not only unsafe and dangerous to consumers, but they also pose a threat to the economic security of our country," he added.

The National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Center continued its initiative Operation 'In Our Sites' in FY 2013 to shutdown rogue websites trading in counterfeit and pirated goods.

It seized control of 1,413 websites trading in these illicit goods in FY 2013. Consumers are reminded to remain vigilant when making online purchases, the report said.

[pazman]

I'm not sure if I read the article correctly....68% from China, but 25% from Hongkong. That makes 93% from China.

Gene, did I make your day?:p

[Syn7]

It's not surprising that the countries that manufacture the most consumer goods would be the same countries that bootleg those same consumer goods.

I build electronics and I used to shop around for the best deals and get parts from China but I have been burned too many times. The parts are cheap, so it's not about the money, it's about the blue smoke! ****ers. :p

As a rule, I don't buy from China unless I have to. Which is unfortunate because I would like to support LEGIT dealers from China, but it's just too much of a pain in the ass to vett(sp?) these guys anymore. The only Chinese parts I get now are from reputable distributors like DigiKey. They have the time and money to figure out what's real and what's not.

[GeneChing]

...but it was another faux labeling thing.


Fake oranges seizure becomes Hong Kong's first counterfeit fruit scandal (http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1496013/fake-fruit-gives-buyer-sour-taste)
5,200 oranges with suspect Sunkist labels seized in first such case in HK
PUBLISHED : Friday, 25 April, 2014, 3:59am
UPDATED : Friday, 25 April, 2014, 2:03pm
Lo Wei wei.lo@scmp.com

http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980w/public/2014/04/24/9ddecf972477853cd2405997595bc54d.jpg?itok=mWc3E2hU
Customs' intellectual property officer Lam Yau-tak shows off some of the haul of fake Sunkist oranges. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Customs officers have seized 5,200 oranges with suspected forged Sunkist labels in the first case of counterfeit oranges in Hong Kong.

The fruit was seized from two Yuen Long stalls after the buyer complained they tasted sourer than the real thing and had thicker skins.

The genuine and counterfeit oranges look similar except for their label stickers - the real ones are made of plastic while the fakes are printed on paper, said Lam Yau-tak, commander of the Customs and Excise Department's intellectual property general investigation division.

The owner of the two stalls and three sales staff aged 19 to 62 were arrested. Apart from the oranges, 112,000 forged labels were seized, some not yet stuck on the fruit.

The officers launched a two-week investigation after receiving the complaint.

"The complainant ate the oranges and found them sourer than the usual ones. The skin was thicker too," Lam said.

The counterfeit oranges were imported from North Africa. Tests by government chemists have found them suitable to eat.

Genuine Sunkist oranges, usually imported from South Africa and California, cost HK$3 to HK$4 each and are sold to customers at HK$5 to HK$6. The counterfeit ones cost HK$1 and were sold at HK$3 to HK$4 each. The 5,200 oranges seized were estimated to have a market value of HK$90,000.

During their investigation, the officers found the staff secretly sticking the forged labels to the oranges.

The shop had posted signs prohibiting customers picking up the oranges while choosing them which Lam said he thought was done out of fear the fake labels would be spotted.

He said paper labels were cheaper and easier to print than plastic ones.

The two stalls in an outdoor market in Yuen Long were six stalls apart and had different names but were owned by the same person.

Checks of more than 10 other stalls in the market found no further fakes.

Lam said the investigation was continuing but no sign of a syndicate had been found.

The last counterfeit fruit case involved more than 130 boxes of watermelons seized in 2011, presented as having been imported from Malaysia when in fact they were from the mainland.

Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, anyone selling or possessing goods with a forged trademark is liable to a fine of HK$500,000 and five years in jail.

[Syn7]

At least they were actually oranges. I'm sure the mislabeling happens all the time. Better than a walnut with a freakin' rock in it, lol. I love the audacity of some of these people. Some of the scandals in this thread are quite ballsy.

[GeneChing]

There's a vid report if you follow the link.

Egypt complains over China’s fake Sphinx (http://us.tomonews.net/egypt-complains-over-china-rsquo-s-fake-sphinx-91293860347904)
05/26/2014

A full-sized replica of the Great Sphinx of Giza has appeared in a Chinese village near Shijiazhuang(石家莊) in China’s Hebei(河北) Province. The sphinx is about 197 feet long and 65 feet high, and is open for tourist visits.

Ali El-Asfar, Chairman of the Egyptian antiquities department, filed a complaint to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) over China’s fake sphinx.

Egyptian authorities said the highly counterfeit fake sphinx of China has violated international regulations. El-Asfar also pointed out that the fake sphinx is not only inaccurately built, but will do harm to the value of the original Great Sphinx of Giza, and hurt Egypt’s tourism and film industry.

A local filming company said the fake sphinx is a set piece and will be destroyed after production. They also say they are not charging fees to the visitors.

But this is not the first time China has made counterfeits of famous historical buildings and wonders.
A fake Eiffel Tower cropped up in Hangzhou(杭州), a fake Arc de Triomphe stands in Shaoxing(紹興), a fake London’s Tower Bridge is available in Xuzhou(蘇洲), and there is even a fake White House toilet in Anhui(安徽).

[GeneChing]

The ol' switcheroo



All that glitters: businessman 'who bought HK$270m of gold' ends up with metal bars (http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1525986/all-glitters-businessman-who-bought-hk27m-gold-ends-metal-bars)
Probe into HK$270m riddle of bullion from Africa switched for metal bars continues
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 05 June, 2014, 5:31pm
UPDATED : Friday, 06 June, 2014, 11:54am
Clifford Lo and Andrea Chen

http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2014/06/06/b-gold-net-0606.jpg?itok=ALU1uTyY

The cases were shipped to a Tsuen Wan warehouse before being couriered to Hung Hom, police believe. Photo: Bloomberg

Police were last night making arrangements with a mainland businessman to check whether HK$270 million of gold bullion he bought in Africa was genuine after part of the consignment was swapped with metal bars.

On Wednesday, Zhao Jingjun, 43, opened part of his shipment in front of his buyer in Hong Kong and discovered the gold had been switched for worthless metal.

A senior officer said it would be the city's biggest heist in a decade if it was confirmed that all the gold had been stolen.

An initial inquiry showed Zhao purchased 998kg of gold bars from a company in Ghana in mid-April, police said.

The consignment, in 14 cases, was escorted by his staff and delivered from Ghana on a chartered flight late last month.

"Officers were told that his employee confirmed the cases contained the gold before it was loaded onto the chartered flight in Ghana," a police source said.

The source said the employee left Hong Kong after the consignment was handed to the staff of a logistics company at Chek Lap Kok airport. It was then couriered to a Tsuen Wan warehouse.

The businessman arrived from Hebei province on Monday and checked into the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. On Wednesday, he had five of the cases couriered to his buyer's Hung Hom office.

"When he opened the boxes, he found they were filled with metal bars instead of gold bullion," the source said. "He told officers the cases appeared to have been tampered with."

Police received a report from Zhao on Wednesday night when he returned to his hotel room.

He went to Tsim Sha Tsui police station yesterday with documents proving he bought the bullion in Ghana and that it was delivered to Hong Kong.

A police investigator said: "We don't rule out the possibility that the gold bullion may have been switched for metal bars before being delivered to Hong Kong."

Zhao has reportedly made several such transactions. His business activities include the purchase of iron ore from Australia, Africa and South America.

Four years ago, 265 gold bars were taken from a Yuen Long company. Police arrested three men and recovered most of the HK$90 million in bullion stolen.

[Syn7]

crazy. How much is that in USD?

[Faux Newbie]

There's a vid report if you follow the link.

I call shenanigans! Those aren't counterfeits. No one is like, hey, I didn't realize the Statue of Liberty was in Dalian!

[Tainan Mantis]

Early in the period when I lived in Taiwan, in the '80s, they had a brand of toothpaste called Darkie Toothpaste. It had an old-fashioned looking charicature of a wide-eyed, grinning black man in a top hat on the package. A well-known African-American Tv personality (and DJ?) in Taipei, whose Mandarin was excellent, protested it to the point they changed the name to Darlie, and changed the drawing to a white man in a top hat.

But they kept the original Chinese name of Hei Ren.

[GeneChing]

First functional iPhone 6 clones may soon be available in China (http://shanghaiist.com/2014/07/14/functional-iphone-6-clone-soon-available-china.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/cloned-iphone6.jpg

While Apple still has months to announce its next-generation iPhone, some Chinese manufacturers are steps ahead and seemingly ready to release the first functional iPhone 6 clones following the knock-off, nonfunctional iPhone 6 phones already floating around the market.

Just like the past clones, the devices are likely running a skinned version of Android with a custom launcher that imitates the appearance of iOS 7. According to 9to5Mac, "these devices use the rumored specification and schematics of the actual iPhone 6 that we have seen so much over the last few months, but obviously use off-the-shelf internals and don't run iOS."

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/cloned-iphone6%20%282%29.jpg
The iPhone 6 clone was photographed next to a Samsung Galaxy S III for comparison.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/cloned-iphone6%20%283%29.jpg
These images of "shanzhai" (cloned) iPhone 6 are going viral on Weibo, with Chinese netizens exclaiming the 'greatness' of Chinese counterfeiters.

By Daniel Zhang



I call shenanigans! Those aren't counterfeits. No one is like, hey, I didn't realize the Statue of Liberty was in Dalian! It's a fair cop. That one was slightly OT

[GeneChing]

Wasn't sure whether to put this here or on our Chinese-Theme-Parks (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?62642-Chinese-Theme-Parks) thread. I went with this one because it was further down from the top.


Welcome to Venice, China: Dalian copies canals, palaces … and gondoliers (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/oct/22/venice-china-dalian-copy-canals-palaces-gondoliers)
The copycat city in north-eastern Liaoning province is just the latest example of China’s fondness for replicating Europe’s greatest architectural hits
Nick Mead
Wednesday 22 October 2014 06.56 EDT

Chinese people can now experience Venice without actually going to Italy after the Northern Chinese city of Dalian built a 4km canal lined with European style buildings.

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-700/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/10/22/1413971037482/f867b96e-80d1-4f01-a62a-86dd5a4223f7-1020x685.jpeg
Gondoliers in traditional Venetian costume offer Chinese residents in the port city of Dalian a taste of Venice – without the hassle of travelling to Italy
Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-700/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/10/22/1413971130673/5fb00e9c-f5f8-4e7f-9bfd-e43fc6209654-1020x683.jpeg
It is just the latest example of China’s fondness for replicating Europe’s western architecture: from Hangzhou’s ‘Eiffel Tower’, to Chengdu’s recreation of Dorchester and Shanghai’s Thames Town, complete with red phone boxes and a statue of Winston Churchill
Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-700/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/10/22/1413971266596/abd4eb7e-5604-4401-90fd-2b4840ce320e-1020x683.jpeg
Bianca Bosker, author of Original *Copies: *Architectural Mimicry in *Contemporary China, calls the phenomenon ‘duplitecture’. She argues that in mimicry is seen as ‘a form of mastery’ in China
Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-700/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/10/22/1413971209182/25838ae7-c3e3-4c66-b4d5-45331315f1b2-1361x2040.jpeg
The Venice recreation features man-made canals lined with European-style buildings. The first phase, which opened to the public at the weekend, features one kilometre of canals, which will extend to four kilometres when the five billion yuan (£500m) project is complete
Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex

[GeneChing]

There's a special place in hell for people like this.


Spotted: 'Paralyzed' beggar stands up to catch bus in Zhejiang (http://shanghaiist.com/2014/12/08/paralyzed-beggar-stands-up-zhejiang.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/fake-diabled-begger.jpg

A beggar claiming to be paraplegic was seen scooting around on a skateboard on a street in Wenling, Zhejiang province province yesterday, gaining onlookers' sympathy and money. The saddest part about it? He was a fake.

The miserable scene mixed with some recorded music was enough to get several people pulling change out of their pockets to help the struggling man. When a reporter gave him some money and asked if he needed anything, the beggar replied: “What can you do to help me?” I hate journalists the most,” Xinhua News reports.

The reporter followed the beggar to a bus stop, where he took off all the ragged clothes, put them into a knitted bag, took off the socks that had been tied on his shoes and stood up. He even rushed to the road to get on the bus.

Fake beggars can earn more than 10,000 yuan a month in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China Daily reported last year. Just last week, a photo of a beggar holding an iPhone in Beijing triggered hot discussion online.

By Dina Li

Here's that China Daily report:


'Fake beggars' seek fortune in metro (http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-06/03/content_16561883.htm)
Updated: 2013-06-03 18:51
(chinadaily.com.cn)

"Professionals" account for 80 percent of beggars in the subway in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and many have a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan ($1,630), the Modern Express reported on Monday.

The per capita disposable income of urban residents in the city in 2012 was 36,700 yuan, according to official statistics.

Of the 10,200 cases involving begging that the subway authority handled since 2009, 80 percent were not from impoverished families and had they had the ability to work.

These beggars, the paper said, work eight hours a day like regular commuters and their daily income is around 400 yuan. Some veterans receive 1,000 yuan per day.

One beggar, pretending to be disabled, had an expensive mobile phone, a passport and an exit-entry permit to Hong Kong and Macao, said Li Bin, a worker at the management company of Nanjing metro.

[GeneChing]

Nice one, China Daily. :rolleyes:

China Daily fakes op-ed under New Yorker journalist Peter Hessler's byline (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/01/22/china-daily-fakes-op-ed-under-new-yorker-journalist-peter-hessler-byline.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/katienelson/peter-hessler.jpg

New Yorker journalist Peter Hessler says that state-run newspaper China Daily faked an editorial and put it under his byline after he took part in an interview and his responses were taken out of context.

China Daily had requested for Hessler, along with his former colleague and translator Li Xueshun, to participate in a Q&A, in which he was asked, among a series of other questions, to compare Egypt and China (Hessler has worked as a correspondent in both of these countries).

The newspaper took his reply, framed it as an editorial about China and Egypt (the headline reads: "US observer: Comparing Egypt with China”) and slapped his byline on it, he explained in a post to Facebook.

The column praises the stability and the education system of China, and out-of-context, conveniently appears like another party-pushing editorial typical of the Daily. One part reads: "I think I have a better understanding of how essentially stable the Chinese system is," after his time living in Egypt. "It reminds me that in China, even in a tiny village, there was a great deal of government activity. The villagers were very clearly connected to the larger political systems and issues of the country."

Says Hessler:

[…] it omitted crucial parts, including the most important point: that I believe it’s harder to make a political change in China, where the system is deeper rooted than in Egypt, and thus the flaws are also more deeply rooted. I said that this is the reason why the current anti-corruption campaign will be a failure, because China is not addressing its systemic flaws. This material, among other things, was not included in the published article. (Nor did the paper print any of Li Xueshun’s answers, of course.)

China Daily has since removed the article from its English-language site, but other state media sites had already picked up by that point and it's been published all over the web.

Here is Hessler's full response:

Earlier this month, a reporter from China Daily approached me with a request to do an interview, in conjunction with Li Xueshun, a former colleague from Fuling who has translated the mainland editions of my books. Li and I were told that this was part of a year-end special, and many of the questions were around that theme: what was your top achievement of the last year, biggest regret, and other questions. Li was asked, for example, for his opinion of the translation profession in today’s China. One question asked me to compare Egypt and China.

Yesterday, China Daily published an article under my byline, presented as an article that I had written solely about Egypt and China, and including much of my response on the question about post-revolution Egypt. But it omitted crucial parts, including the most important point: that I believe it’s harder to make a political change in China, where the system is deeper rooted than in Egypt, and thus the flaws are also more deeply rooted. I said that this is the reason why the current anti-corruption campaign will be a failure, because China is not addressing its systemic flaws. This material, among other things, was not included in the published article. (Nor did the paper print any of Li Xueshun’s answers, of course.)

After the article appeared, I asked China Daily to remove the article from their website and issue a retraction, because it should not have been under my byline and it did not accurately convey the substance of the interview. I offered to participate in a proper Q&A, provided that they made a statement disavowing the earlier article, and allowed me to approve the final edit of the Q&A before publication. China Daily removed the article from the English website, but Chinese translations have been picked up by various outlets. And the paper has refused to issue a retraction.

I want to emphasize that this article does not in any way represent a comprehensive picture of my views on China and Egypt, and I never would have agreed to such a story. And I want readers to understand that the terms under which I was approached - that this was a year-end interview with my friend and colleague Li Xueshun, on a range of topics - are completely different from being approached for an article specifically about Egypt and China (especially when my byline will be used, not to mention with key material removed). I believe that a proper comparison between Egypt and China is extremely useful, but it requires more space and focus than such a format.
I also want to note that this incident has not been representative of my recent experiences with Chinese journalists. Over the past two years I’ve had many interviews with the Chinese press, including a book tour last fall. I’m well aware of the pressures that journalists face in China, especially in the current climate, where there is a risk that words can be twisted or taken out of context for political ends. I’ve appreciated the fact that so many of the Chinese journalists that I’ve met have been sensitive to this, and in some cases have worked with me directly in an effort to find the best way to convey ideas responsibly and accurately.

Peter Hessler

[Image via Wiki Commons]

[GeneChing]

I've heard of fake ATMs before, but a whole bank? That's impressive.


Fake Chinese bank cheats huge deposit (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2015-01/23/c_133942476.htm)
English.news.cn 2015-01-23 18:11:14

NANJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- A rural cooperative posing as a bank cheated 200 million yuan (32 mln U.S. dollars) from unwitting depositors in an eastern Chinese city, local police said.

The fake bank ensnared more than 200 customers over the past year with promise of higher interest rates.

The scheme was unraveled only after a customer was denied withdraw of his money and reported it to the police, according to police in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province.

Police say the cooperative has decorated itself exactly the same as a bank, with LED screens, a queuing machine and uniformed clerks. It also faked documents to prove itself as an authorized financial institute.

One legal representative cooperative and four "managers" have been detained on suspicion of illegally absorbing public money.

Most victims were businessmen from neighboring Zhejiang Province. Police are still seeking victims of the scam.

[GeneChing]

I wonder what their slurpees are like...:)


Fake 7-Elevens across Asia: you can hide, but we’re on to you (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/02/17/fake-7-elevens-across-asia-you-can-hide-but-were-on-to-you/)
Krista Rogers 11 hours ago

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/137.jpg?w=580&h=382

Take a quick look at the picture above. Notice anything strange? Perceptive readers may have spotted something out-of-place right away. If you didn’t, well, no worries, but you’ll probably want to facepalm yourself when you take a second look.

Like this Chinese “7-Twelve,” there are a number of fake, localized versions of popular convenience store 7-Eleven scattered throughout the Asian continent. They may think they can slip through the cracks, but perhaps it’s only a matter of time before a lawyer comes knocking at their doors. We have to hand it to them, though–they score high on creativity for coming up with some amusing names.

Let’s take a look at some photographic evidence of the various 7-Eleven wannabes out there.

Japan

You may not have guessed it, but our first offender is actually from none other than Japan! Err, was, that is–this particular store is no longer in business.

“7-Mercy” apparently opened during the latter years of the Showa Era (1926-1989) somewhere in Miyagi Prefecture. We certainly did a double take the first time we glanced at the store’s logo:

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/324.jpg?w=580&h=436
Pds exblog

Ironically, there’s now a real 7-Eleven located right across the street:

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/418.jpg?w=580&h=435
Tabitsubo

China

Moving on to China, we’re once again almost, but not quite, fooled by the familiar-looking red and green logo. Perhaps someone was trying to make a statement by one-upping the number eleven? At least they spelled it right…

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/137.jpg?w=580&h=382
Twitter (@livein_china)

Here we’ve got the presumably less-convenient “9-One.” We wonder what the significance of the numbers “nine” and “one” is…

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/516.jpg?w=580&h=874
Blogimg goo

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Vietnam

If you travel further south in Asia, you can find a mini-mart in the guise of “7-Days.”

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/614.jpg?w=580
Norinpop

Cambodia

Does the name “7-Bright” suggest that it’s only open when there’s still light outside? Or that the shop workers will greet you with bright smiles? Perhaps only intelligent people can shop here…

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/712.jpg?w=580&h=435
Aicoaico

Nepal (Pokhara)

Although the sign reads “7-Eleven,” the merchandise being sold there appears to be fitting only for some kind of school festival.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/814.jpg?w=580&h=387
Bengal-hime

Here’s a new one–how would you like to waste the night away at the “7-Eleven Dance Bar”?

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/224.jpg?w=580&h=326
Sekai Tsunagaru (junjun2310)

South Korea (Dongdaemun district, Seoul)

Finally, we have this “7-Seven” mart located in a popular Korean tourist area. While lacking the chain’s distinctive red and green stripes, the design of the numeral “7” still comes a little too close to the real thing.

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/109.jpg?w=580&h=428
Sky geocities

Has anyone seen any other fake 7-Elevens out there during their travels around the globe? We’re sure there’s a whole slew of counterfeit shops for other popular chains, such as McDonald’s and Starbucks, as well. Feel free to share your observations in the comments section below!

Sources: Naver Matome; H/T Kotaku USA
Top image: Twitter (@livein_China)

11 pix - 1 more than our max per post and I wanted to include them all. :D

[GeneChing]

Chinese counterfeit caviar among tonnes of fake food and drink seized by Interpol (http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1716021/interpol-seizes-chinese-counterfeit-caviar-among-tonnes-fake-food-and)
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 17 February, 2015, 11:16am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 17 February, 2015, 6:18pm
Agence France-Presse in Paris

http://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2015/02/17/caviar-interpol.jpg?itok=n_1Pd4pK
A sample of fake Chinese caviar seized during an earlier raid in Spain by Interpol in 2012. The latest haul of Chinese counterfeit caviar was made in France. Photo: Interpol

A global police crackdown on counterfeit produce has netted thousands of tonnes of fake food and drink, including Chinese imitation caviar, Interpol said.

Operation Opson 4 was run by Interpol and its EU sister agency Europol in 47 countries during December and January, 20 of them within the European Union.

Some 2,500 tonnes of fake and substandard food and more than 275,000 litres of fake or diluted alcohol were confiscated.

The haul included 20,000 litres of fake whisky in Thailand, false malt in Uganda and fake beer in Rwanda. In Britain, police shut down an imitation vodka factory, where nearly 20,000 empty bottles were ready to be filled, Lyon-based Interpol said Monday.

French customs uncovered dubious Chinese “caviar” in boxes marked “Aquitaine caviar” after one of France’s most famous seafood-producing regions, as well as 17 tonnes of krill meat hidden in containers in the Channel port of Le Havre.

In Italy, the carabinieri busted a mozzarella trafficking ring in the southern Salerno region that made the famous cheese from sour milk produced in Eastern Europe.

In Tuscany, police discovered defrosted rotten fish and shellfish sprayed with a mix of citric acid, phosphate and hydrogen to mask its decay.

The two-month-long swoop targeted shops, markets, airports, harbours and industrial zones and involved police and customs officers as well as public and private consumer watchdogs.

The cross-border syndicates preyed mainly on alcoholic beverages, seafood and meat, Interpol said.

“Fake and substandard food and diluted, poor quality beverages are a real health and safety threat,” said Mike Ellis, who heads the Interpol unit that tracks the trafficking of illicit goods.

“People take significant risks and sometimes die because of criminals’ greed,” he said.

Colonel Bruno Manin, head of the French police’s unit involved in Opson 4, said it was best to avoid luxury products offered at bargain-basement prices.

“When a high-end product is offered at three to four times cheaper than in the shop it’s better to resist the lure,” Manin warned.

Trafficking in fake food and drink appeals to criminals as it produces hefty profits and poses a low risk, especially when the deal is done online.

“The Internet is definitely a strong accelerator for these crimes,” as it makes it difficult to track fraudsters perpetrating these crimes, Manin said.


Chinese counterfeit caviar - that's a great name for something. It's too long for a band name or for my next dubstep DJ name, but it's still a great name.

[GeneChing]

Our publisher, Gigi Oh, and Tiger Claw President, Jonny Oh, are returning from China today. Man, had I thought ahead, I should have asked them to get one of these for me. I'd just want a super cheap one, one that copies the look and not any of the functions, except for telling the time like a real watch.


Of course fake Apple Watches are already on sale in China (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/03/11/fake-apple-watches-on-sale-china.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2015/03/apple-smartwatch-keynote.JPG

Less than 24 hours after Apple formally unveiled its new Apple Watch, knockoff versions have already been sighted at electronic markets in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

According to CNN Money, the fakes were found at the Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen, with others being sold nationwide via e-commerce websites such as Taobao. Those at the market mimic the design and style of Apple's new offering, selling for between 250 yuan and 500 yuan, but online it is possible to find models selling at various different price points.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2015/03/fake-apple-smartwatch.JPG
The watches, given names such as D-Watch and Ai Watch, appear to sport icons similar to the ones on the home screen of the Apple Watch, but are in fact running a modified version of the Android operating system. Laurent Le Pen, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based smartwatch maker Omate, told CNN: "These guys are specialists. The speed at which they can bring copies to the market is amazing."

It is unlikely that the Chinese consumer will be fooled by the watches, given that the cheapest sports model will sell for 2,588 yuan ($410), which compares unfavorably with the US price of $349. At the high end, the most expensive watch will retail in China for 126,800 yuan ($20,240), much more costly than its US counterpart which retails for $17,000.

Even though the Chinese are absolutely crazy about Apple, it remains to be seen whether or not the Apple Watch will be a hit. In comments made to Customs Today, Huang Hongwen, a freelancer from Shanghai says: "It's almost impossible to send WeChat messages when staring at such a small screen. I'd rather buy a traditional luxury watch at the same price."

Apple was recently at the center of controversy after a BBC documentary revealed the abysmal working conditions endured by Chinese laborers working for the company at factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

By Dominic Jackson

Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Shanghaiist in News on Mar 11, 2015 4:00 PM

[GeneChing]

....chocolate snach! :p


China attempts to rip-off Japanese Koala's March cookies...and fails (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/04/27/china-attempts-to-rip-off-japanese-snack-koala-march-cookies-fails.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/koalasmarch1.jpg

A Chinese company has attempted to create a knock-off version of the popular Japanese snack Koala's March, however, poor attention to detail shows an embarrassing effort on its behalf.

Koala No March cookies, known internationally as Koala's March cookies, are a bite-sized snack imprinted with images of lovable koalas and filled with a flavoured centre.

China decided to join Korea and jump on the bandwagon of copying Japanese snacks with its own version of the Koala cookies.

Instead of copying and tweaking the original Japanese slogan, however, manufacturers in China decided to just kind of wing it, resulting in utterly "nonsensical" Japanese writing on the packaging, Rocket News 24 points out.

The original product from Japan can be seen below:

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/koalasmarch2.jpg

Compared to the Chinese knock off version:

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/koalasmarch3.jpg

Whilst the Chinese version has managed to copy the shape and color scheme of the packet directly, the Japanese writing on the packet makes little sense. Rocket News explains that the red writing in Japanese presumably means to copy the Japanese words "bisuketto" (biscuit), yet, instead it reads "jisuketto" (jiscuit). More careless writing below that reads "kodomo no rakuen ni seppun suru", translated as "kiss in the children's paradise".

The look on this knock-off koala's face about sums it up.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/koalasmarch4.jpg

Chocolate Snach anyone?

By Freya Twigden
Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Shanghaiist in News on Apr 27, 2015 6:30 PM

[GeneChing]

unbelievable! :eek:



Posted : 2011-01-20 17:58
Updated : 2011-01-20 17:58
Chinese fake rice is on shelves (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2011/01/182_80040.html)

China famous for having all, making all, has now been reported to have made rice out of plastic and has distributed it.

The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong in Hong Kong quoted Singapore media that “Fake rice made out of plastic is massively sold on the Chinese market.”

According to the report, some distributors are selling fake rice in Taiyuan, Shaanxi Province, and this rice is a mixture of potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic.

“This ‘plastic rice’ is made by forming potatoes and sweet potatoes into rice-like shape, then adding industrial synthetic resins,” said a food expert. “Since the rice is different from normal rice, it is hard like stone even when cooked. Moreover, the synthetic resin in it is very harmful to the human body.”

One Chinese restaurant association official warns that eating three bowls of ‘plastic rice’ is the same as eating one vinyl bag. He added that since the rice is very dangerous there would be strict investigation on the rice factory.

In the mean time, merchants say that as the fake rice can leave huge profits, it is still sold in mass quantity.

This is not the first time for fake rice e sold in China. A Chinese television report has alleged that a company in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, has been producing a fake version of high-quality "Wuchang rice" by adding flavoring to ordinary rice.

[GeneChing]

This isn't quite a counterfeit. It's a Chinese version of a Japanese pop girl band, an authorized Chinese translation, if you will. If you don't know Japan's AKB48, China's SNH48 might be a little confusing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJSjawMMxbs

[GeneChing]

This is a truly mind boggling con, the stuff of Hollywood movies...or classics of Chinese literature apparently. :rolleyes:


Chinese man builds fake police station in flat and poses as cop in elaborate con (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/20/chinese-man-builds-fake-police-station-in-flat-and-poses-as-cop-in-elaborate-con)

In a money-making venture, a Wuhan man called himself inspector Lei, established a fake interrogation room and even had a siren for his car

http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5aa031e05482099726ddf4859a9ee8b3e22a1683/0_141_1988_1192/master/1988.jpg
The fake inspector Lei passed himself off as a policeman for at least two years. Here, real Chinese policemen practice controlling drones after a ceremony marking the setting up of a drone squad. Photograph: AP

Tom Phillips in Beijing

Monday 20 July 2015 03.29 EDT
Last modified on Monday 20 July 2015 08.06 EDT

With his collection of handcuffs and the siren on his car, inspector Lei looked every bit the Chinese policeman.

His wardrobe was filled with the black blazers of a crime-busting bobby and his office contained an armory of stun guns for subduing the outlaws he claimed to hunt.

But inspector Lei was not all he seemed.

When police raided his home in the city of Wuhan last week – acting on a tip-off from his disgruntled girlfriend – they found a fake police station that had been meticulously crafted by the fraudster cop.

Photographs published in a local newspaper showed a bust of Mao Zedong and a Chinese flag adorning the conman’s imitation interrogation room.

“With his disguise he was very deceptive,” Tang Hui, the real-life cop tasked with investigating the impersonator, was quoted as saying.

Lei reportedly used his alter ego as a moneymaking ruse. For at least two years, he sold falsified Public Security Bureau documents and warrants from his phony precinct.

Smelling a rat, friends of the fake officer’s girlfriend tried to warn her that her partner was bad news.

“Your boyfriend is not reliable,” one friend told her, according to the Chutian Metropolis Daily newspaper. “He always flirts with us online and is a total scoundrel.”

But Lei’s acting skills were apparently so convincing that those words of caution fell on deaf ears until last week when the woman – named only as Tingting – threatened to leave him.

Enraged, the counterfeit inspector vowed to post online a video of the couple having sex. Her response was to seek out a genuine officer of the law. Lei’s cover was blown.

During a search of his home-cum-interrogation centre, security officials uncovered a cache of forged documents, a GPS tracking device and a miniature surveillance camera, according to the newspaper report.

They also found a copy of The Story of the Stone, a classic work of 18th century Chinese literature that opens in a place known as the Land of Illusion.

“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true,” the book’s opening line reads. “Real becomes not-real where the unreal’s real.”

Additional reporting by Luna Lin

[GeneChing]

Wow. They even faked the fakes. :eek:



College librarian in China admits he replaced art with fakes (http://news.yahoo.com/college-librarian-china-admits-replaced-art-fakes-095134520.html)
Associated Press By LOUISE WATT
July 21, 2015 6:28 AM

BEIJING (AP) — A former chief librarian at a Chinese university admitted in court Tuesday to stealing more than 140 paintings by grandmasters in a gallery under his watch and replacing them with fakes he painted himself.

For two years up until 2006, Xiao Yuan substituted famous works including landscapes and calligraphies in a gallery within the library of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

He told the court in his defense that the practice appeared to be rampant and the handling of such paintings was not secure. He said he noticed fakes already hanging in the gallery on his first day on the job. Later, after he replaced some of the remaining masters with his own fakes, he was surprised when he noticed his fake paintings were being substituted with even more fakes.

"I realized someone else had replaced my paintings with their own because I could clearly discern that their works were terribly bad," Xiao, 57, told Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court, which posted a video of the two-hour hearing on its website.

Xiao said that he didn't know who had replaced his fakes, but that students and professors could take out paintings in the same way as they could borrow library books.

Xiao sold 125 of the paintings at auction between 2004 and 2011 for more than 34 million yuan ($6 million), and used the money to buy apartments and other paintings. The 18 others he stole are estimated to be worth more than 70 million yuan ($11 million), according to prosecutors.

Xiao pleaded guilty to a corruption charge for substituting the 143 paintings, and said that he deeply regretted his crime.

The stolen works mentioned in the court transcript included paintings by influential 20th century artists Qi Baishi, who used watercolors, and Zhang Daqian, who depicted landscapes and lotuses. Zhang himself was considered a master forger.

Also removed was "Rock and Birds" by Zhu Da, a painter and calligrapher who lived during the 17th century and used ink monochrome.

Xiao said he stopped his stealing when the paintings were moved to another gallery. He was the university's chief librarian until 2010, and his crimes came to light when an employee discovered what had happened and went to the police.

Calls seeking comment from the university were not answered.

Xiao will be sentenced later.

[GeneChing]

Taylor Swift Counters Knockoffs in China (http://www.wsj.com/articles/taylor-swift-counters-knockoffs-in-china-1437492360)
In an effort to thwart counterfeiters, singer to sell branded clothing with JD.com, Alibaba
Taylor Swift has battled Apple music and had dust-ups with Nicki Minaj on Twitter. Now she’s taking on counterfeiters in China. Photo: Getty
By Laurie Burkitt and Alyssa Abkowitz
Updated July 21, 2015 7:32 p.m. ET

Taylor Swift is the latest to take on counterfeiting in China.

As the American pop star’s popularity in China has exploded, so has a huge market of unauthorized Taylor Swift products, with e-commerce peddlers selling everything from fake perfume to pirated autographed guitars.

In an attempt to get rid of them, Ms. Swift is launching her own Taylor Swift-branded clothing with China’s two biggest e-commerce players, JD.com Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Her strategy is to use her star status to get them to stop selling products that don’t have rights to use her name, according to Heritage66Company, a Nashville-based branding company that is representing Ms. Swift and bringing her line to China.

Starting Aug. 8, JD.com and Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace site will carry Taylor Swift-branded $60 designer T-shirts, said Kate Liegey, chief operating officer of Heritage66. In September, she said, the singer will launch a women’s collection exclusively on JD.com, with clothing priced from $100 to $120. All products will have antipiracy hanging tags that enable customers to track their authenticity on the Web and offer an alternative to the plethora of fake Taylor Swift products available online, said Ms. Liegey.

Ms. Swift’s push comes ahead of her “1989” tour’s November dates in Shanghai. She joins an increasingly crowded bandwagon of U.S. companies and trade groups pushing China’s e-commerce players to halt the rampant selling of knockoffs. The American Apparel & Footwear Association, a trade group representing clothing makers, issued an open letter to the chairman of Alibaba last week, complaining about a lack of progress combating fake goods on its site.

Ms. Liegey said she has been working with JD.com and Alibaba to remove unauthorized goods from their sites. “It’s time for Chinese companies to say, ‘We don’t want to be known for piracy anymore,’” she said.

She said that she chose to work with JD.com because the site was responsive in addressing complaints about fakes. A spokesman for JD.com, Josh Gartner, said it investigated and removed problematic items at Heritage66’s request. “They understood where they would have guarantees of authenticity,” he said of the pact with the singer.

A spokeswoman for Alibaba said the company is “dedicated to the fight against counterfeits” and that it will work with Ms. Swift’s representatives to “protect her intellectual property rights as well as the rights of all stakeholders.”

Fakes are proving to be a tough war to win in China, where companies—from software to movies and luxury handbags—have long fought for intellectual property rights.

Ms. Swift will have to work hard to gain control of her brand, according to Benjamin Bai, a partner in the Shanghai office of law firm Allen & Overy LLP. Currently, there are nine trademarks in China registered under the name Taylor Swift, three of which are owned by individuals other than Ms. Swift, according to documents provided by Mr. Bai. Items that fall under trademarks not owned by her include purses, infant onesies, bathing suits, shoes and hats.
Advertisement

Mr. Bai said trademark disputes are difficult to win in China, because the law is based on who files first, regardless of celebrity. If Ms. Swift were to launch branded bathing suits, Mr. Bai said, she would be infringing on someone else’s trademark under Chinese law.

“So even though you may be internationally famous if I’m the owner of your name in China you can’t get me,” Mr. Bai said.

Ms. Liegey said Ms. Swift is working with lawyers to recoup her trademarks.

Basketball legend Michael Jordan in 2012 sued sportswear company Qiaodan Sports, saying it built its business around his Chinese name, “Qiaodan.” In May, Mr. Jordan’s lawyers said they would appeal to the Supreme People’s Court after a lower court ruled in favor of the Chinese company.

On Taobao—an Alibaba platform that connects mostly small vendors with individual buyers—some sellers have sold millions of dollars in Taylor Swift goods in recent years, said Mark McDonald, chief executive of Heritage66.

Shoppers on Taobao can buy fake Taylor Swift Keds sneakers for as little as 65 yuan (about $11), Taylor Swift-branded watches and cellphone covers for around $10, and pollution masks with Ms. Swift’s picture on them for about $1.30.

Ms. Swift, known best for climbing the charts in country and pop music, is no stranger to disrupting industries and pushing big companies to change their sales tactics. She grabbed headlines recently for her public protest against Apple Inc.’s music-streaming service, objecting publicly to its decision not to pay royalties to artists in their three-month trial of Apple Music. Apple backed off that plan in response.

She also has shown to have leverage in China. Last year, the country’s top streaming platforms removed Ms. Swift’s music from any free components of their services after her agents sent removal requests on her behalf.

Heritage66, which works with country-music artist Keith Urban and other stars, approached Ms. Swift last year after estimating a total financial figure of unauthorized products tied to her brand. “We could see how much people sold on the site and it was a daunting number,” said Mr. McDonald, who declined to disclose precise financial estimates.

With most people in China not paying to download music, a fashion line is one of the ways Ms. Swift can make money with her brand in the country. Ms. Liegey said she believes Chinese consumers will pay $100-$120 for a Taylor Swift dress.

The China move isn’t Ms. Swift’s first clothing line. In 2009, the megastar launched a sundress collection, linking up with Jones Group’s L.E.I. brand that was sold exclusively at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Ms. Swift also struck a deal in 2013 with shoe brand Keds selling a collection of canvas sneakers inspired by her style. Earlier this year, the company rolled out shoes that feature the city names on each of her “1989” concert tour stops.

—Gillian Wong contributed to this article.

Fakers gonna fake. :p

[GeneChing]

Surge in use of China-made 'fake weed' reported in US (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/08/17/surge-china-made-fake-weed-us.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/katienelson/fake-marijuana.jpg

Authorities in the US have reported a "dramatic surge" in overdoses and drug-related offenses involving synthetic marijuana, an inexpensive substance which is made of chemical ingredients and imported mainly from China.

Poison control centers have received more than 5,200 calls this year related to fake weed—also known as K2, Spice, Scooby Snax, etc.—up from the 3,680 calls handled all through last year, the Associated Press reports, citing the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

Synthesized marijuana may look like your typical greenery, but in some cases it can be "up to 100 times as potent as THC", the active ingredient in real weed.

Chemical compounds meant to mimic THC are sprayed onto herbs and sold in small ziplock bags, some of which are decorated with delightful cartoon characters and read "not for human consumption".

The chemicals vary from package to package, are addictive and can trigger horrible side-effects, including "extreme anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks, alienation/disassociation, psychotic episodes and hallucinations," according to AP.

While the fake weed can sometimes be sold under the counter at stores in the US, it can most easily be purchased online.

Last week, US police arrested a 38-year-old woman accused of importing synthetic marijuana from a source in China through the mail after a raid at her home.

By Katie Nelson in News on Aug 17, 2015 11:30 AM

Californians scoff at the idea of fake weed.

[PalmStriker]

LOL! Didn't get that right away." Fakers gonna fake. "

[GeneChing]

Another fake bank discovered in China, inability to withdraw money dead give-away (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/08/19/another-fake-bank-discovered-in-china-inability-to-withdraw-money-dead-give-away/)

Master Blaster
2 days ago

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/top12.jpg?w=580&h=324

In less than half a year since a counterfeit bank was discovered in Nanjing, China, the founder of another fake bank has been arrested in Shandong Province. Although not quite as sinister as the previous unlicensed money lenders, this suspected fraudster seemed not so much evil as just stubbornly convinced that he could run a financial institution despite not knowing certain core concepts of banking such as allowing your customers to withdraw money from their accounts.

According to police, China Construction Bank was established by its president, a man by the name of Zhang, with the goal of providing loans to small business in the area. Up until this point the closest thing Zhang had to banking experience was running a furniture store. In spite of this, he was able to set up a fairly well equipped branch in Linyi City, but unfortunately was unable to pass the government inspection that would allow him to become a legal bank.

Having already come this far, Zhang decided to open his China Construction Bank for business anyway. By the middle of July it had gathered about 40,000 yuan (US$6,000) in deposits mostly thanks to its convincing appearance, which included anti-counterfeit warning signs for customers.

No one had any idea the bank was not legitimate until requests for withdrawals began coming in. After being refused access to their cash several times, ‘customers’ began filing reports with the police, who opened an investigation into the bank.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzznghp3CE0

On 14 August, Zhang was taken into custody. The extent of charges against him is unclear as an investigation is underway, but it will probably go down as various forms of fraud. Still, this kind of crime is so bold and increasingly common there really should be a whole new name for it, in our opinion, something like “malensconcement”.

Source: News 163 (Chinese), Yahoo! News Japan via Toychan (Japanese)
Video & Top Image: YouTube – Sina Premium

This is just insane. How did they think that they wouldn't get caught?

[GeneChing]

Look: Copycat version of Arc de Triomphe built in Zhengzhou (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/08/25/look_arc_de_triomphe_copycat_built.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2015/08/arch-triomphe-zhengzhou.jpg

China has gone and built itself another knockoff of the Arc de Triomphe, this time in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

Most everyone is familiar with the world famous triumphal arc which stands in the center of Paris' Place Charles de Gaulle. China is really familiar with it, because it now has a few of its own, including a replica in Jiangsu's Huaxi Village, one in Shenyang and another in Zhejiang's largely abandoned 'little Paris', which features other imitation tourist sites such as the Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower.

Now, Zhengzhou has rolled out its own version of the architectural marvel. The 20-meter-tall structure was recently photographed in a less-than-bustling square located near a city market and bears an undeniable resemblance to the original in Paris, as China News points out.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2015/08/arch-triomphe-zhengzhou2.jpg

China's flagrant plagiarism of world landmarks is well documented. Recently, the artist behind Chicago's famous 'Bean' sculpture threatened to take legal action against the unnamed creator of a lookalike version in Xinjiang that recently made headlines.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2015/08/arch-triomphe-zhengzhou3.jpg

Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Katie Nelson in News on Aug 25, 2015 3:00 PM

I was just at the Bean in July. The Chicago Bean, not the Xinjiang one...:rolleyes:

[David Jamieson]

http://www.rt.com/business/313613-fake-goldman-sachs-china/

Oh man! :p

[David Jamieson]

As an aside, that arc de triumph is pretty small compared to the arc de triumph in Paris.

[GeneChing]

This beats the counterfeit banks above.


Shenzhen Goldman Sachs the latest copycat to be exposed in China (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/08/28/goldman-sachs-copycat-exposed-china.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/katienelson/sachs.jpg

We've seen everything from fake brand condoms to fake world landmarks in China, and now, a fake Goldman Sachs can be added to the list.

Goldman Sachs (Shenzhen) Financial Leasing Co. has been operating in China since 2013 but was only recently brought to our attention in a recent Bloomberg report.

The company uses the Chinese name gao sheng (高盛), the same as used by the original Goldman Sachs. Even the font used in its logo is similar to the one used by the bank headquartered in New York, the report points out.

A receptionist at the company denied any connection with the multinational corporation when speaking with reporters on the phone. Before hanging up on the interviewer, however, she did say it was first time she'd heard of this allegation, adding, "We just picked the name out, and it's not intentionally the same."

The story of Goldman Sachs is part of a wider investigation by a US gambling union into fraudulent casinos based in Macau. In a letter from the union to Chinese officials, the companies are accused of money laundering and are connected to the family of Cheung Chi-tai. According to South China Morning Post, the casino junket has been accused of laundering at least 1.6 billion HKD, as of July.

The Shenzhen Goldman Sachs website www.szgoldman.net is inaccessible at present, but a quick Google search will tell you there are a number of companies in China using the gao sheng tag, including GS Logistics. Perhaps there is some legitimacy to the receptionist's claim that the Chinese characters (高盛) have a different meaning to what the US gambling union investigation is claiming, and going on the track record of foreign trademark cases in Chinese courts, the argument may even stand up. Keep in mind the recent failure of Michael Jordan's attempts to sue Chinese company Qiaodan.

The copycats of China exist because of differences between Chinese and international trademark laws. Whereas well-known trademarks have some protection under international law, in China any trademark must be registered with the relevant administration in writing before it can be recognised by courts.

by Daniel Cunningham
Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Shanghaiist in News on Aug 28, 2015 3:30 PM
Of all the companies to copycat...:rolleyes:

[David Jamieson]

lol, i just posted the RT article on that right after your arc post.
Anyway, yes, that is hilarious.
Goldman Sachs...

Have they got a pig in the poke for you!

[GeneChing]

lol, i just posted the RT article on that right after your arc post.
Anyway, yes, that is hilarious.
Goldman Sachs...

Have they got a pig in the poke for you!
I missed your earlier post because of the page flip. :o

I'm a chronic copy&paste poster when it comes to poaching news articles. This is because hyperlinks expire while the KFM Forum is forever (or at least as for as long as our members support MAM (http://www.martialartsmart.com/) so we can keep paying the bills here ;)).

[GeneChing]

Fake rice made with paper found in Guangdong (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/09/06/fake_paper_rice.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_rice.jpg

Fake rice made of tiny pieces of rolled up paper were discovered earlier this week in Guangdong province after a woman noticed that her lunch was a bit harder to chew than usual.

The woman surnamed Cai told reporters that she and her family hadn't noticed anything amiss until about half way through their meal when she bit down on a piece of rice that was "unusually hard."

According to Apple Daily, Cai then took the piece out of her mouth, inspected it closely and watched in amazement as she rolled it out into a tiny strip of paper.

Cai told local police she had bought the rice from a street vendor who had assured her that the rice was grown locally out in the other countryside "without the use of any pesticides." You know, he's not a liar.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_rice2.jpg

Earlier this year, reports emerged about plastic rice sold on the Chinese market making its way across Asia. This fake rice was a more edible-sounding mix of potatoes, sweet potatoes and delicious synthetic resin.

According to Oryza.com, plastic-tainted rice grains remain hard after being boiled, and the soup made by it forms a very unappetizing plastic sheath 'that burns like plastic' when heated up.

We're going to assume that rice made of tiny rolls of paper also doesn't react well to being boiled.

[Images via Apple Daily]


It amazes me that it's cheaper to make fake rice than it is to get rice.


Here's the plastic rice story. (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits&p=1284067)

[boxerbilly]

It amazes me that it's cheaper to make fake rice than it is to get rice.


Here's the plastic rice story. (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits&p=1284067)

Maybe it has nothing to do with cost but supplies ? Not enough rice ? I also cant see how paper would be cheaper than real rice.

[GeneChing]

Meanwhile, how about a counterfeit princess?


Chinese farmer pretended to be princess to commit fraud (http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-farmer-pretended-princess-commit-fraud-043031711.html)
13 hours ago

BEIJING (AP) — A farmer who pretended to be a princess descended from the Qing dynasty to swindle people out of more than 2 million yuan ($315,000) has been sentenced to 13 - 1/2 years in prison for fraud, a court said.

Wang Fengying and her co-accused Yang Janglin said she was called Princess Changping and persuaded people to lend them money to help them get back assets worth billions of dollars held by authorities, the Lianhu District Court in Shaanxi province said.

They promised high returns on the investments and the fraud lasted two years until a victim went to the police, the court said in a statement Tuesday. In the meantime, Wang had bought a sedan car and put a down payment on an apartment.

Police seized 41 gold bars, thousands of fake dollars and treasure maps that Wang offered to investors as collateral.

Co-defendant Yang was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and both were fined 500,000 yuan ($80,000) in court Monday.

A few years ago, a taiji master from China tried to convince me that she was a princess. She had a business card and was hoping I could put her on the cover. She dressed outrageously gaudy, was rather overweight, and her taiji was worse than mine (which is saying a lot as my taiji sux).

[Jimbo]

Meanwhile, how about a counterfeit princess?



A few years ago, a taiji master from China tried to convince me that she was a princess. She had a business card and was hoping I could put her on the cover. She dressed outrageously gaudy, was rather overweight, and her taiji was worse than mine (which is saying a lot as my taiji sux).

Those are usually the kind that make outrageous claims though, aren't they? They always suck. Was her gaudy clothing silky wushu pajamas or something worse? People parading around in clownish outfits are one of my pet peeves in many CMA, especially when they change into a new outfit every 15 minutes. Often their outfits become their focus instead of ability. A friend of mine said they look like walking Good n' Plenty candies.

[GeneChing]

Kunming police catch counterfeiters red-handed, seize 300,000 yuan in fake money (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/09/11/kunming-counterfeit-cash.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/smudgy_counterfeits.jpg

Earlier this week, police in a village outside of Kunming, Yunnan province arrested three individuals suspected of counterfeiting and then set about the monotonous and messy task of counting the 300,000RMB in fake cash, some of which was apparently still smudgy with red ink.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/smudgy_counterfeits2.jpg

To try and curb rampant and rising cases of counterfeiting, China announced last month it would introduce brand-new 100RMB banknotes in November. The more colorful cash is designed to be more difficult to duplicate after numerous reports of high-quality counterfeit notes in recent years, of which some 97 percent ultimately traces back to a humble elderly painter in Guangdong province.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/smudgy_counterfeits3.jpg
http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/smudgy_counterfeits4.jpg

No updates on the horizon for smaller denominations of currency, so bus lines, like this one in Chongqing that reportedly took in 56 million yuan in fake dough in just one year, are still screwed.

[Images via NetEase]

Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Alex Linder in News on Sep 11, 2015 9:00 PM Kind of nice to have a more common counterfeiting operation here for a change (pun intended).

[GeneChing]

I've heard mention of these here before (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits&p=1248053#post1248053).



Chinese Counterfeit Eggs Made of Plastic May Be Popping Up in Thailand (http://munchies.vice.com/articles/chinese-counterfeit-eggs-made-of-plastic-may-be-popping-up-in-thailand)
By Alex Swerdloff
October 4, 2015 / 3:00 pm

In America, an unprecedented outbreak of avian flu may have caused egg prices to rise amid mass shortages, but the people of Thailand are reckoning with an entirely different, egg-related problem: Somebody is allegedly trying to sell them fake eggs made of plastic. And those eggs are thought to be coming from China.

Thai officials are being called to investigate the possibility of counterfeit eggs made of plastic entering the market after fifty-nine-year-old Mrs. Lek Jaikla, reported buying a fake egg in her local market.

Mrs. Lek told reporters that she was shocked to find that one of the eggs she bought from a flea market in Tambon Noong E-roon started burning and emitting a plastic-like smell when cooked. The fraudulent egg was one of ten contained in a plastic bag that Mrs. Lek obtained for 35 baht, or a little under one American dollar.

Locals who learned about the discovery of the fake egg urged authorities to try to find out where it came from. Pongsak Khunsawasdi, a local grocer, disclaimed responsibility. She said she bought her eggs straight from a poultry farm and didn’t sell eggs “put in plastic bags like those sold at the flea market.”

But stories of faux oeufs have been circulating in Thailand: Mrs. Lek said that she heard about fake eggs on the television, but had never seen one before she inadvertently made the purchase.

The origin of the eggs, at least according to urban legend, is China. For years, stories of fake Chinese eggs—ones that look surprisingly like real ones—have been rampant. According to some reports, they are made of gypsum powder, calcium carbonate and wax. Rumors of fake Chinese eggs date back to the 1990s. In case you were wondering how to tell a fake egg from a real one, experts say that fake eggs have thinner yolks and whites.

Food forgery is a problem of near-epidemic proportions, particularly in China, and it’s certainly not restricted to eggs. Even the life-giving staple that is rice isn’t safe from counterfeit claims. Almost every Asian nation has had its own fake rice scare, despite little if any evidence to back up the claims.

As far as eggs go, a Fuji TV investigation that has over almost 1.5 million views on YouTube claims that the allegations of an underground criminal marketplace in fake eggs in China is 100 percent true. Others say, “claims about a well-organized and widespread fake egg market in China seem dubious.” But given China’s acknowledgement that its food safety and food fraud situation needs a serious overhaul, the fake egg stories may very well be true.

Mrs. Lek is pretty certain she bought some fake Chinese eggs—and that the problem has now spread to Thailand.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haSsXxxQBSo

[GeneChing]

Chinese will counterfeit anything...:eek:


Male swindler tricks man into marriage by faking pregnancy (http://gbtimes.com/china/male-swindler-tricks-man-marriage-faking-pregnancy)
GBTIMES 2015/11/26

http://cdn2.gbtimes.com/cdn/farfuture/Zb1VIDhAVsuBuf-iKjHr7i--W2H05zGsTy-AURMN3WM/mtime:1448538722/sites/default/files/styles/768_wide/public/2015/11/26/shutterstock_154713797.jpg?itok=i7eNGEwI
The male con artist pretended to be pregnant, although the couple never had sex. (Photo is illustrative) (Photo: Thanatip S, Shutterstock)

A Chinese man tricked another man into marriage after posing as a woman and pretending to be pregnant.

The 27-year-old suspect, surnamed Fang, from Beijing pretended to be a female Air Force officer and bought a fake ID to back his story, reported the Chinese language Jinghua Times.

He met his future husband Zhang Qiang (a pseudonym) on an online dating site in August 2014, according to a statement issued by the Shijingshan District’s procuratorate office this week.

When the two became a couple three months later, Fang lied he had gotten pregnant to get Zhang to marry him. Fang explained they never actually had sex but the man didn't question the "pregnancy".

He added that Zhang didn’t seem to have any doubts about his "girlfriend’s" gender. The man only asked once why Fang had a "bulge in his pants". The suspect lied, saying it was caused by a "“tumour" and Zhang believed him.

To gain Zhang’s trust the other man even hired a pair of actors to pose as his parents and meet with his boyfriend’s family.

The victim’s parents didn’t see through the scam either and the pair held a wedding ceremony in Zhang’s hometown in March this year.

The couple was supposed to apply for a marriage certificate once they returned to Beijing but Fang lied he had lost his ID card.

After the wedding, Zhang had to leave his "wife" for work reasons. Fang used the "pregnancy" as an excuse to keep asking money from the victim.

The two had been living apart until August when Zhang’s mother and sister moved to Beijing to help Fang with the soon-to-be-born baby. The women became suspicious because Zhang’s "wife" acted like a man.

Zhang’s sister then went through Fang’s phone and found texts where he admitted he wasn’t a woman. The shocked family then called police.

Fang was arrested on suspicion of swindling earlier this week. According to police, Fang had convinced his victim to give him 150,000 yuan (USD 23,471) during their relationship.

[GeneChing]

At least it's been tested...:rolleyes:


Chinese Viagra counterfeiters reimbursed for prostitutes, forced to test effectiveness of pills made with cornflour on themselves
Gangs in Hunan province, catering to growing demand for the pills across the mainland, were even reimbursed for hiring massage parlour prostitutes to help them refine the best mixture
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 03 December, 2015, 12:59pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 03 December, 2015, 4:22pm
Sidney Leng sidney.leng@scmp.com

http://cdn1.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486x302/public/2015/12/03/fakeviagara-a.jpg?itok=IJtpcdIs
Gangs in Hunan province by mixing real medication with cornflour to make fake Viagra pills. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Viagra counterfeiters in China have been making staff test the fake pills - produced by mixing cornflour with genuine medication - on themselves before offering it for sale, mainland media reports.

Counterfeit gangs, based in Hunan province, have initially been importing genuine Sildenafil – a Western medication for treating men’s erectile disfunction – from Henan province, then mixing it with cornflour to produce fake tablets, which they have then sold in bottles printed with fake labels and packaging, Sanxiang Metropolis newspaper reported on Wednesday.

To ensure the fake medication’s effectiveness and quality, some counterfeiters were told to force staff mixing in the corn flour who lived locally to test it on themselves when they were at home with their wives or girlfriends.

Migrant workers mixing the fake medication, living far from home, were reimbursed for hiring prostitutes in massage parlours to help them test out its effectiveness, the report said.

https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/486w/public/2015/12/03/fakeviagara-b.jpg?itok=xHCBBN-3
The machine they used for packaging. Photo: SCMP Pictures

“The staff were very happy to test the fake medication in the beginning, but later on they get annoyed because the pill-testing took up too much time, so they quit,” one member of a counterfeit pill-making gang, who has been caught by police, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

“Therefore we changed three batches of mixers to adjust the proportion of the mixture of corn flour and Sildenafil from 1:1 to 1:1.5.

“At least we did human testing [on our drug]. We were serious.”

The report said the proportion of added cornflour makes a big difference because careless mixers could have ended up filling one pill entirely with cornflour and another entirely with Sildenafil, instead of mixing them evenly.

It would mean some men taking such pills would either experience a very strong reaction or no reaction at all.

Counterfeiting of Viagra has been on the increase on the mainland as growing sexual dysfunction – particularly among middle-aged people.

In March last year, police in the city of Shaoyang in the southwestern province of Hunan caught a counterfeiting gang that was producing more than 30 types of Viagra pills.

More than two million boxes of bottles of fake Viagra pills, which filled nine trucks, were confiscated by police.

[GeneChing]

Woman in Chongqing poses as tax collector, attempts to collect 200 million RMB from state-owned company (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/12/05/woman_poses_as_tax_collector_chongqing.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/taxes-2.jpg

A company in Chongqing got a rather unpleasant surprise when a woman walked into their office demanding 200 million RMB in cash, claiming she was from the local tax collection authority.
According to NetEase, at around 10 p.m on December 3, the woman marched into the office located in the city's Fuling district and asked to see someone in the finance department.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/taxes-1.jpg

The woman, surnamed Wang, claimed that she was from a local tax authority and would be requiring the company to pay 200 million yuan to settle an outstanding tax bill. She was described as being in her mid thirties and wearing appropriate clothing for the occasion.
After asking for some credentials to back up her story, to the accountant's surprise Wang handed over a sheet of paper on which a hand-written scrawl read: "The Communist Party Central Committee's Organization Department has decided to appoint Wang Yu as the chief director of the Tax Bureau in Fuling district, Chongqing municipality."
The accountant then asked some basic questions about the difference between local and national taxes, to which Wang gave incredibly dubious answers. "National taxes refer to collecting taxes from supermarkets while local taxes is to collect taxes from local enterprises," she said.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/taxes-3.jpg

The police were soon called and Wang was taken into custody. A brief investigation revealed that Wang, a local resident, had a mental illness and that she herself had written the note which failed to fool the top accountants.
Wang was returned home by the police and her guardian was asked to keep a closer eye on her in the future.
By Lucy Liu
[Images via NetEase]
Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Shanghaiist in News on Dec 5, 2015 3:00 PM

Not really as brazen as it seems, given she was mentally unstable.

[GeneChing]

So ironic, so typical. :rolleyes:


Who probes fake Chinese goods? Fake investigators (http://www.sltrib.com/home/3293817-155/who-probes-fake-chinese-goods-fake)
By ERIKA KINETZ The Associated Press
First Published Dec 10 2015 06:06PM • Last Updated Dec 10 2015 06:06 pm

http://www.sltrib.com/csp/mediapool/sites/dt.common.streams.StreamServer.cls?STREAMOID=7O63$ Eb_VZ5Jp6cBoBBCis$daE2N3K4ZzOUsqbU5sYv$7zi_OdCrUuu V0VuCo$5OWCsjLu883Ygn4B49Lvm9bPe2QeMKQdVeZmXF$9l$4 uCZ8QDXhaHEp3rvzXRJFdy0KqPHLoMevcTLo3h8xh70Y6N_U_C ryOsw6FTOdKL_jpQ-&CONTENTTYPE=image/jpeg
In this Thursday, June 18, 2015 photo, Wang Hai, founder of Beijing Dahai Shangwu Consultants, checks his smartphone during an interview. Wang, whose firm is retained by Western companies to investigate counterfeiting of their products in China, said he was once barred from raiding a company that made counterfeit windows, even though he had a police escort. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Shanghai • Multinational corporations doing business in China face a losing battle when it comes to keeping copies of their products off the market:

The anti-counterfeiting industry they rely on is plagued with fraud, making it that much easier for potentially dangerous fake goods — from air bags to Christmas lights — to reach consumers, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Most Western companies subcontract anti-counterfeiting work to private investigators paid on commission. More seizures mean higher fees, creating powerful incentives to cheat in an industry with little oversight.

As a result, money spent fighting counterfeiting often doesn't make things better, and sometimes makes them worse.

The AP found instances of investigative fraud involving products that could be hazardous: counterfeit auto parts, pharmaceuticals, personal care products and electrical components.

The wrongdoing took many forms:

• Western firms paid investigators who were themselves manufacturing or selling counterfeit versions of their clients' own goods.

• Investigators doctored documents, fabricating raids that never took place.

• Investigators colluded with factories to make counterfeit goods they could "seize" and present to their Western bosses for payment.

As counterfeiting has flourished in China over decades, a lucrative, parallel industry has blossomed to fight it. Counterfeiting today is a multibillion-dollar business in China, which produces nearly nine of every 10 fake items seized at U.S. borders.

Chinese authorities have been getting better at fining counterfeiters and sending them to jail.

But the momentum of reform has yet to reach the front lines of the fight against fakes, according to previously undisclosed material from legal cases and internal corporate investigations in China reviewed by the AP, lawsuits, and interviews with 16 private investigators, lawyers and law-enforcement officials.

All described a broken system, beset by endemic and underreported fraud, made worse by Western companies that have a poor command over how to successfully fight fraud.

Shanghai's Public Security Bureau took the unusual step of warning foreign brand owners to be watchful of the investigators they hire. "We very much hope that brand owners will pay attention and devote more manpower and material resources to ensure that the fight against counterfeiting is healthy and orderly," the bureau said in written response to questions from the AP.

One of the world's largest consumer goods companies hired an investigator to track down counterfeit anti-dandruff shampoo.

But instead of finding real counterfeiters, the investigator, Wang Yunming, set up a factory to produce counterfeit shampoo himself, which he then "seized" and billed to the firm as a successful raid, according to two employees involved in the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.

It wasn't the first such factory Wang founded. It was the fourth.

Wang was convicted of fraud and is due to be released from prison in 2023, according to a copy of a judgment from Hefei Intermediate People's Court in China's Anhui province.

[GeneChing]

With Beijing's Red Alert for smog (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67175-China-s-Pollution-problem&p=1289190#post1289190), naturally the counterfeiters would take advantage.


Amid China’s Smog Worries, One More: Counterfeit Masks (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/world/asia/china-smog-face-mask.html?_r=0)
点击查看本文中文版 Read in Chinese Sinosphere
By VANESSA PIAO DEC. 10, 2015

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/12/11/world/11chinamasks02/11chinamasks02-master675.jpg
People in Beijing wearing face masks on Wednesday. Such masks have become an increasingly common sight in China in recent years. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

BEIJING — As pollution darkened the skies above northern China this week, and Beijing declared its first red alert over the capital’s air quality, the state-run news media gave anxious readers one more reason to worry about going outdoors.

The customs authorities in Shanghai have seized nearly 120,000 counterfeit surgical masks, the official China News Service reported on Thursday. Such masks have become an increasingly common sight in China in recent years, with more people wearing them in an effort to protect themselves from pollution.

Although the China News Service report suggested that the counterfeit masks, seized in two separate raids, had been intended for export, Chinese social media was abuzz with skepticism, and many wondered whether their own masks were authentic.

“I only hope they’re not making a tour in the free-trade zone and then coming back in as imports,” one person wrote online about the counterfeits.

“I feel I’m not poisoned to death by the smog, but am choked to death by the smell of the mask,” another person wrote on the Weibo microblogging platform. “Is it fake?”

The report said that the masks seized in Shanghai — which bore the logo of the American company 3M, the manufacturer of one of the most popular models of masks in China — were made with inferior materials and that they would offer no protection from air pollution. In fact, the report said the masks would actually pose an added threat to the health of those who wore them, though it did not explain how.

“The greatest risk from a fake mask is that people will be outside feeling protected but actually breathing in much more pollution than they’re aware of,” said Dr. Richard Saint Cyr, a physician in Beijing whose health blog is popular among expatriates.

He said he believed 3M masks — real ones, that is — were indeed beneficial. “There’s a lot of published research which shows that a well-designed mask can greatly decrease your inhaled intake of PM 2.5,” he said, referring to a particularly dangerous category of pollutant.

Xinhua, the state news agency, reported this week that searches for masks and air purifiers on the e-commerce site Alibaba had soared, and that many sellers were running out of stock.

[bawang]

whats with all this bad china newsman

the only other people i know who are obsessed with bad china news are english teachers on reddit and shanghaist

[GeneChing]

This article doesn't specify that these are from China, but I saw another one that did. I mean really, where else would they be from?


May the frauds be with you: Hilariously named fake Star Wars toys including 'Toby-One' Kenobi sent to shop in Bournemouth (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3354564/Hilariously-named-fake-Star-Wars-toys-including-Toby-One-Kenobi-sent-shop.html)
Karl Baxter ordered a set of Star Wars toys to coincide with the new film
But when the merchandise arrived they turned out to be terrible bootlegs
Characters were given incorrect names like 'Toby-One' and 'R2-3PO'
By HUGO GYE FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 11:01 EST, 10 December 2015 | UPDATED: 13:32 EST, 10 December 2015

When wholesale trader Karl Baxter ordered a discount batch of Star Wars toys just in time for the new film, he was excited to have a new stock of merchandise to cash in on the sci-fi frenzy.
But when they arrived, he realised that not only were they fakes, they appeared to have been designed by someone who had never seen or even heard of the films.
Nearly all the characters had laughably inaccurate labels, including 'Toby-One' Kenobi, 'R2-3PO' and 'Daft Serious'.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5D9900000578-3354564-image-m-59_1449761915391.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5F8500000578-3354564-image-m-61_1449761940884.jpg
Blunders: These fake Star Wars figures were delivered to a firm in Bournemouth; Obi-Wan Kenobi became Toby-One and a badly painted C-3PO became R2-3PO

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5DF000000578-3354564-Anakin_Skywalker_as_Little_Girl-m-65_1449762151467.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5EB500000578-3354564-Qui_Gon_Jinn_as_Fly_Gone_Gin-m-67_1449762174491.jpg
Blunders: Anakin Skywalker was dismissed as simply Little Girl while Liam Neeson's character Qui-Gon Jinn became Fly-Gone-Gin

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5EE500000578-3354564-image-m-71_1449762265137.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5EE000000578-3354564-image-m-73_1449762278463.jpg
Lazy: Padmé Amidala, played by Natalie Portman, is called just Queen, while villainous Darth Maul is somehow rendered as Dennis
In addition, they had wonky eyes, poor moulding and garish colour choices which made some of them almost unrecognisable.
Mr Baxter's company, Poole-based Wholesale Clearance UK Ltd, now has piles of boxes of the bootleg merchandise, all relating to 1999's The Phantom Menace, which it is unable to sell.


continued next post

[GeneChing]

'We acquired this stock in a bulk lot, and as a big Star Wars fan myself I had high hopes for these figures, especially considering how popular they are with children and collectors alike,' he said.
'The first disappointment came when we realised they were exclusively Episode One characters, as this is arguably the weakest of the six films.
'The second disappointment came when we realised that these were very unconvincing fakes.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5D7400000578-3354564-Mace_Windu_as_Mace_Window-m-77_1449762467834.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5F9800000578-3354564-Watto_as_What-m-79_1449762488792.jpg
Typos: Jedi warrior Mace Windu is rendered as Mace Window, and junk dealer Watto is called What

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5F2E00000578-3354564-Palpatine_as_Glorious_Star_Lord-m-83_1449762649159.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5DBE00000578-3354564-Darth_Sidious_as_Emperor_Daft_Serious-m-85_1449762669029.jpg
Seeing double: Senator Palpatine is portrayed twice, once as Glorious Star Lord and again in his Darth Sidious guise as Emperor Daft Serious

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5F4000000578-3354564-Ki_Adi_Mundi_as_Conehead-m-89_1449762938357.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5F6C00000578-3354564-Boss_Nass_as_Upright_Slug-m-91_1449762959097.jpg
Say what you see: Jedi character Ki-Adi-Mundi is renamed Conehead, while Boss Nass is referred to as Upright Slug

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/12/10/15/2F3C5E0E00000578-3354564-image-m-93_1449763052975.jpg
Line-up: As well as being misnamed, many of the characters are almost unrecognisable

'While they do look somewhat like the characters they're supposed to portray, little details like their wonky eyes and luminous weapons take them into "uncanny valley" levels of uncomfortableness when you look at them.
'We obviously can't sell these, but as they're rather amusing we thought we'd still showcase them. It's just a shame we've got so many boxes of them piled up at the back of the warehouse.'
Other terrible blunders on the label include 'Fly-Gone-Jin' for Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn and 'Mace Window' for Samuel L. Jackson's character Mace Windu.
The figure of Anakin Skywalker is captioned as 'Little Girl', while villainous Darth Maul has been redubbed simply 'Dennis'.


These are almost more collectible than the real thing. :D

[GeneChing]

LOOK: Fall makes early return to Shenyang as workers tie fake autumn leaves onto bare trees (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/12/16/shenyang_fake_fall.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_fall.jpg

With depressing amounts of smog continually hanging over northern China this winter season, officials in Shenyang appear to be looking to turn back the clock, livening things back up with some fake autumnal foliage.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_fall2.jpg

Yesterday, workers were spotted across the downtown area tying on plastic leaves to once bare trees as part of a citywide winter beautification effort.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_fall3.jpg

This actually isn't the first time that Shenyang officials have tried this tactic to add some color to their city, in November 2013 Shenyang made headlines by decorating the city's trees with green leaves for a very early Spring that managed only to confuse residents. They may have to go to more extreme measures this time, we're talking adjusting calendars and coming up with some fresh pumpkins.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_fall5.jpg

Apart from manufacturing seasonal scenery, the ancient city of Shenyang is also known for its rather direct methods of promotion, suffocating smog, exhilarating orange wars and as the home of the world's best taxi driver.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_fall4.jpg

Plan a trip to see them now before they degrade in the air and are gone!
[Images via NetEase]
Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Alex Linder in News on Dec 16, 2015 9:30 PM

I wonder how much it costs for Shenyang to do this.

[GeneChing]

...but real prostitutes...


Sex workers pretending to be celebrities online apprehended in Shenzhen (http://shanghaiist.com/2016/01/07/fake_celebrity_sex_workers.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/not_miss_world.jpg

Shenzhen police recently cracked down on an impressive sex racket of prostitutes masquerading as made-up celebrities with the help of such social media platforms as Weibo and WeChat.
According to CCTV, a local criminal gang set up a prostitution hub online, creating elaborately forged identities for its sex workers in order to rake in the dough.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/shenzhen_prostitutes.png

One such woman was posing as a Las Vegas beauty pageant winner and internationally-known model named Qiao Shengyi, with a whole host of completely fabricated news articles and photoshoots to her name.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/fake_miss_world_2.jpg

Some of the girls even paid hundreds of thousands of RMB to receive plastic surgery in South Korea for the sake of betterbusiness. And this was on top of the 2,000 to 30,000 yuan startup cost of funding the identity hoaxes.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/not_miss_world5.jpg
http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/not_miss_world6.jpg

However, if this gang was truly clever, they would joined forces with that Hunan gang known for mixing up their own batches of homemade Viagra. It's just simple economics.
By Pinky Latt
[Images via CCTV]

[boxerbilly]

Well Viagra loses its patient rights in China this year I believe. Cheaper generics hitting the drug store may kill the counterfeit trade. Probably not but they will take a huge hit.

[GeneChing]

It figures. :rolleyes:


Spam Trail Leads to China’s Three Largest Banks (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/546311/spam-trail-leads-to-chinas-three-largest-banks/?utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3357bb065c-Sinocism02_01_162_1_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_171f237867-3357bb065c-29652241&mc_cid=3357bb065c&mc_eid=f4df4b6d0d)

A researcher made 300 purchases of fake luxury goods online and found that 97 percent were handled by China’s largest three banks.

by Tom Simonite January 29, 2016

An academic’s investigation into the underpinnings of the fake luxury goods spam that pollutes in-boxes, social networks, and search results sheds new light on the economics of online crime—and implicates some of the largest banks in the world.

Fake luxury goods stand alongside pharmaceuticals as one of the primary drivers of spam. Damon McCoy, an assistant professor of computer science at New York University, is mapping out and attacking the economic system behind it. And he says the trail leads to the doors of China’s three largest banks.

McCoy’s project is a collaboration with Florida attorney Stephen Gaffigan and four of the world’s largest luxury goods brands—which decline to be named. The Bank of China, the Bank of Communications, and Agricultural Bank of China handled 97 percent of 300 fake goods purchases made during McCoy’s project, which has been running for nearly 18 months. All three are owned by the Chinese government.

McCoy initially found that the Korea Exchange Bank handled a significant fraction of the luxury goods purchases. But after his work triggered complaints from the credit-card network Visa, the bank stopped handling the transactions for the perpetrators. Despite being subject to similar complaints—and likely fines—the Chinese banks have not. “The banks in China are not doing anything,” says McCoy. He discussed his findings at the Enigma computer security conference in San Francisco this week.

All three banks have been accused, in lawsuits from luxury brands and by anti-counterfeiting organizations, of being important to the counterfeiting trade before. The Bank of China this month turned over customer records requested by Gucci and other brands in a court case over fakes. But McCoy’s study draws a direct link between online spam and the banks and suggests that the three have a virtual monopoly on receiving payments made for fakes online. None of the Chinese banks named by McCoy responded to a request for comment.

McCoy’s campaign is inspired by a landmark 2011 study he worked on regarding the economics of spam. It found that 95 percent of the income generated by spam passed through just three banks in Azerbaijan, Denmark, and Nevis in the West Indies (see “Anatomy of a Spam Viagra Purchase”).

The effort against the fake goods trade is aimed at identifying similar economic bottlenecks and choking them off. McCoy targets the crucial step that makes spamming worthwhile—when a customer makes a payment with a credit card and the money lands in a bank account controlled by the counterfeiter.

Fake goods are sold using spam in the form of e-mails and social network posts (the iMessage and WhatsApp messaging services have been targeted heavily). Criminals also hack websites to set up virtual storefronts that rank highly in search results.

McCoy has built software that clusters together fake-goods spam coming from the same source and identifies the payments processor it uses. He then exploits Visa’s anti-fraud rules to hit the spam generators where it hurts. If a fake-goods transaction is reported, a card network can levy escalating fines on the bank that received the money.

McCoy says he has evidence he’s hurting the counterfeiters. Visa’s complaints to the big three Chinese banks have caused counterfeiters to lose their bank accounts, even if the banks appear to be allowing them to switch to new ones. And payments processors serving counterfeiters have tried to filter out purchases made through his project using increasingly restrictive rules that appear to prevent many legitimate purchases.

“We’ve definitely hurt them; this is having an effect on their sales,” says McCoy. He and his collaborators are committed to continuing their project. That might choke off spam at the source instead of just hiding it, as more conventional measures such as spam filters do, especially if the big Chinese banks coӧperate more, he says. “The hope is that if you remove the money incentive to send spam e-mails or post spam to social networks, this will prevent spam.”

The damage to the counterfeit industry could be long-lasting. Switching credit-card processors comes with high costs, and there are relatively few to choose from, says Tyler Moore, an assistant professor of cybersecurity and information assurance at the University of Tulsa. And counterfeiters have to centralize for efficiency reasons. “Miscreants often scale up in the same manner that any other tech company would, placing their infrastructure at a single hosting provider or processing payments at one acquiring bank,” he says.

[GeneChing]

A simple 'knock off' case or the PRC trying to undermine the American military?

The U.S. is its own worst enemy. Case in point, all of the merch for Superbowl 50 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69244-Superbowl-50), the biggest U.S. commercial enterprise of them all, was made in China. :o


Chinese man arrested for selling ‘knock-off’ eye protection to military and police (http://popularmilitary.com/chinese-man-arrested-for-selling-knock-off-eye-protection-to-military-and-police/)
By Michael Swaney|February 9th, 2016|Military News

http://11mvce1u204yohuqc313738f.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Revision-rip-off.jpg
Revision Desert Locust Goggles (left) and Daniel Gong just before being arrested at a Colorado trade show (right).

A Chinese business man has been arrested by the Denver Police Department after a sting operation uncovered the man was selling inferior products used by the US military and police officers.

Daniel Gong was caught at a Colorado trade show after the Denver PD’s fugitive team successfully identified him.

Gong is accused of selling “knock-off’ Revision Locust Military Goggle systems that are being manufactured in China.

The actual Revision eyewear are manufactured in a 52,000 square foot facility in Essex Junction, Vermont.

Revision boasts, “In the age of outsourcing, Revision is insourcing—bringing its mission critical lens manufacturing capability in house.”

In addition to having military and government contracts they also offer a 30% discount to military and law enforcement personnel who purchase their eyewear products independently.

According to news3lv, the sting operation used an undercover company set up by Dearborn County, Indiana prosecutor, Aaron Negangard and an Indianapolis private investigator to order and test the fake Revision googles.

The investigation determined that the goggles did not meet a single standard for ballistic quality.

Negangard said, “One thing that bothers us is they’re putting people who protect us in jeopardy while selling an inferior product.”

Gong and his company co-owners are charged with six felonies which include counterfeiting, corrupt business practices and theft.

[GeneChing]

Fake Chinese honey is being sold in Denmark (http://www.poandpo.com/agrifish/fake-chinese-honey-is-being-sold-in-denmark-17-2-2016/)
Wednesday February 17, 2016 12:43PM ET

http://res.cloudinary.com/cmyallfiles/image/upload/chs0216/honey.jpg
HoneySamples taken by the food authority Fødevarestyrelsen have revealed that large quantities of fake Chinese honey are being sold in Danish supermarkets.

Danish food distributor Scandic Food has imported 50 tonnes of the fake honey and sold it to Danish supermarkets such as Netto, Føtex, Bilka, Kiwi, Many and Spar, CPH Post Online reports.

“There are no health-related issues in regards to this situation,” Michael Rosenmark, the head of Fødevarestyrelsen’s mobile unit, told Berlingske Business.

“But businesses, which somewhere along the line added sugar to the honey, have profited greatly from doing so.”

The drama started in October 2015 when Fødevarestyrelsen turned up at the Scandic Food warehouse in Vejle and took samples from five types of honey.

The samples were then sent to the EU Commission’s accredited expert laboratory in France, which tested the samples and found in January that 80 percent were not honey at all, but rather a fake product that only resembled real honey.

Meanwhile, Scandic Food has refuted Fødevarestyrelsen’s conclusion, claiming the test used on the samples was not valid. The company has complained about the decision to the Food Ministry. ■

This reminds me of U.S. pancake syrup, which is basically fake maple syrup.

[GeneChing]

How much cloth can you make from rat fur exactly? Seems like that would be more work than it's worth, unless you got some really fat rats.


Is your sweater REALLY 100% cashmere? Chinese factories are accused of blending goat's wool with rat's fur and other cheaper fabrics (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3457107/Is-jumper-REALLY-100-cashmere-Chinese-factories-accused-blending-goat-s-wool-rat-s-fur-cheaper-fabrics.html?ITO=applenews)

Luxury cashmere jumpers may contain alternative - cheaper - materials
Campaigners claim goat's wool and rat's fur are being blended together
Edinburgh Woollen Mill facing court over claims it mislabelled scarves
Retailer denies the allegations and will be vigorously defending the case

By SEAN POULTER, CONSUMER AFFAIRS EDITOR FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 09:50 EST, 21 February 2016 | UPDATED: 20:43 EST, 21 February 2016

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/21/16/316CA6B100000578-3457107-image-m-195_1456073337869.jpg
Campaigners, including former TV presenter Selina Scott (pictured), warn that luxury cashmere jumpers are being made with a mixture of cheaper materials

Luxury cashmere jumpers may not be what they seem with evidence of fraud and fakery.
Cheap alternative materials - even rat fur in one case - are being woven into garments, according to campaigners including former TV presenter Selina Scott.
One famous name producer, the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, will be taken to court this week following allegations that it mislabelled scarves as '100 per cent cashmere'.
Trading standards chiefs claim the products were actually a mix of cashmere and other materials.
The company denies the allegations and has made clear it will vigorously defend the case.
However, supporters of cashmere goat farmers in China and Mongolia, say their efforts and industry are being undermined by fraud and mislabelling.
Selina Scott investigated the industry ahead of the launch of her own ethical cashmere collection and believes the problem is widespread.
Miss Scott said: 'It's an absolute scam. It is a well-recognised fact in the industry that parts of the cashmere trade have been corrupted.'
She said she had no faith whatsoever that cheap cashmere was genuine and said the fraudulent trade undermined the livelihoods of goat herders in Mongolia, because of a fall in demand for high-quality cashmere.
'The industry has been involved in a race to drive down prices,' she said.
It was reported two years ago that a million items of cashmere clothing seized from Chinese-run firms in Rome were found to be a mixture of acrylic, viscose and fur from rats and other animals.
Global cashmere production is about 7.5million kilograms, however sales of products carrying the name are much higher.
Malcolm Campbell, managing director of the Cloth of Kings in Fife, who has worked for more than four decades in the textile industry, said: 'There are not enough cashmere goats in the world to produce the amount of cashmere that is on sale.
'The more basic cheaters will use acrylic or polyester in the blend. A lot of the blends will have 50per cent or 60per cent cashmere and 50per cent or 40per cent modified sheep or yak wool. It is very difficult to check.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/21/14/0A0B7DD000000514-3457107-image-m-119_1456066145475.jpg
Luxury cashmere jumpers may not be what they seem with evidence of cheap, alternative materials - even rat fur in one case - being woven into garments at Chinese-run factories, campaigners are claiming (file picture)

'Much of the cashmere that is on sale and sold as 100% cashmere has a percentage of modified wool.'
Mr Campbell, who has travelled to cashmere factories in China, said the factories used a wool stretching machine, which can be used to make finer wool fibres. These are then blended with cashmere, which is sold as '100per cent cashmere'.
Karl Spilhaus, president of the Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute (CCMI), which represents cashmere producers and conducts worldwide testing on cashmere garments, told the Sunday Times there was a particular lower-priced wovens, such as jackets, coats and scarves.
He said: 'There is a significant problem on the British high street. We have tested many products and found a significant amount of mislabelling.'
The CCMI has previously complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about Edinburgh Woollen Mill, claiming its 'pure cashmere' scarves are not 100per cent cashmere. The complaint was not upheld after the retailers provided tests results showing the products as authentic.
In a statement, Edinburgh Woollen Mill said: 'We strongly refute these claims and will continue to vigorously defend them.
'The cashmere products sold by the Edinburgh Woollen Mill are subject to robust independent testing by experts in the fibre-testing field. Furthermore we conduct regular supplier audits designed to ensure the highest standards of product authenticity throughout our business.'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/21/15/0526C9CA0000044D-3457107-image-a-24_1456067848032.jpg
It was reported two years ago that a million items of cashmere clothing seized from Chinese-run firms in Rome were found to be a mixture of acrylic, viscose and fur from rats and other animals (file picture)

[GeneChing]

...save a life. You gotta feel for this guy, though.


Suicidal Chinese Man Avoids Death After Consuming 200 Fake Sleeping Pills (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1980276-suicidal-chinese-man-avoids-death-after-consuming-200-fake-sleeping-pills/)
By Frank Fang, Epoch Times | March 1, 2016 Last Updated: March 1, 2016 2:30 pm

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/03/01/GettyImages-163764786-676x450.jpg
Health workers prepare to destroy fake medicines seized in Beijing on March 14, 2013. A man in Shandong survives after taking 200 fake sleeping pills. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Counterfeit goods from China have dismayed many a buyer for a long time, but in one case recently, they’ve proved to be an accidental life-saver.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cVTV75XNxM#t=58

On Feb. 29, the friend of a man named Ye from the city of Qingdao in Shandong Province called the police to inform them that Ye had attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills, according to Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily. The police found Ye in a motel sleeping with two empty bottles of sleeping pills besides him, and immediately called an ambulance.

According to footage from local news station, when a police officer called for Ye to wake up and gave him a nudge, the young man suddenly sat up quickly and muttered: “All right, I’m not sleeping anymore.” Ye even lit up a cigarette, and puffed away as if nothing had happened.



What’s unique about fake drugs is that those who really want to die cannot die, and those who want to live cannot live.

Doctors at the hospital later determined that the sleeping pills Ye consumed were fakes. Ye, a 28-year-old from Shaoxing City in the east China province of Zhejiang, later explained that he brought the pills online for 50 yuan (about $7), and journeyed north to Qingdao to kill himself after getting into a heated argument with his family back home.

On Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, some netizens wondered if the online seller should get good or bad reviews.

“I thought the fake drugs only cause harm to people. Now these fakes are saving people, wrote a netizen Guangdong. Another netizen, “woo253,” wrote “Fake drugs are everywhere in China.”

“What’s unique about fake drugs is that those who really want to die cannot die, and those who want to live cannot live,” wrote a netizen using the moniker “k5co6plci8.”

This is not the first time this year that an attempt at suicide in China was thwarted by fake drugs. In Jiangsu Province, a man by the name of Wang Kai survived after taking nine pills of potassium cyanide in an suicide attempt, reported the state-run Xinhua News Agency in January. Potassium cyanide is extremely toxic and small amounts are lethal, but as it turns out, the pills Wang Kai took were also counterfeits.

[GeneChing]

I can't wrap my head around this right now, not with Easter Cadbury eggs right around the corner...

We've posted on these before (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits&p=1288032#post1288032).


Watch: How China Makes Chemical-Laced Artificial Eggs (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1964429-watch-how-china-makes-chemical-laced-artificial-eggs/)
By Juliet Song, Epoch Times | February 11, 2016 Last Updated: February 13, 2016 9:23 am

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-17-676x450.png
(Sina Weibo)

If there’s anything that can put Chinese chickens out of work, it’s the man-made eggs that have been plaguing consumers for over a decade.

Since 2003, Chinese workers have been able to replicate chicken eggs to a surprising degree of detail. The shell is made of shaped calcium carbonate, reported the Beijing Media Network. Other ingredients include starch, resin, and cellulose coagulants for the egg white, and edible pigment additives for the yolk.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXUfxSwNUZU

Countless pictures of the fakes have appeared on Chinese social media throughout the years. Lured by low prices, shoppers all over China have reported unwittingly buying the eggs, only to find that the yolk becomes hard and rubbery once cooked; one internet post said the yolks bounced when thrown on the floor.

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-14-580x782.png
(Sina Weibo)

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-16-580x435.png
(Sina Weibo)

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-17-580x1032.png
(Sina Weibo)

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-18-580x1032.png
(Sina Weibo)

Manmade eggs still infest Chinese supermarkets.

“Finally I have encountered the legendary fake eggs,” a January online post reads. “Before, I might choke on the yolk, but that won’t happen now because I can’t even chew it.”

Consuming the fake eggs can lead to memory degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease.

Fake eggs are extremely cheap to manufacture—a batch of ten costs just two cents.

In 2011, Qilu Evening News, a regional newspaper in Shandong Province, published an investigative report into the method of production. According to Mr. Ren, a 10-year veteran in the industry, the most important part of the process lies in producing the eggshell. Even if the insides are botched slightly, a good shell will fool most shoppers.

“I am the only one in China who can make a good eggshell,” Ren boasted.

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-10.png
(Qilu Evening News)

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-6.png
(Qilu Evening News)

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-7.png
(Qilu Evening News)

http://img.theepochtimes.com/n3/eet-content/uploads/2016/02/11/pasted-image-0-8.png
(Qilu Evening News)

The eggshell is created in a mould; stirring the calcium mixture and applying it evenly is crucial in creating a convincing fake. In ten minutes, the egg is complete.

To reduce the strong chemical smell given off by the compounds that comprise the whites and yolk, the eggs are treated with aquarium water to recreate an authentic odor. For added effect, traces of chicken droppings can be placed on the eggs.

In 2009, Japan’s FujiTV produced an 8-minute report on China’s fake eggs. The TV station even reproduced the process.


It costs $120 for egg-making lessons with Mr. Ren.

Ren said he was on good terms with chicken farms and egg sellers. “I openly tell the farm directors that my manmade eggs are far cheaper. Who doesn’t want to make more money? I have business relationships with them.”

“From the farm to the wholesalers to the retailers, they all know it,” Ren claimed. “Only customers don’t.”

[GeneChing]

There must be a special place in hell for those that take advantage of babies like this.



China detains sellers of fake baby formula (http://www.dw.com/en/china-detains-sellers-of-fake-baby-formula/a-19164231?maca=en-gk_volltext_AppleNews_world-16397-xml-atom)
Date 05.04.2016
Author Darko Janjevic (with AFP, dpa)

Shanghai authorities have launched a probe into six people accused of making a cheap infant formula, and then repackaging it to look like famous brands. The suspected gang reportedly sold over 17,000 mislabeled cans.

http://www.dw.com/image/0,,19004834_303,00.jpg

The group has been selling the counterfeit product across seven provinces in China, marketing it as the popular US brand "Similac," Shanghai officials said.
All of the dodgy goods had been traced and seized by the end of last year, the producer of "Similac," Abbot US, said in an online statement on Tuesday.
The Chinese authorities said that the mixture posed no safety risk.
According to the state media, the suspects used the same repackaging system to trade adult milk powder, selling over 17,000 tins in total. The group reportedly made nearly 2 million yuan ($309,000 or 272,000 euro) by peddling to retailers across China.

Death by melamine

This is only the latest in the series of scandals involving food safety in the world's most populous nation. Last month, a Chinese court sentenced ten people to prison terms for selling fake beef jerky. The gang used flavoring and pigment to make pork appear more like beef, according to the officials Xinhua agency.
In a widely publicized scandal in 2008, six infants died and hundreds of thousands fell ill after consuming tainted milk powder and other dairy products. A number of companies were found to be selling watered-down milk with added melamine, an industrial chemical, to boost protein levels.
The chemical caused kidney stones and renal failure, harming mostly young children.
Two men were executed and four others sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in the production process.

[-N-]

There must be a special place in hell for those that take advantage of babies like this.

People should check the labels more closely.

It's Simi-Similac, fake fake milk.

:)

[GeneChing]

This is slightly OT as it's not quite a Chinese counterfeit. It's a Korean counterfeit foisted on Chinese. :D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gx-gfHNvCs


People should check the labels more closely.

It's Simi-Similac, fake fake milk.

:) Good point, -N-. :p

[GeneChing]

The title of this post is a bit of a misnomer as the fentanyl is real, it's just processed poorly here in the States. As some of you know, I do volunteer work restraining combative patients, mostly drug induced. The fentanyl problem has been steadily rising recently. It's a serious and lethal issue.


‘Truly terrifying’: Chinese suppliers flood US and Canada with deadly fentanyl (https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/05/fentanyl-traced-to-china/)

https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ErosDervishi_Fentynol-1024x576.jpg
EROS DERVISHI FOR STAT

By DAVID ARMSTRONG @DavidArmstrongX
APRIL 5, 2016

The dozen packages were shipped from China to mail centers and residences in Southern California. One box was labeled as a “Hole Puncher.”

In fact, it was a quarter-ton pill press, which federal investigators allege was destined for a suburban Los Angeles drug lab. The other packages, shipped throughout January and February, contained materials for manufacturing fentanyl, an opioid so potent that in some forms it can be deadly if touched.

When it comes to the illegal sale of fentanyl, most of the attention has focused on Mexican cartels that are adding the drug to heroin smuggled into the United States. But Chinese suppliers are providing both raw fentanyl and the machinery necessary for the assembly-line production of the drug powering a terrifying and rapid rise of fatal overdoses across the United States and Canada, according to drug investigators and court documents.

“We have seen an influx of fentanyl directly from China,” said Carole Rendon, the acting US attorney for the northern district of Ohio in Cleveland. “It’s being shipped by carrier. It’s hugely concerning because fentanyl is so incredibly deadly.”

The China connection is allowing local drug dealers in North America to mass produce fentanyl in pill form, in some cases producing tablets that look identical to an oft-abused version of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. It also has been added to Xanax pills. And last week, fentanyl pills made to resemble the painkiller hydrocodone were blamed for a wave of overdoses in the Sacramento area, including nine deaths.

The fentanyl pills are often disguised as other painkillers because those drugs fetch a higher price on the street, even though they are less potent, according to police.

The Southern California lab was just one of four dismantled by law enforcement in the United States and Canada in March.

https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Packaged-Fentanyl-Calgary-Police-Service-1.jpg
CALGARY POLICE SERVICE Packaged fentanyl seized in Calgary, Alberta.

In British Columbia, police took down a lab at a custom car business that was allegedly shipping 100,000 fentanyl pills a month to nearby Calgary, Alberta where 90 people overdosed on the drug last year. The investigation began when border authorities intercepted a package in December containing pharmaceutical equipment. Police would not describe the equipment but told STAT it came from China.

Federal agents shut down a Seattle lab set up in the bedroom of a home in a residential neighborhood. Similarly, investigators last week raided a suburban Syracuse, N.Y. residence that police charged was a “Fentanyl Processing Mill.” Investigators found six people inside the home mixing and packaging the drug and seized enough fentanyl to make 5,866 doses. As they entered the home, police reportedly were warned by the alleged dealers not to touch the fentanyl without gloves because of its potency.

The emergence of decentralized drug labs using materials obtained from China — and often ordered over the Internet — makes it more difficult to combat the illicit use of the drug.

“We had a spike in 2007” of fentanyl-related deaths, said Russell Baer, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. “We traced it to a single production lab in Mexico and the deaths went away. Now, it is not restricted to one site.”

Fentanyl is legally used to treat people with severe pain, often after surgery, but this prescription fentanyl is not the source of most of the illegal trade.

People who unknowingly take fentanyl — either in pill form or when cut into heroin — can easily overdose because it is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and many times that of heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It works quickly, and multiple doses of the antidote naloxone are often required to reverse an overdose.

US health and law enforcement officials began warning of a spike in fentanyl deaths last year, a trend that has continued into this year. Fentanyl has surpassed heroin as a killer in several locales. A recent report by the CDC identified 998 fatal fentanyl overdoses in Ohio in 2014 and the first five months of 2015. Last month, federal prosecutors in Cleveland charged a local man with selling blue pills that appeared to be 30 milligram doses of the milder painkiller oxycodone. When tested, the 925 pills in his possession turned out to be fentanyl.

“One of the truly terrifying things is the pills are pressed and dyed to look like oxycodone,” said Rendon. “If you are using oxycodone and take fentanyl not knowing it is fentanyl, that is an overdose waiting to happen. Each of those pills is a potential overdose death.”

In Calgary, the fentanyl pills were produced to look similar to a version of OxyContin that was easily abused before it was replaced in 2012 by a tamper-resistant form, according to police. The pills are the same shade of green as OxyContin and are marked “80”, which was a frequently abused dosage of the drug. On the street, the fentanyl pills are called “shady 80s,” said Calgary Police Sergeant. Martin Schiavetta. They are sold for about $20 a pill, and some addicts take 15 to 20 pills a day.

“We have tracked the import from China,” Schiavetta said of fentanyl sold in the Canadian city. “The dealers ask for fentanyl powder and there are websites that guarantee delivery. If it is stopped at the border, they will send you a new one.” He said the packages are labeled as different products, such as car parts.

In Edmonton, Alberta, police inspector Dwayne Lakusta said fentanyl and pill presses are coming from China. “It is getting worse,” he said of that city’s fentanyl problem. “We will be battling this every day moving forward.”

Federal agents in Southern California became aware of the fentanyl operation there when a US Customs and Border Protection agent discovered a commercial pill press being sent from China to Gary Resnik, a Long Beach, Calif., man who has since been charged in the drug ring along with three other men.

Resnik allegedly set up a company called “Beyond Your Dreams” to order the machine, which was shipped through Los Angeles International Airport by a Chinese company called Capsulcn International, according to court records. Those records allege the Chinese company has a history of shipping pill presses to customers in the United States using fake shipping labels. Attempts to identify a specific location of the company and contact information were unsuccessful.

https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PillPress.jpg
RCMP Pill press seized in British Columbia in March.

Federal agents eventually seized six pill presses they allege were used by the Southern California dealers. Each machine could produce thousands of pills an hour.

The dealers allegedly operated one lab out of a single-story home they rented in Baldwin Park, Calif. Investigators believe none of the men arrested actually lived there. DEA agents and technicians wearing bright-yellow hazardous material suits shut down the lab on March 15.

A storage unit was rented to house supplies and equipment. Agents also discovered handwritten notes listing ingredients and mixtures necessary to manufacture the fentanyl pills, according to court records.

The drug allegedly sold by the Los Angeles dealers was a fentanyl analog, called acetyl fentanyl, which has a slightly different chemical composition. Federal investigators have identified a dozen analogs of fentanyl produced in clandestine labs, all of which act similarly in the body to heroin, with the exception of being more potent.

China last year made it illegal to export acetyl fentanyl, a move that drew praise from US officials. However, several police agencies in North America say the drug continues to stream out of the country.

A report this month from the Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs found China remains a major producer and exporter of drugs like fentanyl for illicit international markets. The country’s vast chemical and pharmaceutical industries — combined with lax regulation, low production costs, and government corruption — make China an “ideal source” for the export of materials needed in illicit drug production, according to the report.

In an affidavit, DEA agent Lindsey Bellomy said that based on wire transfers and other evidence, she “strongly believes” the Southern California group acquired its fentanyl from China. The affidavit lists a dozen deliveries from China to members of the group in January and February.

When police stopped one customer after he allegedly purchased fentanyl from the group, he was found to have “several thousand pills” later determined to be acetyl fentanyl by lab technicians. The customer told police he purchased drugs from the group every couple of days, and that he, in turn, sold his buyers a minimum of 1,000 pills, a quantity known as “a boat.”

David Armstrong can be reached at david.armstrong@statnews.com
Follow David on Twitter @DavidArmstrongX

[GeneChing]

Around the world in one town: 'China's richest village' is filled with copies of iconic buildings - including the country's own landmarks (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3535741/Around-world-one-town-China-s-richest-village-copies-iconic-buildings-including-country-s-landmarks.html?ITO=applenews)

Images have emerged of copycat landmarks in Huaxi, also referred to as China's richest village
In the community, those who work for the factories are given free healthcare and cooking oil
Copies include Arc de Triomphe, Sydney Opera House, the Great Wall and US State Capital

By SOPHIE WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 11:23 EST, 12 April 2016 | UPDATED: 12:25 EST, 12 April 2016

Landmarks deemed one of a kind such as Capitol Hill and the Sydney Opera House have been replicated in central China.

Visitors have been flocking to a theme park in Huaxi village, China's Jiangsu province to see the iconic copycat buildings, the People's Daily Online reports.

Huaxi, where the buildings are located is known to be the richest village in China.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185D1A00000578-3535741-Well_known_landmark_A_replica_of_the_Arc_de_Triomp he_stands_in_H-a-11_1460471465601.jpg
Well known landmark: A replica of Paris' famous Arc de Triomphe stands in Huaxi village, Jiangsu province

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185CD200000578-3535741-Alongside_world_famous_landmarks_stand_well_known_ Chinese_locati-a-14_1460471465721.jpg
Pride of China: Alongside world famous landmarks stand well known Chinese locations such as Tiananmen Rostrum

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185D0600000578-3535741-Visitors_walk_on_a_replica_of_the_Great_Wall_which _is_2_5_miles_-a-10_1460471465597.jpg
Wandering on the famous landmark: Visitors walk on a replica of the Great Wall which is 2.5 miles long, 1300 miles shorter than the original

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185D2A00000578-3535741-image-m-21_1460472516919.jpg
Real or fake? This immitation of a famous landmark is quite convincing compared to others in the village such as the Sydney Opera House

The area includes a 2.5-mile-long replica of the Great Wall of China.

Despite being more than 13,000 miles shorter than the real Great Wall, some tourists reportedly thought it was the original structure.

Like the real Great Wall of China, the replica has been built with stones on top of a mountain range.

Sections of the wall are divided with watch towers, just like the real thing.

Huaxi, with its 2,000 official registered inhabitants, has long been recognised as the richest village in China - each resident having at least 1.6 million yuan (£173, 844) in the bank.

According to Business Insider, the village has transformed into a haven where every resident is entitled to benefits such as free healthcare, education, a home and cooking oil.

In order to receive these benefits, every resident has to work seven days a week usually in the town's industrial plant.

Huaxi is home to a huge skyscraper dubbed the Hanging Village of Huaxi.

Reaching 328 metres (1,076ft) into the sky in Huaxi, Jiangsu province, its closest rival is 600 miles away in Beijing and it is 18metres taller than the Shard in Central London.

Despite such a small population, the latest tower to be built there is 52 storeys higher than its closest rival in Huaxi and has enough capacity to fit the entire population of the village.

The skyscraper stands taller than Paris's Eiffel Tower (324m) and the Chrysler Building (319m) in New York.

It had taken four years for the work to be finished on the 74-storey hotel and residential block at a cost of 3 billion yuan (£301m).

Some have compared the building as looking like a trophy because at the top there is a huge sphere made out of glass while others wonder if it is sustainable in such a place as Huaxi.

There are 800 suites in the structure and it can hold around 2,000 people. There is an exhibition hall, a revolving restaurant and rooftop swimming pools and gardens.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185CF200000578-3535741-Real_or_fake_This_building_in_Huaxi_village_is_a_r eplica_of_the_-a-9_1460471465586.jpg
Real or fake? This building in Huaxi village is a replica of the US Capitol Hill in Washington DC and has attracted tourists

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185D3E00000578-3535741-Not_such_a_good_imitation_This_building_is_meant_t o_be_a_replica-a-8_1460471465580.jpg
Not such a good imitation: This building is meant to be a replica of Australia's Sydney Opera House

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185D0E00000578-3535741-Convincing_Fake_Great_Wall_pictured_is_built_of_ma n_made_stone_a-a-12_1460471465620.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185CD700000578-3535741-Visitors_walk_on_the_imitation_Great_Wall-a-13_1460471465623.jpg
Convincing? Fake Great Wall (pictured) is built of man-made stone and is divided with regular guard towers

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/15/33185CE700000578-3535741-image-a-22_1460472553385.jpg
Tourist attraction: A replica of the Shanghaiguan Pass section of the Great Wall of China stands in 'China's richest village'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/17/331A330F00000578-3535741-image-a-34_1460477330071.jpg
Huaxi village in Jiangsu province has been dubbed 'the richest village in China' and its residents live a very comfortable lifestyle

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/17/331A331800000578-3535741-image-a-42_1460477499857.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/12/17/331A332200000578-3535741-image-m-41_1460477494458.jpg
Big building for a village: Huaixi has shown off its extravagant side by constructing a giant skyscraper with a five star hotel inside

Architectural replicas have become particularly popular in China in recent years.

French landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and Arc de triomphe, are particularly popular for replica makers.

Most recently, a small statuette of Lady Liberty has appeared in Yunnan, south west China, inside a hotel garden.

However, there's also been an increasing number of replica Chinese landmarks appearing around the country.

They have far fewer visitors than the real tourist sites, giving travellers more opportunities for photographs.

This is just too PRC to resist - world monument replicas - not quite counterfeit.

[GeneChing]

A timely scam for sure.


Shanghai police uncover Disney recruitment scam (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-04/14/content_24545945.htm)
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2016-04-14 17:33

SHANGHAI - Shanghai police have busted a gang they accuse of having used fraudulent job ads for Shanghai Disneyland to con 3 million yuan ($463,000) in broker's fees from more than 200 applicants.

Police announced the arrest of three suspected gang leaders on Thursday, two months away from the opening of Disney's first theme park on the Chinese mainland.

A taxi driver surnamed Li was the first to report the scam to police. He said he quit his taxi business after the Disney job offer, for which he paid 13,000 yuan to the broker.

However, the management position that was offered by the brokerage turned out to be a cleaning job.

According to police, one of the suspects confessed that he pretended to be a senior Disney executive to recruit staff.

The June opening of the Disney park in Shanghai has triggered a sales rush after tickets became available in March. Park passes for the resort's opening day were snapped up in minutes.

[GeneChing]

Chinese Chip Counterfeiter, Lured to US in Sting, Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/chinese-chip-counterfeiter-lured-to-us-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy)
Written by JOSEPH COX CONTRIBUTOR
April 18, 2016 // 01:25 PM EST

On Friday, Daofu Zhang, a Chinese citizen, pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell counterfeit computer chips used in military applications. According to Zhang's plea agreement, the offense carries a maximum penalty of ten years of imprisonment and a $2 million fine.

Zhang’s is just the latest conviction in the long, established trade of fake or “recycled” chips coming from China—a trade that has affected systems and networks in the US military and beyond.

In 2011, the the director of the US Missile Defense Agency told Congress that counterfeit electronics had ended up in the agency's systems seven times over five years. Fakes have also been installed in weapon systems, and a 2012 Senate Armed Services Committee investigation found phony parts in cargo headed for Special Operations helicopters and a Navy surveillance plane. The shipments had come from China.

Researchers have even responded to the problem, trying to find ways to mitigate the counterfeit chip market, by designing new systems to make chips harder to fake.

One well-known hub for this trade is the Guiyu Electronics Market, just outside Shantou, in southeast China. The market is notorious for being where iPhones, and other electronics, go to be recycled. A 2010 study showed that over 80 percent of a group of village children under 6 years old suffered from lead poisoning.

At Guiyu, workers strip used computer chips, which are then cleaned in a river and then exported. Some of these chips will become part of the legitimate second-hand industry, which sells refurbished components that are no longer produced by the original manufacturer.

“Defense agencies and contractors regularly purchase ICs on the secondary market, either to maintain older systems and equipment, or to assemble new systems and equipment from old designs,” Jessica A. Herrington, a Special Agent, writes in the complaint against Zhang.

But some companies may physically modify a chip so that it appears that it came from a different company, or a certain batch, or was made on a different date—meaning they can be sold for a higher profit. The chips can be re-marked after the original tags (which demarcate the true company of origin) have been sanded off, or new markings can be written on top of a thick layer of black epoxy, Herrington writes.

A 2008 investigation by Business Weektraced chips used by BAE Systems, the infamous aerospace government contractor, back to traders in Shenzhen, China. As part of that article, reporters detailed a string of companies that played a part in providing the US military market with lower quality chips.

“The sale of re-marked or otherwise fraudulent ICs into the stream of commerce is a significant problem, due to the increased risk of equipment failure from using salvaged or sub-standard components,” Herrington continues.

Zhang worked for one of the scam companies which was based in Shenzhen, the same city that Business Week was led to in 2008.

In 2012, law enforcement agents launched an elaborate undercover operation, purchasing items from ‘HK Potential’. Years later, in November 2015, Zhang shipped two packages containing eight chips with counterfeit Xilinx brand labels. Xilinix's chips had military applications, “including radiation tolerance for uses in space,” according to the US Attorney's Office. Zhang and two others were arrested shortly after, when they arrived in the US as part of a purported deal with the undercover agents.

Zhang's co-conspirators also pleaded guilty in March of this year. Their case, however, seems unlikely to squash the still-booming Chinese counterfeit chip trade.

Thought this was connected to the Military goggles post earlier here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits&p=1290668#post1290668), but I guess it isn't.

[GeneChing]

Saved this one, just for today. ;)


http://n9eif10g8s63jaeyc23xlvq1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/conrad-china-glass-1050x624.jpg
China Glass: Fab or Fake? (http://sfevergreen.com/china-glass-fab-or-fake/)
September 8, 2015 at 8:30 am
By Mr. Vivid

Expecting cannabis users to happily spend $3,300 on a dab rig may seem like a fool’s errand.

But the “Fabergé Egg” rigs created by Washington-based glass blower Mothership have proved so popular that the rigs are near-impossible to find — even with an unlimited bankroll and after a long road trip.

Following the phenomenal success of Mothership’s “Fab” designs, dozens of imitators have come to market. There is a surge of China-based clone manufacturers who have set out to solve the problem of supply and demand.

But what do you sacrifice when buying a clone?

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

A friend celebrated a birthday recently, and I wanted to score him a nice water pipe from a local shop. We went in together and instantly appreciated one of the offerings for its simplicity and ease of cleaning. It functioned perfectly, and has been a great gift. Later, I discovered we purchased a Chinese-made clone of an American glass designer.

Since then, I have hit several clones at parties and festivals. To be confusingly blunt, the craftsmanship is both impressive and lacking.

For starters, you get what you pay for. Crooked cold welded joints, glass bubbles, and poor finishing details are just a few of the flaws common to these mass-market clones, which nonetheless run for as little as $25 online — a fraction of what the smoke shops who sell them charge. You won’t get the flame polishing and exquisite detail you see on a Mothership — but you paid 2 percent of the cost.

There’s also a cultural divide. Cannabis is still very illegal in China, which means Chinese glass blowers are detached from cannabis culture. I doubt these glass blowers have ever used their rigs. Thus, they don’t understand important aspects like restriction. This is painfully obvious when you receive a non-functioning piece.

Nonetheless, function can be found. Your editor and I ordered two mini fab eggs from the same supplier, via DHGate.com. The same model, they nonetheless looked noticeably different. But they both worked, and considering the price and design, I would give the fab clone an 8 of 10. It made me instantly want to test another well-reviewed item like the straight Fab or the mini-Torus!

ARTIST SUBTRACTION

However, it is important to point out that cheap comes at a cost. Artists, inventors, and factory workers all deserve to make a living. Your local glass blower has a dangerous job that requires expensive equipment. Some of the markup on a Mothership is warranted. But, with legalization in sight, Mothership’s work could continue to grow in price. Meanwhile, the public is proving that there is significant demand for a feature-lacking clone.

I would like to see Mothership license their process, so as to not lock bong innovation in exclusive or illicit markets. Medical glass art should be for everyone who needs it; it should not be Veblen goods or require more than a month’s salary.

There is a reliable middle ground. For $200 to $300 or so, you can get most NorCal glass. The rig will be well thought out, and is made by people who understand cannabis. This isn’t the case with China, but they are getting a lot of feedback, and rapidly developing new copies. Among the most popular designs are the Torus Incycler, The Fab Family, FC-710, and the D020.

There are some things to watch out for. I would not purchase ceramic or metal from a Chinese clone maker. Metal alloy can be really nasty. We know these factories will sell you a clone, do you trust them to use the highest grade materials? Stick to clear glass or quartz, and pay a little more for American ceramics or metal. Peace of mind — and your health — is worth it.

EXPERT OPINION

I have purchased more than 100 bongs in my life, and have MacGuyver’d my share of Gatorade-bottle hacks. I have a pretty vast understanding of the subject, but certainly wanted to consult someone in the business.

So, I contacted a dozen artists and another dozen shops for comment. All but two turned me down.

I won’t mention the name of the San Francisco shop that appears to be currently selling a Chinese pipe, but they did tell me that it was American glass with a $200 price tag.

However, Vapor Smoke Shop on Stockton Street was willing to talk, and the crew there was refreshingly honest with me.

The manager didn’t seem surprised that other companies were unreachable on the subject due to the stigma associated with Chinese-made clone glass: unhealthy materials, wrong weighting, every corner cut.

They had the same quality concerns I had (such as the inconsistent fab hole spacing) but quickly hedged the criticism with a “but for $40?!?” comment.

What I really wanted to know was if they would sell something like this.

They immediately had legal concerns, quickly followed by reputation concerns. However, they thought it would fly off the shelf at $100.

As for the “real deal,” the only way the Vapor crew would ever sell a $2,500-$3,000 pipe is if someone asked for it by name, they told me.

Let’s face it — it’s not common for the reefer-smoking demographic to have an extra $2,500 to blow on glass.

It’s much more common to hear something like “That $100 bong is sweet, but I could have a quarter and a pack of papers for the same price.”

NO TROUBLE WITH LITTLE CHINA

You can’t replace the experience or instant gratification of your local head shop, but my experience with China glass was surprisingly terrific.

These markets provide an opportunity for collectors to try out exotic designs without the investment or risk. The better sellers have many positive reviews, and their work is heavily scrutinized.

Still, it is important to find a trusted dealer. The quality of the vape/smoke is wildly different between designs and sellers, so start with the most reviewed merchants: stevenlmz79, kathy0577, cleanclearglass, or sunshinestore are a few.

If you are curious, bubble over to DHgate.com and see if your next bong will be Made in China.

Disclaimer: I am not telling you to buy anything. Research your local laws before ordering crazy **** on the Internet.

Photo by Mr. Vivid

[GeneChing]

I could have sworn I posted on the original film here earlier. I know I posted somewhere but it's hard to search out. :( Anyway, here it is - the sequel.


Chinese 'knock-off' of Disney's 'Cars' set for sequel (http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/26/asia/china-copycat-movie-disney-cars-sequel/index.html)
By Shen Lu and Katie Hunt, CNN
Updated 4:20 AM ET, Tue April 26, 2016

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150707174423-china-car-movies-split-exlarge-169.jpg
Poster for "The Autobots," (L) next to the Chinese-language movie poster for Pixar's "Cars 2."

Story highlights
Director says he plans sequel to movie slammed as "Cars" ripoff
Zhuo Jianrong says new film would be released next year
Disney says it has ongoing legal proceedings against filmmaker
Beijing (CNN)The director of a Chinese animated movie slammed for allegedly knocking off Pixar's "Cars" says he will have a sequel out next year.

Zhuo Jianrong, the director of "The Autobots," a controversial cartoon movie released last year widely criticized online for copying "Cars", told CNN the sequel will be released in the summer of 2017.
Critics and disappointed moviegoers last year deemed Zhuo's animation a copy of Pixar's hit film franchise, but the filmmaker and production company denied the accusations, insisting it was "independently produced" and an "original" film.
Zhuo said Disney had sued his company over copyright infringement last year, but refused to reveal more details about the case.
Disney, which owns Pixar, said it had ongoing legal proceedings against the filmmaker and couldn't comment further.
But a defiant Zhou said the court case "doesn't affect our making of the second movie at all."
The Chinese filmmaker, who insisted he had never seen any movies in the "Cars" franchise before making his own movie, claimed "The Autobots 2" will be completely different and a "much finer" movie than his first installment.
"The storyline and main parts will be completely different than the first one," he said. "This time we are learning from Hollywood, trying to make it a blockbuster."
Despite the criticism, Zhuo believes the first movie -- which featured a promotional poster that was similar to "Cars" -- was a success. The investment in the movie was less than 3 million yuan ($462,000), but it took in twice as much at the box office, he added.
Some moviegoers begged to differ.
"Many innocent moviegoers took their kids to the movie theater believing it to be 'Cars'," said one user on Douban, a Chinese social media platform that allows users to score and review movies.
"The animation was so poorly made that it is no match for the average domestic cartoon series, and far worse than its not-so-good poster."
It scored an average of 2.3 points on a five point scale from around 12,763 reviewers on Douban.
When the controversy erupted last year, a Disney spokeswoman told CNN that the company shared the same concerns as many netizens and movie fans.
Second time around though, the budget will be much bigger -- 50 million to 60 million yuan -- and Zhuo is confident the sequel will be a better animation, rich with Chinese elements.
The moviemaker, who is also vocal on Chinese social media, admitted the criticism had motivated him to make the sequel and hoped that he would be able to distribute the new movie worldwide.
"We are determined to make a world-class movie," he said.
"Who says that only Pixar and Disney can make good animations with automobile elements? We can, too."

CNN's Shen Lu reported from Beijing. Katie Hunt wrote from Hong Kong.

[GeneChing]

Not quite counterfeit - this is copycat or knockoff.

And I totally want some Uncle Martian wear. :o


Under Armour vows to take aggressive legal action against Chinese knockoff brand Uncle Martian (http://shanghaiist.com/2016/05/02/uncle_martian_vs_under_armour.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/uncle_martian_logo.jpg

China's latest shoe brand, Uncle Martian, looks like it might face some legal problems from the company that it is trying to blatantly rip off.
Last week, pictures from the company's launch gala went viral with netizens noticing that the new Chinese sportswear company's logo looks suspiciously similar to Under Armour's trademark.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/uncle_martian.JPG

A 20-year-old American sportswear brand that has recently been enjoying some unprecedented success in the Chinese market, Under Armour has noticed as well, and it isn't happy. In a statement emailed to Fortune, the company vowed to pursue "all business and legal courses of actions" to stop Uncle Martian from ever getting off the ground:

Under Armour is aware of the Uncle Martian launch event. Uncle Martian’s uses of Under Armour’s famous logo, name, and other intellectual property are a serious concern and blatant infringement. Under Armour will vigorously pursue all business and legal courses of action.
Uncle Martian's parent company is Fujian-based Tingfei Long Sporting Goods, a 25-year-old sports shoe manufacturer that has specialized in manufacturing off-brand sneakers for years, but now appears poised for bigger and better things, riding on the wave of Under Armour's growing success in China.
Under Armour's name and logo are registered in China, as well as other international markets. We'll have to wait and see if that fact helps the company in litigation to come.
China is infamous for its disregard of international copyright laws -- with copycat sphinxes, talent shows and luxury brands -- but it's hard to blame them when the strategy is often such a success. Last year, a company that began as a Segway copycat actually bought Segway, and then got financed by Xiaomi.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2015/07/qiaodan-sports.jpg

Meanwhile, Chinese courts make punishing these "copycat brands" a difficult task. Currently, China's top court is deciding whether to reopen a high-profile copyright case involving Michael Jordan and Chinese sportswear company Qiaodan Sports.
Last year, a Beijing court dismissed Jordan's claim that the Chinese company was infringing on his trademark. Qiaodan (乔丹) is the transliteration of the NBA star's surname in Chinese. The company's products also incorporate the number 23 and a silhouette of a basketball player which bears more than a passing resemblance to the iconic "Jumpman" logo used by Nike in its Air Jordan line.
However, last August, the court ruled that "Jordan" is a common surname used by Americans and the logo was in the shape of a person with no facial features, making it "hard" for consumers to identify it as Jordan.
This should be interesting.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Alex Linder in News on May 2, 2016 3:30 PM

[GeneChing]

I'm very tempted to make an indie thread on UM. I so want a pair of these Curry kicks. ;)


NO SHAME: UNCLE MARTIAN BLATANTLY COPIES UNDER ARMOUR STEPH CURRY SHOES (http://www.nicekicks.com/no-shame-uncle-martian-blatantly-copies-armour-steph-curry-shoes/)
MATT HALFHILL MAY 5, 2016

http://www.nicekicks.com/files/2016/05/uncle-martian-steph-curry-copy.png

The hilarity that is the story around Uncle Martian just keeps getting better.

Last week we gave you a glimpse at the new Chinese sportswear company with a very familiar logo to Under Armour, but today we have images of their premier model on the company’s website that appears to be nothing more than the Under Armour Curry Two photoshopped.

What makes matters worse for the lack of originality is that the shoes posted on their site still sport the trademarked “SC” logo on the toe cap and “Charged” cushioning branding on the heel.

Under Armour has stated that they plan to take legal action against the new brand which is owned by a Chinese company with over 25 years in the business.

Lawyer up, Uncle Martian. This is far from over.

H/T Sole Collector

Note that Under Armour is now sponsoring One Championships (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?49870-China-MMA&p=1293428#post1293428).

[GeneChing]

OK, that there above is a post title I never could have dreamed up in my wildest imaginative moments. :confused:


Over 10 tons of fake jellyfish escape into Chinese market
(People's Daily Online) 17:10, May 09, 2016

http://en.people.cn/NMediaFile/2016/0509/FOREIGN201605091713000589444244257.jpg
The photo show the fake jellyfish (L) and the real jellyfish (R).

Police in eastern China's Huzhou cracked a case involving fake jellyfish, according to a news report in Hangzhou on May 7.
In late April, police officers at the Huzhou Public Security Bureau received a tip that a man surnamed Yuan and the other two people had been making and selling fake jellyfish at a farmer's market in Huzhou for almost a year.
The police seized more than 150 kilograms of artificial jellyfish at the farmer's market on April 22.
The three suspects started making the fake delicacy with sodium alginate, calcium chloride and aluminum sulfate in June of 2015. Since then, they have made more than 70,000 yuan in profits.
Yuan was aware that the fake jellyfish could be unhealthy or even dangerous . However, the production cost of the artificial jellyfish was less than half the cost of processing real jellyfish. In addition, less time is required to produce artificial jellyfish than is needed to process real ones.
Yuan confessed that he had learned the trade from a "master" surnamed Jia in Changzhou, Jiangsu province.
After hearing Yuan’s confession, the Huzhou police officers went to Changzhou and arrested Jia, along with his two accomplices. The officers also seized 1 ton of fake jellyfish.
Within a year, Jia and his assistants were capable of producing more than 10 tons of fake jellyfish for a profit of more than 100,000 yuan.
An investigation into the whereabouts of the remaining fake jellyfish is underway.

http://en.people.cn/NMediaFile/2016/0509/FOREIGN201605091715000080050059896.jpg

Police officers bust the fake jellyfish production area.

http://en.people.cn/NMediaFile/2016/0509/FOREIGN201605091716000185311637262.jpg

The fake jellyfish are made from sodium alginate, calcium chloride and aluminum sulfate.
(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Editor:Ma Xiaochun,Bianji)

[GeneChing]

Who is to say the U.S. doesn't do the same thing? It would certainly explain this year's presidential election. ;)


China Fakes 488 Million Social Media Posts a Year: Study (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-19/china-seen-faking-488-million-internet-posts-to-divert-criticism?bcomANews=true)
Shai Oster beijingscribe
May 19, 2016 — 12:30 AM PDT

China’s government fabricates about 488 million social media comments a year -- nearly the same as one day of Twitter’s total global volume -- in a massive effort to distract its citizens from bad news and sensitive political debates, according to a study.
Three scholars led by Gary King, a political scientist at Harvard University who specializes in using quantitative data to analyze public policy, ran the first systematic study of China’s online propaganda workers, known as the Fifty Cent Party because they are popularly believed to be paid by the government 50 Chinese cents for every social media post.
Contrary to popular perception inside China, the Fifty Cent Party avoids engaging in debates with critics and doesn’t make fun of foreign governments. Instead, it mostly works to distract public attention away from hot topics by highlighting the positive, cheering the state, symbols of the regime, or the Communist Party’s revolutionary past.
"In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense -- stopping an argument is best done by distraction and changing the subject rather than more argument -- but this had previously been unknown,” King said in an e-mail.
Although those who post comments are often rumored to be ordinary citizens, the researchers were surprised to find that nearly all the posts were written by workers at government agencies including tax and human resource departments, and at courts. The researchers said they found no evidence that people were paid for the posts, adding the work was probably part of the employees’ job responsibilities. Fifty Cent Party is a derogatory term since it implies people are bought off cheaply.
About half of the positive messages appear on government websites, and the rest are injected into the 80 billion social media posts that enter China’s Internet. That means one of every 178 social media posts on China’s micro blogs is made up by the government, the researchers said.
The team based their findings on leaked archives of 2013 and 2014 e-mails from the Internet Propaganda Office of Zhanggong, a county-level district of nearly half a million people in Ganzhou City, in Jiangxi, a province in southeast China. The archive included a mix of multiple e-mail formats, programs and attachments that required King and his team to build customized computer code to crack the archive and deploy automated text analysis and extraction.
They pulled out 2,341 e-mails of which more than half contained a Fifty Cent post, totaling 43,797 posts that formed a benchmark for identifying other propaganda posts. They were able to identify Fifty Centers by cross referencing names from leaked e-mails with online social media profiles.
They found the name, contact information, and even photographs of many of the authors but chose not to disclose them because it didn’t serve an academic purpose, they said.
The timing of the posts showed coordinated control. Typically, the Fifty Cent Party workers would go into action right after some kind of social unrest or protest and try to distract public opinion with a wave of social media that researchers said was “interesting, but innocuous and unrelated topic.”
For example, they found 1,100 posts touting the China Dream, local economic development following the July 2013 riots in Xinjiang, or pegged to senior politicians’ gatherings in Beijing.
“Many revolutionary martyrs fought bravely to create the blessed life we have today! Respect to these heroes,” read one post cited in the study.
People also criticized the West and drew favorable comparisons to China.
“On one hand, the US publicly asserts that if China does not perish the West will wither; on the other it tells the Chinese people: your government is problematic, you have to overthrow it so you can live better lives than you do today. I can ask, is there a more ridiculous and contradictory logic than this?” another poster wrote.
After analyzing the database they created from the leaked accounts, researchers used machine learning to find other Fifty Cent posts in other parts of China. Volunteers in China set up Weibo micro blog accounts to try to contact Fifty Centers to verify if they worked for the government.
“Of course, the difficulties of interpreting these answers is complicated by the fact that our survey respondents are conducting surreptitious operations on behalf of the Chinese government designed to fool users of social media into thinking that they are ordinary citizens,” the researchers said in their paper, “and we are asking them about this very activity.”
They researchers said they deduced the rules for the messages: First, don’t engage in controversial issues. Second, stop discussion about potential collective or street protests by active distraction. Allowing some dissent serves the purpose of letting the regime gauge public opinion on local leaders, they concluded, while complete censorship only serves to stir up anger.
“The main threat perceived by the Chinese regime in the modern era is not military attacks from foreign enemies but rather uprisings from their own people,” they said.
Revealing a paternalistic approach, the guiding policy of China’s Fifty Cent Party appears to be that distraction is better than conflict. “Letting an argument die, or changing the subject, usually works much better than picking an argument and getting someone’s back up (as new parents recognize fast),” they wrote.

[GeneChing]

I thought we already had a thread on this somewhere, but I can't find it. It might be buried in some other thread. If it is found and pointed out to me, I'll merge.


http://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/pandawarrior-1280x600.jpg
Lionsgate’s ‘Kung Fu Panda’ Knockoff Looks Even Worse Than It Sounds (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/dvd/lionsgates-kung-fu-panda-knockoff-looks-even-worse-sounds-139904.html)
By Amid Amidi | 05/23/2016 4:34 pm

Lionsgate will release The Adventures of Panda Warrior on DVD, Digital HD, and on-demand August 2. The Kung Fu Panda cash-in is actually a 2012 Chinese film called The Adventures of Jinbao, which is (by some accounts) a continuation of the Jackie Chan feature Little Big Soldier. A Chan caricature appeared in the original film, though he is not promoted in the newly released American trailer:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyS8lWOaC8U

In the Americanized version Rob Schneider voices Patrick, the panda lead. (Schneider was also the voice of the titular character in Lionsgate’s Norm of the North, released theatrically last January.) Other voices including Haylie Duff, Norm MacDonald, Lauren Elizabeth, and Spongebob’s voice Tom Kenny. Here’s the synopsis:


When Patrick (Schneider), a peaceful soldier from ancient China, is magically transported to Merryland and turned into a Panda, he must join forces with Peggy the flying pig (Elizabeth), GoGo the daring goat (Duff), and King Leo the courageous lion (MacDonald) in order to free the once-peaceful world from the tyranny of the evil nine-headed snake that has enslaved them.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/pandawarrior-a.jpg

[GeneChing]

...and Parthenon too!


Another copycat Sphinx rises from the sands of Lanzhou, fake Parthenon too (http://shanghaiist.com/2016/06/01/lanzhou_sphinx_parthenon.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/gansu_sphinx.jpg

One Sphinx bites the dust, another rises from the sands, such is the rhythm of life in the Middle Kingdom.
Once a major trading hub on the Silk Road, Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, has finally managed to put itself back on the map with a knockoff Sphinx and a knockoff Parthenon. These are just the first two of many world wonders planned for the Lanzhou Silk Road Cultural Relics project.
On the bright side, at least this brazen attempt at attracting tourists is working under a bit of historical context. China's most notable copy-Sphinx was suddenly built in 2014 by a movie production company, they would soon flank the Egyptian national treasure with replicas of the Temple of Heaven and Louvre Pyramid (all for just 10 RMB!).
Sadly, the Great Sphinx of Shijiazhuang only stood for less than three years, getting its head lopped up in April of this year, following complaints by Egypt to UNESCO, arguing that the 30-meter-high and 60-meter-long replica was not only inaccurate (being made of steel bars and cement), but that it would also have a negative effect on the country's tourism industry.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/sphinx_gone14.jpg

With that Sphinx gone, this Great Sphinx of Lanzhou joins the one in Chuzhou (also constructed inside a “world heritage park") as the only remaining traces of ancient Egyptian culture in China. Unless anybody knows of some more?

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/katienelson/sphinx-anhuimain.jpg

The Parthenon, however, is unique! Never seen anything else like it in the world for at least two millennia.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/gansu_sphinx2.jpg
http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/gansu_sphinx3.jpg
http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/gansu_sphinx4.jpg

Could use a bit of fixing up though.
[Images via China News]

[GeneChing]

We knew about this already, but this article sums it up nicely.


In China, There's Not Just Disney, There's 'Dlsnay' and 'Disnesy' Too (http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/china-disney-disnesy/304220/)
Ahead of New Shanghai Park's Grand Opening, Fakes Are Still Widespread
By Angela Doland. Published on June 02, 2016.

http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/image/Faux3X220160531.jpg
Photo credit: Angela Doland.

http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/image/Faux13X220160531.jpg
Photo credit: Angela Doland.

http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/image/faux33X220160531.jpg
Photo credit: Angela Doland.

http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/image/Autobots20160531.jpg
A Chinese movie called "Autobots" reminded many of "Cars." Photo credit: Zhuo Jianrong via Weibo.

In Shanghai's markets, dolls from Disney's "Frozen" peer out of plastic packaging with a bright, wide-eyed gaze. But something's not quite right: The logo on the box uses the same font as Disney, but it says "Denise." Other faux Disney princesses are sold under logos reading "D1snay," "Disnesy" and even "Diversity."
There are just two weeks to go until the $5.5 billion Shanghai Disney Resort opens on June 16. And Chinese officials have promised a massive year-long effort to root out counterfeit Disney merchandise. But a stroll through Shanghai's markets and shops suggests counterfeit Disney products are still rampant.
Fake DVD shops operate openly in storefronts in tony neighborhoods. The fact that DVDs sell for $1.80 is a clue they're not genuine; so are misspellings on the boxes describing the adventures of "Pocabontas" and "Aliced" in Wonderland.
Trademark Protection Zone
Walt Disney Co. is not alone in having a fakes problem in China, where counterfeit Longchamp handbags and Beats by Dre headphones are a common sight in market stalls.
But Disney's situation is unusual in that state-backed Shanghai Shendi Group owns 57% of its new resort. China has skin in the game.
In October, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce promised a one-year effort to protect Disney's trademarks, with an area immediately surrounding the park to get extra care. Soon afterward, five Shanghai hotels were reportedly fined for ripping off Disney's name.
Undeniably, the situation isn't as bad as it once was. In a survey published in January by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, nine out of 10 respondents said IP rights enforcement has improved in the last five years.
At a well-known mall selling fakes on Shanghai's Nanjing West Road, vendors said they would be forced out at the end of June. (Ad Age was unable to confirm that with authorities.) For now, the vendors peddle counterfeit Disney toys under a huge red banner reading: "Strengthen the protection of intellectual property to advance the progress of human civilization."

High-Quality Counterfeits
Lv Guoqiang, director general of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration, in April detailed authorities' multipronged approach to fighting Disney fakes. Asked why counterfeits are still out there, he said that "Shanghai is such a big city with such a large population flow, we cannot guarantee that IP infringement will not pop up on some corner."
Ad Age emailed a Disney spokeswoman a list of questions; the company responded with a brief statement, saying that "we protect our intellectual properties vigorously and we take reports of suspected infringement seriously."
Douglas Clark, a Hong Kong-based IP lawyer, believes Disney's problem is exacerbated because it licensed its brand name to many, many parties manufacturing products in Chinese factories. "The potential for leakage is huge," he said. Factories can make more products than they're commissioned to and sell those high-quality counterfeits out the back door; they're very hard to catch.
Cheap Disney stuffed animals and other products often pop up on China's eBay-like Taobao platform. And for consumers, it's hard to know what's genuine. The platform is owned by Alibaba Group, which has faced accusations about not doing enough to root out fakes. In response to questions, Alibaba noted that its anti-counterfeiting system processes 100 million pieces of data per second, and that in 2015, it blocked and removed 120 million suspicious product listings on Taobao.
Piracy, like fakes, remains a big issue in China, though legal streaming services have gained ground. There have also been big box office successes, like "Zootopia," which Disney has said grossed over $235 million in China as of May 10. There are copycats too. Last year, a Chinese animated movie called "The Autobots" reminded many of "Cars," the hit release by Disney's Pixar unit. Director Zhua Jianrong retorted that he'd never seen the film. A sequel is set for next year, CNN has said.

Strategy Shift
Howard Yu, a professor of strategy and innovation at IMD business school in Switzerland, says Disney has a strong history of working with government at all levels on IP rights. But the company has also been shifting its strategy away from content and products to providing experiences. "Experiences are always more difficult to copy," he said.
One example of that is Disney's English language schools for children in China, which tap into the aspirations of parents and bring Disney characters into the classroom, Mr. Yu said. The schools, launched in 2008 and now present in nine Chinese cities, have brought revenue, cultivated educated consumers and, more importantly, "seeded the demand for an authentic Disney experience," he said.
Shanghai Disneyland is the culmination of that logic, which is also why Apple, Lego and Louis Vuitton have built grand flagship stores in China. "They are the physical presence to educate consumers on what a 'true' experience should feel like," Mr. Yu said.
Last year, an official Disney Store—the world's largest—finally opened in Shanghai, with a turreted castle inside. On a recent morning, accountant Huang Liping bought a cup and bag for her young daughter. College student Zhang Chunlei selected a friendship necklace. A couple from the coastal city of Dalian came away with a schoolbag for their seven year old. Everyone envisioned trips to the new theme park, and they all took countless selfies, too.

[GeneChing]

Guess what?: Jackie Chan busted wearing fake goods (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/06/08/guess-what-jackie-chan-busted-wearing-fake-goods.html)
Jakarta | Wed, June 8 2016 | 10:13 am
  
JAKARTA: Renowned actor Jackie Chan was caught sporting a fake pair of Adidas Yeezy sneakers, kapanlagi.com reported over the weekend.

The news originated from Yeezy Busta, an Instagram account made to promote people wearing Yeezy products. The post featuring Jackie was uploaded several months ago, but recently caught the attention of Internet users.

The post featured a photo of Jackie, wearing a pair of light gray sneakers and carrying an orangutan, posing with an unidentified man.

“As much as I love Jackie Chan, his “Turtle Doves” are in fact fake. No disrespect to Jackie,” noted the caption.

The administrator of Yeezy Busta suspects that Jackie may have been given the counterfeit goods by a fan.

Adidas Yeezy is a collaborative line between the shoemaker and American hip-hop artist Kanye West.

The account has managed to bust several people wearing fake Yeezy products, including Indonesian actor Glenn Alinskie and American internet personality Dylan Dauzat. — JP

That photo sounded really amusing so I just had to look it up. See https://www.instagram.com/p/BGKRmWMw8I1/

[GeneChing]

More on counterfeit social media posts (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits&p=1293827#post1293827).


Red astroturf: Chinese government makes millions of fake social media posts (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/red-astroturf-chinese-government-makes-millions-of-fake-social-media-posts/)
"50-cent" posters aim to distract from dissent rather than confront it.

by Sean Gallagher - Jun 13, 2016 3:00am PDT

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Pro-China_March_2008_Calgary-640x480.jpg
That groundswell of online support for Chinese Communist Party and government officials? Not so much actually grassroots.
Robert Thivierge

Data scientists at Harvard University have found that the government of the People's Republic of China generates an estimated 448 million fake social media posts per year. The posts are an effort to shape online conversations by citizens and to distract them from sensitive topics "and change the subject"—largely through "cheerleading" posts promoting the Chinese Communist Party and the government.

The research, conducted by Harvard professor Gary King and former Harvard graduate students Jennifer Pan and Margaret Roberts and supported by Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Science, made use of a goldmine of propaganda content. This included a leaked archive of e-mails sent to the Zhanggong District Internet Propaganda Office from 2013 to 2014 that showed government workers' documentation of completion of fake post work, including screen shots. The research also analyzed social media posts on Chinese websites from 2010 to 2015.

Previously, posts like these were believed to be the work of what observers have called the "50-cent Party"—named for what some believed the posters are paid by the state for their propaganda work. As it turns out, the posts analyzed by King and his co-researchers were likely mostly written for free as an extra duty of government employees.

And while the "50c" posts had long been assumed to be focused on attacking critics of the government and the Party, the researchers found instead that "the Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We infer that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to regularly distract the public and change the subject, as most of these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime." In essence, the fake posts are a government-sponsored "astro-turfing" campaign—an attempt to create the impression of a grassroots groundswell of support for the Party and the government.

The term "astro-turfing" first became widely used to online public relations efforts by Microsoft as the company was fighting a government anti-trust case through the Microsoft-funded group Americans for Technology Leadership, though the term had been used in the past to describe off-line fake grassroots efforts. It has become a common (but unethical) political and marketing practice—particularly as companies try to shape online reviews and comments about their products and services. But none has engaged in this practice on the scale of the Chinese government's campaign, which used government workers to spread happy talk about the Party and state. Of the posts analyzed from the Zhanggong archive, the researchers found 99.3 percent were contributed by one of more than 200 government agencies. Twenty percent of those posts were posted directly by employees of the Zhanggong Internet Propaganda Office, with smaller percentages coming from other regional and municipal government agencies.

As for the allegation that these astroturfers get paid by the government for their posts, the researchers noted, "no evidence exists that the authors of 50c posts are even paid extra for this work. We cannot be sure of current practices in the absence of evidence but, given that they already hold government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) jobs, we would guess this activity is a requirement of their existing job or at least rewarded in performance reviews."

I can't but wonder how much astro-turfing has been going on for the 2016 U.S. elections. Reading the posts on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Kung-Fu-Tai-Chi-Magazine-135964689362/) alone is a wild and mostly fraudulent ride.

[GeneChing]

I'm debating about making a thread devoted to copycats, poaching some of the previous posts here. Copycats are slightly different than counterfeits, but it can be a very fine line.



Copycat China: Domestic Films Quick to Duplicate Title Words, Themes (http://chinafilminsider.com/copycat-china-domestic-films-quick-duplicate-title-words-themes/)
By Fergus Ryan|June 8th, 2016|Featured Stories, News

http://i1.wp.com/chinafilminsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/152456.12365429_620X620-triangle-1-e1465696688315.jpg?w=1199

The Chinese language is known for its four vocal tones and complex system of written characters. Say a word with the wrong tone, or scrawl an errant stroke when crafting a character, and you can completely derail your intended meaning.

But in China’s film industry, some are seeing the elasticity of the Chinese language as a business opportunity. In an industry awash with new capital looking for the right movie vehicle, the number of copycat films playing on language in their titles are starting to proliferate.

Ever since the runaway success of 2012 box office hit Lost in Thailand (Rén zài jiǒng tú zhī tài jiǒng / 人再囧途之泰囧)— itself a sequel to Lost On Journey (人在囧途) from 2010—there have been a growing number of road movies featuring titles including the character jiong (囧), used to express embarrassment. The archaic character gained new life among Chinese netizens, who adopted it for its built-in smiley-face appearance.

Upcoming “jiong” movies include “Lost in Craziness” (Fēngkuáng de jiǒng tú / 疯狂的囧途), “Bandit Lost On A Journey” (Fěi zài jiǒng tú / 匪在囧途), and “Lost After All” ( Yī jiǒng dàodǐ / 一囧到底).

Swapping out one character in the Chinese name for “The Fast and the Furious” (Sùdù yǔ jīqíng / 速度与激情), the upcoming film less excitingly called “Courier and the Furious” (Sùdì yǔ jīqíng / 速递与激情) is banking on exploiting the tailwind of a franchise that dominated at the local box office.

Or perhaps viewers intrigued about the buzz behind “Fifty Shades of Grey” (Wǔshí dù huī / 五十度灰)—which was banned in China—might be bamboozled by the similarly titled “Fifty Shades of Black” (Wǔshí dù hēi / 五十度黑). In Chinese, black (hēi) and gray (huī), sound pretty similar.

Based on their English names, some Chinese films seem to have no connection to each other. What could be more different, for instance, than Iron Man and Pole Dancing Queen?

Well, the Chinese name of the 2015 film Pole Dancing Queen, by director Nan Xia, is strikingly similar to the Chinese name for Iron Man (Gāngtiě xiá / 钢铁侠). But an echo of greatness is just that.

While the Iron Man movies average 7.5 out of 10 stars on popular China movie rating site Douban, Pole Dancing Queen scored a woeful 2.2 out of 10. Nearly 98 percent of Douban viewers who scored Pole Dancing Queen gave it just one star.

The long string of Chinese copycat movies comes as a deluge of capital has come into the local film industry. According to Beijing-based Zero2IPO Research, 166 film-focused private equity funds established last year, and new entertainment companies are springing up at a rapid rate.

For most of these films, it’s just the name that is similar to an earlier film, while the plot and all other elements are different. Some films, such as Crazy Toy City (Fēngkuáng wánjù chéng / 疯狂玩具城), share a similar name and poster design with imports from Hollywood, but little else. Crazy Toy City’s marketing campaign bore a striking resemblance to the campaign for the Disney hit Zootopia, which is known as Crazy Animal City (Fēngkuáng dòngwù chéng / 疯狂动物城) in Chinese.

While some of the stills for upcoming movie Toys War or Teddy Bear’s Toy War look similar to the Seth McFarlane’s 2012 fantasy/buddy film Ted, it’s unlikely the Chinese version will be riddled with crass sexual humor and depictions of drug use.

But in cases where the appropriation has been particularly egregious, some companies have decided to take legal action. In late April, the director of The Autobots (Qìchē rén zǒngdòngyuán / 汽车人总动员) — a film that seems to borrow heavily from Pixar’s Cars — confirmed that Disney sued his company over copyright infringement last year.

Prominent Chinese film critic Du Juan calls the phenomenon parasitic marketing. “It shows a complete lack of sincerity on the part of those filmmakers to filmgoers,” Du told local movie website Mtime. “Those kinds of obscure movies are just trying to take advantage of the fame of those successful ones, in order to make more money.”

But the strategy is far from foolproof. Film industry scholar Liu Haodong says that for every imitator out there turning a profit, there are scores of others losing money. “They just take it for granted that their movie can definitely be profitable,” he told MTime.

In a country where a larger chunk of a film’s marketing budget goes to online channels, especially social media, the technique is wearing thin on audiences who have grown savvy with the help of their social media networks. A lot of the business is generated by people looking to revel in the so-bad-it’s-good factor, according to film scholar Jiang Yong.

“Even though there are still some people who buy tickets to see these copycat movies, they just want to see it with their own eyes or just make fun of it,” he told the website.

Additional reporting by Kelly Li

[GeneChing]

Alibaba’s Jack Ma: Better-Than-Ever Fakes Worsen Piracy War (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-14/alibaba-s-ma-fake-goods-today-are-better-than-the-real-thing)
David Ramli
Lulu Yilun Chen
June 13, 2016 — 10:03 PM PDT Updated on June 14, 2016 — 12:09 AM PDT

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iKeOP5P1aiZo/v0/-1x-1.jpg
Photographer: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma said Chinese-made counterfeit goods today have gotten better than the genuine article, complicating the effort to root out fakes on the country’s largest online shopping services.

Global brands have long relied on China and other low-cost manufacturing bases to beef up margins. But those same factories have gotten savvier over the years and are now using the Internet -- including Alibaba’s platforms -- to sell their own products straight to consumers, Ma told the company’s investor conference on Tuesday. Still, Alibaba is the best in the world at fighting the sale of counterfeits, he added.
“The problem is that the fake products today, they make better quality, better prices than the real products, the real names,” Ma said in Hangzhou, China. “It’s not the fake products that destroy them, it’s the new business models.”
“The exact factories, the exact raw materials, but they do not use their names.”

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i8M3JUiwwW1Q/v2/-1x-1.jpg
Jack Ma. Photographer: VCG via Getty Images

Failing to clean up online bazaars like Taobao could alienate merchants and shoppers abroad, particularly at a time when Alibaba is drawing scrutiny from both investors and international brands over its reputation as a haven for knock-offs. Its membership in the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, a nonprofit global organization that fights counterfeit products and piracy, was suspended in May after questions were raised about conflicts of interest involving the coalition’s president. That’s after its inclusion in the group irked some members who said the company wasn’t going far enough to cull fakes from its marketplaces.
Right or wrong, Ma’s comments on the caliber of counterfeits may not sit well with those trying to tackle an endemic problem that’s tarred China’s image abroad.
“It’s inappropriate for a person of Jack Ma’s status to say something like this,” said Cao Lei, director of the China E-Commerce Research Center in Hangzhou. “For some individual cases what he’s saying might be true, but it’s wrong to generalize the phenomenon.”
Ma wants to get more than half the company’s revenue from outside China within a decade and a cooling domestic economy makes the fight against counterfeiters more pressing.
Alibaba pleaded its case to hundreds of members of the IACC that it has the data, technology and desire to help keep fake brands off its online marketplaces. Its collaboration with Chinese law enforcement in 2015 resulted in the arrest of 300 people, the destruction of 46 places where counterfeits are made and the confiscation of $125 million worth of products, President Michael Evans told the group in May.
“We would love to work with the branded companies,” Ma said, adding that the company had around 2,000 staff working on the problem. “We cannot solve the problem 100 percent because it’s fighting against human instinct. But we can solve the problem better than any government, any organizations, any people in the world.”
Alibaba handles more e-commerce than Amazon and eBay combined. It expects to reach 423 million online shoppers around the world this year, mostly through its Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace sites. It aims to have 2 billion consumers by 2036 and double gross merchandise volume to 6 trillion yuan ($911 billion) by fiscal 2020.
“Alibaba has a remarkable amount of big data at their disposal and I believe there are many triggers which could help them identify fakes better than they are doing at present,” said Mark Tanner, managing director of the China Skinny, a research firm in Shanghai. Those included price variances, reviews, and selling patterns, he said.
While battling the immediate problem, Ma is also keeping an eye on the longer term. Ma said his goal of reaching 2 billion users would require more success in rural China, which he estimated had 700 million people. While there is merit in calls for expansion in Malaysia, Indonesia and India, Ma said the domestic approach would be more successful because his company understood the local market better.
And he already has an eye to posterity, telling investors that over 90 percent of key company meetings, decisions and events have been recorded on video to be analyzed by future generations studying Alibaba.

I dunno about that. All of the fake Chinese knock-offs I have ever received fall apart pretty quickly. I'll agree that they are cheaper.

[GeneChing]

Alibaba’s Jack Ma: Better-Than-Ever Fakes Worsen Piracy War (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-14/alibaba-s-ma-fake-goods-today-are-better-than-the-real-thing)
David Ramli
Lulu Yilun Chen
June 13, 2016 — 10:03 PM PDT Updated on June 14, 2016 — 12:09 AM PDT

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iKeOP5P1aiZo/v0/-1x-1.jpg
Photographer: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma said Chinese-made counterfeit goods today have gotten better than the genuine article, complicating the effort to root out fakes on the country’s largest online shopping services.

Global brands have long relied on China and other low-cost manufacturing bases to beef up margins. But those same factories have gotten savvier over the years and are now using the Internet -- including Alibaba’s platforms -- to sell their own products straight to consumers, Ma told the company’s investor conference on Tuesday. Still, Alibaba is the best in the world at fighting the sale of counterfeits, he added.
“The problem is that the fake products today, they make better quality, better prices than the real products, the real names,” Ma said in Hangzhou, China. “It’s not the fake products that destroy them, it’s the new business models.”
“The exact factories, the exact raw materials, but they do not use their names.”

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i8M3JUiwwW1Q/v2/-1x-1.jpg
Jack Ma. Photographer: VCG via Getty Images

Failing to clean up online bazaars like Taobao could alienate merchants and shoppers abroad, particularly at a time when Alibaba is drawing scrutiny from both investors and international brands over its reputation as a haven for knock-offs. Its membership in the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, a nonprofit global organization that fights counterfeit products and piracy, was suspended in May after questions were raised about conflicts of interest involving the coalition’s president. That’s after its inclusion in the group irked some members who said the company wasn’t going far enough to cull fakes from its marketplaces.
Right or wrong, Ma’s comments on the caliber of counterfeits may not sit well with those trying to tackle an endemic problem that’s tarred China’s image abroad.
“It’s inappropriate for a person of Jack Ma’s status to say something like this,” said Cao Lei, director of the China E-Commerce Research Center in Hangzhou. “For some individual cases what he’s saying might be true, but it’s wrong to generalize the phenomenon.”
Ma wants to get more than half the company’s revenue from outside China within a decade and a cooling domestic economy makes the fight against counterfeiters more pressing.
Alibaba pleaded its case to hundreds of members of the IACC that it has the data, technology and desire to help keep fake brands off its online marketplaces. Its collaboration with Chinese law enforcement in 2015 resulted in the arrest of 300 people, the destruction of 46 places where counterfeits are made and the confiscation of $125 million worth of products, President Michael Evans told the group in May.
“We would love to work with the branded companies,” Ma said, adding that the company had around 2,000 staff working on the problem. “We cannot solve the problem 100 percent because it’s fighting against human instinct. But we can solve the problem better than any government, any organizations, any people in the world.”
Alibaba handles more e-commerce than Amazon and eBay combined. It expects to reach 423 million online shoppers around the world this year, mostly through its Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace sites. It aims to have 2 billion consumers by 2036 and double gross merchandise volume to 6 trillion yuan ($911 billion) by fiscal 2020.
“Alibaba has a remarkable amount of big data at their disposal and I believe there are many triggers which could help them identify fakes better than they are doing at present,” said Mark Tanner, managing director of the China Skinny, a research firm in Shanghai. Those included price variances, reviews, and selling patterns, he said.
While battling the immediate problem, Ma is also keeping an eye on the longer term. Ma said his goal of reaching 2 billion users would require more success in rural China, which he estimated had 700 million people. While there is merit in calls for expansion in Malaysia, Indonesia and India, Ma said the domestic approach would be more successful because his company understood the local market better.
And he already has an eye to posterity, telling investors that over 90 percent of key company meetings, decisions and events have been recorded on video to be analyzed by future generations studying Alibaba.

I dunno about that. All of the fake Chinese knock-offs I have ever received fall apart pretty quickly. I'll agree that they are cheaper.

THREADS
Jack Ma & Alibaba (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69642-Jack-Ma-amp-Alibaba)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

https://thenanfang.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/counterfeit-condoms-03.jpg

Fake Condoms On Sale in China, Leave Woman Pregnant Twice in 3 Months (https://thenanfang.com/woman-blames-counterfeit-condoms-two-pregnancies-three-months/)
10 out of 12 condoms found to have leaks
Charles Liu, June 24, 2016 8:24am

A 18 year-old Chengdu woman, named Xiaoyu, has become pregnant twice in three months as a result of counterfeit condoms.

https://thenanfang.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/counterfeit-condoms-01.jpg

Xiaoyu thought the two pregnancies couldn’t just be a coincidence. She first suspected her boyfriend’s parents of tampering with the condoms in order for the couple to give birth to grandchildren. But her boyfriend, Xiaodong, tested the leftover condoms they had purchased from a nearby convenience store by filling them up with water, he found that 10 out of 12 of them leaked.

The couple contacted the media, which replicated the test with the couple’s remaining “Sixth Sense” brand 3C condoms, with similar results. The reporter spent another RMB 40 for two more boxes of condoms of the same brand, only to find that 7 out of 12 condoms leaked — one even had five holes in it.

https://thenanfang.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/counterfeit-condoms-02.jpg

The reporter determined the condoms were counterfeit after contacting the manufacturer and comparing serial numbers.

There have been multiple news stories regarding the sale of counterfeit condoms in China. Police seized fakes in Shanghai in April 2015 and in Guangzhou in January 2015. There were even 600,000 counterfeit condoms seized in Italy in July that year.

Xiaoyu said she wants to have children, but her current circumstances are preventing her from starting a family. She said the unwanted pregnancies have been a source of shame for her: “All of our neighbors and friends know about this and have been critical towards me. Some of them even say that I am shameless.”

“Our only option is to move, but we don’t know where we can move to.”

Source: China, Evening Law Report
Photos: patrika

check yo rubbas!

More here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-amp-Knock-Offs&p=1226428) & here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-amp-Knock-Offs&p=1236597).

[GeneChing]

AMAZON MADE IT EASIER FOR CHINESE COUNTERFEITERS TO SELL YOU FAKE PRODUCTS (http://www.digitaltrends.com/business/amazon-chinese-counterfeit-problem-gets-worse/)
By Dave Palmer — July 10, 2016

http://icdn8.digitaltrends.com/image/counterfeit-1200x0.jpg

Critics say that Amazon itself is to blame for the Chinese counterfeited good problems it is experiencing recently. It was Amazon, after all, that aggressively pursued Chinese manufacturers in the first place, and gave them access to sell directly to consumers with its sprawling logistics system, according to CNBC.

Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon program (FBA) is advertised as a way for sellers to reduce costs and increase exposure to customers. Sellers ship inventory to Amazon FBA centers, and when an order is placed, Amazon packs and ships the merchandise to the consumer.

Merchandise that is part of Amazon’s FBA program is eligible for Amazon Prime and super saver shipping. Amazon even manages customer service and returns through this program 24 hours a day, according to its FBA advertisement. Amazon touts its FBA program as a way to reach customers around the world and grow a business locally and globally.

Sellers are excited about this program, and it offers a way for small businesses to benefit from Amazon’s scale reduction in logistics costs. The problem is that it also offers Chinese counterfeiters easier access to product information, making it easier to create fake merchandise, send it to the FBA fulfillment centers, and undercut legitimate sellers.

Often, the counterfeiters even pay for reviews, generating thousands of positive reviews in a short period of time to add an appearance of legitimacy to their online store. Usually, products are only discovered to be counterfeit once they are in the hands of the consumers.

Sellers’ online reputations are hurt when consumers think they have the real product, when it is actually a counterfeit of inferior quality. Amazon has policies that forbid business practices like this as well as fake reviews. Amazon sets out to close offending stores, but puts the onus on the legitimate seller to bring the culprits to light and report them. Sellers complain that counterfeiters are as quick to open new stores with the same products as Amazon is to close the stores they report.

Amazon not only made it easier for Chinese counterfeiters to do business through their FBA program, but also has no effective method or plan to fix the problem and police offenders. Until the company addresses the issues, legitimate sellers run the risk of losing ideas and products to Chinese knockoffs.



A master recently gifted me some Versace sweat pants. I assumed they were counterfeit but if they are, they are really good counterfeits.

[GeneChing]

Potentially...probably :o


DEADLY FAKES
Counterfeit pills, potentially from China, killed Prince, investigators now believe (http://qz.com/763035/counterfeit-pills-potentially-from-china-may-have-killed-prince/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/rtsj3zf-e1471836753788.jpg?w=3200
Prince in 2011.

WRITTEN BY
Heather Timmons
August 22, 2016

New information from the investigation into Prince’s death shows he may have unwittingly ingested the incredibly powerful synthetic drug that killed him, fentanyl.
Prince weighed 112 pounds when he died, from a dose of the opioid fentanyl that was so powerful it would have “killed anyone, regardless of their size,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Sunday (Aug. 21). Investigators found counterfeit drugs in his home that looked like a Watson Laboratories blend of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, but the pills actually contained fentanyl, the AP reported, citing a source close to the investigation.
Investigators are “leaning toward the theory he took the pills not knowing they contained the drug,” the Minneapolis paper reported. He likely took the drug for the first time in the 24 hours before he died, as earlier tests did not show fentanyl in his system, the AP reported.
Fentanyl is legally prescribed for pain, particularly in cancer patients, and often administered by a patch, but the drug was declared a “threat to health and public safety” by the US Drug Enforcement Administration last year. It has similar euphoric effects to heroin and morphine, but is many times more fatal in lower doses, and illegal labs are lacing it with heroin, the agency said.
“It seems more and more likely that Prince became a casualty of what is being called a new national crisis of deadly counterfeit pills,” the Star Tribune wrote. Synthetic drugs like fentanyl and flakka from Chinese labs have flooded the US in recent years, in part because drug companies in China openly offer the raw materials to make them and drug import and export laws are easy to circumvent.
Illegal Chinese labs have been tweaking chemical compositions of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs to get around China’s export laws and the US’s import rules, by altering the molecular composition slightly. Hundreds of thousands of counterfeit pills containing potentially lethal doses of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs have entered the US, from labs in China that are “mass-producing” the pills, the DEA said last month.

[GeneChing]

'Fake CEO' Chinese chap cuffed in $54m fraud probe (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/26/chinese_man_54m_facc_fraud_investigation/)
Money laundering charges after chief exec imitation trick

https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/08/26/money_laundering.jpg?x=648&y=348&crop=1

26 Aug 2016 at 18:59, Iain Thomson

Police in Hong Kong have arrested a Chinese man on charges of laundering the proceeds of an online robbery that netted millions of dollars.

In January, Austrian engineering firm FACC – which makes aircraft parts for the likes of Boeing and Airbus – admitted that it had lost up to €50m ($54m) after someone impersonating the CEO in an email had authorized the transfer of funds. The CEO and CFO have since been fired.

In the ensuing investigation, the firm managed to recover some of the funds, and the arrestee is accused of signing off on a bank transfer of €4m ($4.5m) to a Hong Kong-based firm. A spokesman for Austria's Federal Criminal Office told Reuters the man was arrested on July 1 and will be charged with money laundering.

A spokesman for FACC said that the company has now found almost all of the money that was stolen, and it has either retrieved or frozen it in foreign bank accounts. He declined to say which countries the money was stashed in.

The problem of CEO impersonation is growing incredibly quickly, according to the FBI. The scammers send requests for money transfers or fake invoices for payment using the email account of senior management and – if the proper controls are not in place – the funds usually get paid.

It's probable that the sheer size of the funds taken from FACC prompted the police to launch a serious investigation, but in the majority of cases the funds are never recovered in their entirety. So make sure your finance officers have controls in place to double-check outgoing funds.

I want to know how to get a job modelling for pix like the one in this article. ;)

[GeneChing]

This Chinese Lego knock-off of Mr Bean is all kinds of wrong (http://metro.co.uk/2016/10/01/this-chinese-lego-knock-off-of-mr-bean-is-all-kinds-of-wrong-6165066/)
Olivia Waring for Metro.co.uk Saturday 1 Oct 2016 6:09 pm

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/maxresdefault-1.jpg
Chinese toy manufacturers have a weird take on Mr Bean (Picture: YouTube)

Everyone loves Mr Bean, don’t they?

The response to that question should be a resounding ‘yes’. But now something rather troubling has come to our attention, and it’s making us think twice about that.

We’re talking, of course, about the two nightmarish, Lego-style models of Mr Bean that have risen to the surface of social media.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/new-jlb-building-blocks-mr-bean-carton-characters-6pcs-lot-minifigure-bricks-education-toys-for-children-e1475336532527.jpg?w=620&h=446&crop=1
The advert for the models that are two of a series of characters you can collect if you want to never sleep again (Picture: Jia Li Bo)

If you ask us, these figurines — manufactured by Chinese company Jia Li Bo — are nothing short of terrifying.

Just look at the giant, shiny helmet hair, the heavily-lidded eyes, the dual expressions of cruel amusement and pleasure-pain.

And above all, look at how beaten-up his bear companion Teddy looks. He’s so ill he’s turned a shade of nuclear yellow.

Are the depraved Bean twins being arrested here?

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/maxresdefault-2.jpg?w=620&h=348&crop=1
Something ain’t right (Picture: Jia Li Bo)

The two ‘funny cartoon character’ models, one dressed in nightwear and the other in Bean’s famous suit, are two of a set you’re supposed to collect.

While there is no official Lego merchandise for Mr Bean in the West, it seems the character’s popularity has led to the creation of these monstrosities.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/pjimage-20.jpg?w=620&h=348&crop=1
Mr Bean in human form, and as a cartoon – the latter being the less-than-obvious inspiration for the Chinese toy (Pictures: ITV)

Judging by the markings on the poorly-rendered faces, the JLB figures are loosely based on the animated series which originally aired here on ITV in 2002.

The recommended age bracket for kids to use these toys is 6 to 12, but we’re not sure we’d hand these demonic little fellas over to a child of a delicate disposition.


Follow
Gideon Defoe (https://twitter.com/gideondefoe/status/782204069356142596/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
‏@gideondefoe
today I learnt from the internet that there is poor quality knock-off Chinese lego based on Mr Bean

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtryT8JWAAA6nEE.jpg


Looking at the Bean toy’s face close up is not recommended to those under the influence, either.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/ggfvf1.jpg?w=620&h=380&crop=1
UUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (Picture: YouTube)

Nope, we definitely haven’t seen anything this scary since that footage from the abandoned Mr Blobby theme park emerged on YouTube.

Kids don’t stand a chance these days.



Everyone DOES NOT love Mr Bean. I find him really annoying most of the time.

[GeneChing]

Welcome to Stratford-upon-Yangtze! China plans to copy Shakespeare's hometown to celebrate their love for the playwright (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3827166/Chinese-city-plans-Shakespeare-themed-town-celebrate-love-English-writer.html?ITO=applenews)

Fuzhou city, Jiangxi province, plans to build a 'Little Stratford-upon-Avon'
A new town is set to have cloned landmarks of Shakespeare's hometown
The town will also celebrate Cervantes and Tang Xianzu, a Chinese writer
Leader of the Stratford-on-Avon District Council said he was 'impressed'

By TRACY YOU FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:47 EST, 7 October 2016 | UPDATED: 12:33 EST, 7 October 2016

A city in southern China has announced a plan to recreate William Shakespeare's hometown to express their love for The Bard.
'Little Stratford', located in the city of Fuzhou in Jiangxi province, is expected to contain replicas of Shakespeare's birthplace and family home as well as the Holy Trinity Church where the playwright was buried in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Councillor Christopher Saint, Leader of the Stratford-on-Avon District Council, who has just returned from a trip to Fuzhou, said he was honoured to learn that 'Chinese people would build a town looking like our homeland'.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/393140D300000578-3827166-image-a-4_1475852869141.jpg
A Chinese city plans to build a 'mini Stratford' to include replicas of the landmarks in Shakespeare's hometown, including the birthplace of the writer (pictured)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/39306B5600000578-3827166-image-a-9_1475852954685.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930683000000578-3827166-image-a-10_1475852954828.jpg
'Little Stratford' is expected to be built in a similar natural settings to Shakespeare's (left) hometown in England, which has River Avon (right)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930398500000578-3827166-image-a-13_1475852995834.jpg
The blueprints of Sanweng town were revealed in late September by Fuzhou government

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930874200000578-3827166-image-a-14_1475853001210.jpg
'Little Stratford' is expected to clone Shakespeare's birthplace, family home, the streets of Stratford-upon-Avon and the Holy Trinity Church

'Little Stratford' is set to be a part of a new town, named Sanweng in Chinese or 'Three Masters' in English, in the suburbs of Fuzhou, a city with around four million residents.
Sanweng town, currently in its conceptual phase, is designed to celebrate three legendary writers, William Shakespeare from England, Tang Xianzu from China and Miguel de Cervantes from Spain.
The three writers, each a highly respected figure in their homelands, all died in 1616.
The architectural blueprints of Sanweng were revealed in late September during an event hosted by Fuzhou government to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu, Shakespeare and Cervantes.
Just like Stratford-upon-Avon in England, Sanweng town is located in an area laced with waterways, according to a plan released by the local authority.
About two hours from Fuzhou by train, the Yangtze River, the longest river in China, flows through the provincial capital of Jiujiang.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930683800000578-3827166-image-a-35_1475853633020.jpg
Councillor Christopher Saint, Leader of the Stratford-on-Avon District Council, said he was impressed by the plan. Pictured is William Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930682800000578-3827166-image-a-36_1475853635104.jpg
The town is expected to contain replicas of the Holy Trinity Church (pictured) where the playwright was buried in Stratford-upon-Avon

Councillor Christopher Saint said a delegation from Stratford-upon-Avon were invited to visit Fuzhou in late September to give feedback on the conceptual plan.
He told MailOnline: 'I was quite impressed by the plan of a small area in the new town which will be dedicated to Shakespeare's influences.'
He said because of the waterways in Sanweng, 'Little Stratford' is expected to be built in a similar natural setting to Shakespeare's hometown in England, which has the River Avon.
A delegation from Fuzhou had travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon for get inspiration before forming the plan.
It is likely that the Fuzhou government will draw feedback from relevant experts before finalising the plan, according to Saint.
Talking about Chinese people's interest in The Bard, Councillor Christopher Saint said: 'They are certainly keen to embrace Shakespeare and Shakespeare's influence on the works of their own playwright.'
Fuzhou government is yet to announce when the construction of Sanweng town will begin. Its construction budget is yet to be revealed. continued next post

[GeneChing]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930872400000578-3827166-To_the_west_of_the_Little_Stratford_a_Little_Alcal a_inspired_by_-a-22_1475855418448.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930683F00000578-3827166-image-a-21_1475853069353.jpg
To the west of the 'Little Stratford', a 'Little Alcala' (blueprint left) inspired by Cervantes's (right) hometown has also been planned

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930682000000578-3827166-image-a-22_1475853074865.jpg
The Spanish style quarter is expected to have the replicas of the streets of Alcala (pictured)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930680400000578-3827166-image-a-23_1475853077955.jpg
A copy of the Alcalá de Henares Cathedral (pictured) in Alcala is due to be erected in Sanweng

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930681100000578-3827166-image-a-25_1475853095783.jpg
Alcala de Henares, an UNESCO World Heritage site, is set to be cloned by the city of Fuzhou

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930399D00000578-3827166-image-a-24_1475853087509.jpg
Sanweng town is currently in its conceptual phase and Fuzhou government is yet to announce when the construction will begin

To the west of 'Little Stratford', a 'Little Alcala' inspired by Cervantes's hometown has also been planned to celebrate the author of Don Quixote.
The Spanish style quarter is expected to have replicas of the old house of Cervantes, Alcalá de Henares Cathedral and streets of Alcala de Henares, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. A Cervantes Square has also been planned.
The largest part of the Sanweng Town is due to be devoted to Tang Xianzu, who was born in Linchuan, the district where the new town is located.
Tang wrote the Chinese literary masterpiece The Peony Pavilion, which has been billed as the Romeo and Juliet of the East.
In this area, a street following the traditional Chinese architectural style and an ancient theatre stage, among other commercial facilities, are on the drawing board.
Sanweng town is a part of a larger spa town named Wenquan or 'hot springs'.
A hot spring hotel, a water-bourne threatre and a cultural centre have been proposed to be built in the Wenquan town to accommodate and entertained the tourists coming to visit Sanweng.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930882800000578-3827166-Tang_wrote_the_Chinese_literary_masterpiece_The_Pe ony_Pavilion_w-a-23_1475855452927.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930399900000578-3827166-The_largest_part_of_the_Sanweng_Town_is_due_to_be_ devoted_to_Tan-a-24_1475855456713.jpg
The largest part of the Sanweng Town is due to be devoted to Tang Xianzu (left), a master playwright from China

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/10/07/16/3930399200000578-3827166-In_this_area_a_street_following_the_traditional_Ch inese_architec-a-25_1475855461041.jpg
In this area, a street following the traditional Chinese architectural style has been planned

In late September, the city of Fuzhou hosted a large-scale event to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Tang Xianzu, who passed away on September 27, 1616.
The event also honoured Shakespeare and Cervantes, who died the same year.
Apart from announcing the plan of Sanweng town, the city's authority also unveiled a new Tang Xianzu Museum, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Occupying 5,733 square metres (1.4 acres), the new museum cost more than 60 million yuan (£7.2 million) to construct and contains two areas dedicated to Shakespeare and Cervantes.
Chinese replica cities are so weird. :confused:

[GeneChing]

Does China deserve a reputation as the land of copycats? (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/15/china-reputation-copycats-pelamis-intellectual-property?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1)
The case of the Scottish wave energy firm Pelamis is the latest to raise questions about China and intellectual property

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/62743f3009b5f22974a5e8efdfd17ccf270b3c24/0_267_3000_1800/master/3000.jpg
Pelamis wave energy equipment in the water at Leith docks in Edinburgh. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tania Branigan
Saturday 15 October 2016 02.00 EDT

It was once renowned as the home of the four great inventions: paper, gunpowder, printing and the compass. These days, China is more often portrayed as a land of copycats, where you can buy a pirated Superdry T-shirt or a HiPhone and where smaller cities boast 7-12 convenience stores, Teabucks outlets and KFG fried chicken shops.

Behind the startling brand infringement on display in markets and shopping streets lies a deeper intellectual property issue. Chinese entities have consistently sought to play catch-up by piggy-backing on other people’s technological advances. They have pursued software, industrial formulas and processes both through legitimate means – hiring in expertise, buying up startups, tracking publicly available information – and questionable or downright illegal ones: digging genetically modified seeds out of the fields of Iowa so they can be smuggled on a Beijing-bound flight, or paying for details of a specialised process for making a whitening pigment used in Oreos, cosmetics and paper – which sounds like a niche concern until you learn that the titanium dioxide market is worth $12bn a year.

The British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover is suing a Chinese firm for allegedly copying its Range Rover Evoque, in the latest of several motor industry cases. In the best known, China’s Chery reached an undisclosed settlement with General Motors over cars so similar that the doors were interchangeable. That case had one really striking feature: when GM approached Chinese manufacturers detailing the components they would need for the Matiz, they were told that Chery had already ordered identical parts.

This week came the curious case of Pelamis Wave Power, an innovative Scottish company which lost several laptops in a burglary after being visited by a 60-strong Chinese delegation – and then noticed the launch of a strikingly similar project in China a few years later. Chinese experts had certainly demonstrated a close interest in the work of Pelamis.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6dafbfd2f7ae9d49687987122494ed8c9e00b4e6/0_182_3000_1800/master/3000.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&
Li Keqiang, now Chinese premier, visits the Pelamis Wave Power factory in 2011. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images

Whether engineers had been working along similar lines, were paying close attention to what Pelamis had made public, or somehow obtained information by other means is impossible to say.

What is certain – say western governments, business experts, analysts and security experts – is that Chinese businesses are routinely benefiting from the theft of intellectual property. Companies doing business in China are routinely advised to take clean laptops rather than their usual work devices on trips; to ensure that their work is protected with patents and trademarks internationally; and to be careful about the information they hand over to partners or potential manufacturers.

But their greatest vulnerability is operating in the age of the internet. In 2012, Keith Alexander, then director of the US National Security Agency, described commercially targeted cyber-attacks as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history”. The following year, a commission suggested such intrusions cost the US $300bn a year – with China responsible for up to 80%. They range from phishing expeditions to narrowly targeted approaches – and even attacks designed to find out what legal and other means firms are using to challenge earlier thefts.

China is consistent and angry in its denials of state-sanctioned industrial espionage: “The Chinese government does not engage in theft of commercial secrets in any form, nor does it encourage or support Chinese companies to engage in such practices in any way,” the president, Xi Jinping, said last year.

Chinese firms – even state-owned ones – are not always acting at the behest of officials, still less in the interests of China per se. But security experts have linked commercial incursions to People’s Liberation Army buildings and personnel and Nigel Inkster, formerly of MI6 and author of China’s Cyber Power, observes: “It’s safe to say that there’s been a general policy imperative to catch up with the west technologically, by whatever means.”

China is not unusual in this regard, and has been on the other end of the equation: in the 18th century, French manufacturers received an immeasurable boost when a Jesuit priest sent detailed information from its porcelain capital Jingdezhen. Doron Ben-Atar, a history professor at Fordham University and author of Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the origins of American Industrial Power, says the US and every major European state engaged in technology piracy and industrial espionage in the 18th and 19th century.

While the US was officially pioneering a new standard of intellectual property, “acts of intellectual piracy were often undertaken not only with the full knowledge but also the aggressive encouragement of officials from the federal and state governments”, he adds.

But not only are there now clear international agreements on intellectual property, there is also vastly more to steal, the internet makes it much easier to do so – and the speed with which breakthroughs are seized upon by others is increasing all the time.

The Chinese intellectual property regime has developed rapidly: Dr Xiaobai Shen, an expert on intellectual property and business at Edinburgh University, says courts could soon be overwhelmed by the number of domestic cases, and the blatant sale of counterfeit goods has been curbed somewhat. But foreign firms and governments still struggle to pursue cases. In the titanium dioxide case, an individual was jailed in the US – but prosecutors were unable to serve documents on the Chinese firm concerned.

That has prompted pushback at state level. In 2014, the US Justice Department announced it was charging five Chinese military officers with stealing trade secrets. Just over a year later, following the threat of sanctions, China signed landmark deals with the US and then the UK, agreeing not to conduct or support hacking and intellectual property theft for commercial gain; it was tacitly understood that old-school nation-state spying was still on the cards.

Those agreements were greeted with scepticism – but Dmitri Alperovitch of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says intrusions on commercial targets in the “Five Eyes” – the intelligence alliance made up of the US and UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – have fallen by as much as 90%, with hackers apparently shifting to domestic targets and Russian entities.

“Prior to the agreement, we have seen pretty much every sector of the economy targeted: insurance, technology, finance. They have scaled back,” he says.

Inkster thinks that may mean a focus on different sources, such as human intelligence. The agreements are also ambiguous, because of the blurry line between commercial and national security interests when it comes to sectors such as food and energy – with China interpreting national security much more broadly than western nations do.

Prof Willy Shih, an expert on innovation at Harvard Business School, suggests that nations naturally shift focus as they develop. “Korea and Japan moved from the imitation phase to the innovation phase – and China will do that too,” he predicts. Some point to tech firms such as Xiaomi and WeChat as proof that era is fast arriving.

The more domestic technology China needs to protect, the greater its stake in international intellectual property standards – and, incidentally, the more brainpower can be diverted from unlocking other people’s trade secrets into developing its own.

7-12 convenience stores, Teabucks outlets and KFG fried chicken shops are the best. ;)

[GeneChing]

10 million pads. Wow.

ew


Police seize over 10 million fake and unsanitary sanitary pads from sketchy Nanchang factory (http://shanghaiist.com/2016/11/02/10_million_fake_maxi_pads.php)
BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON NOV 2, 2016 11:45 PM

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_sanitary_pads1.png

Chinese police have made yet another high-profile bust in the lucrative counterfeit feminine hygiene product industry, arresting two suspects accused of making and selling over 10 million fake and possibly dangerous sanitary pads.
One of the suspects, surnamed Wan, came up with the brilliant business idea after his bar failed back in 2013. He quickly got to work, buying office space, a warehouse and a factory in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. Authorities say that the hygiene standards on the production line at Wan's factory were practically nonexistent, warning women that the shoddy sanitary napkins could cause health problems for users, according to a report last week from Ncnews.com.cn
These pads were produced at rock bottom prices, with a single box costing just 3 or 4 yuan to make. They were then packaged under well-known brand names and sold off to distributors across the country for between 4 or 5 yuan. Most of these buyers were small grocery shops who turned around and sold the counterfeit boxes for 10 yuan each.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_sanitary_pads2.png

Apparently, the company was doing some good business before it was busted. Nanchang authorities report that they seized 40 million yuan in sanitary napkins from the factory and warehouses -- or at least 10 million pads.
While those numbers may seem impressive, back in 2013, Chinese police busted a "major criminal network" also operating in a number of provinces across China, and seized 19.6 million sanitary napkins in the process.
Investigations are ongoing. It's unclear if the sanitary pads were distributed outside of China. Last year, a half ton shipment of radioactive made-in-China maxi pads was seized by authorities in Lebanon.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_sanitary_pads4.png

Meanwhile, women inside of China are not pleased with the two suspects.
"We women are already in pain during our period and you (the suspects) produce fake sanitary towels. You are not human. I suggest they be sentenced to death," gbtimes.com quotes one netizen as commenting.
Chinese police would like to remind women to check the packaging before buying sanitary napkins, and to avoid buying discounted products.

[Images via Ncnews.com.cn]

[GeneChing]

Jack Ma got bank.


Alibaba smashes its own $14.3 billion record in 15 hours, making it the biggest Singles' Day sales ever

http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/k5CO7FnQZdWOYsY50N_t6z1Z1z0=/950x534/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fima ge%2F281958%2FAP_16316176063872.jpg
Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson, left, and Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma, center, kicking off Singles Day.IMAGE: AP

BY VICTORIA HO
SINGAPORE
13 HOURS AGO

UPDATE: Nov. 11, 2016, 3:54 p.m. SGT Alibaba has broken last year's sales record for Singles' Day.

China's biggest e-commerce player announced on Friday at 3:20 p.m. that it passed last year's incredible $14.3 billion sales day already.

http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/-sMaz2py6ykOzUx-uW-3kxc87Og=/fit-in/1200x9600/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fima ge%2F281973%2FScreenGMVMilestone.jpg
IMAGE: ALIBABA

For perspective, America's Cyber Monday sales only netted $2.68 billion last year.

Black Friday saw a further $4.45 billion spent.

The biggest shopping bonanza in China — and in the world, really — started at midnight across Alibaba's online stores such as Taobao and Tmall.

Alibaba threw a huge concert to kick it off, featuring Scarlett Johansson, David Beckham, Kobe Bryant and One Republic.

Just 52 seconds in, Alibaba already cracked 1 billion yuan ($146 million) in sales.

http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/KskMaZHZ408OKCFyF0TvIyt4eAI=/fit-in/1200x9600/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fima ge%2F281955%2Fbce49ec1eb8d4704afdb5c1b840858e92016 1111003513.jpeg
IMAGE: ALIBABA/SINA

And at the 7 minute mark, it hit its next milestone of 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion). Absolutely mind-boggling.

http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/KskMaZHZ408OKCFyF0TvIyt4eAI=/fit-in/1200x9600/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fima ge%2F281955%2Fbce49ec1eb8d4704afdb5c1b840858e92016 1111003513.jpeg
IMAGE: ALIBABA/SINA

From the morning's trajectory, Alibaba looked like it was well on its way to smashing last year's sale.

By the halfway mark on Friday, its sales had already reached 82.4 billion yuan ($12.1 billion).


84 percent of sales were made on mobile phones.

And if you're imagining people hunched over their computers buying frantically, that's not quite right.

84 percent of Alibaba's sales done on Friday were made via mobile phones — unsurprising, if you take into account Alibaba's stronghold over digital payments.

The internet giant claims to have 400 million registered users of its Alipay payment service.

270 million of those are active each month, using the service for everything from meals at restaurants, to paying street vendors and of course, Singles' Day sales.

[GeneChing]

Chinese 'copy' sculpture removed from Shanghai as British artist vents anger (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/30/chinese-copy-sculpture-removed-british-artist-vents-anger/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/11/30/London-China-Daily-large_trans++Z9XL2X431wTPNFE7gDJFdQ1vLvhkMtVb21dMm pQBfEs.jpg
The original Timepiece in London CREDIT: CHINA DAILY

Neil Connor, beijing
30 NOVEMBER 2016 • 12:28PM

A Chinese sculpture which came under fire from a British artist for its striking similarity to a London artwork she created was being removed on Wednesday after the landowners admitted it was a “copy”, an official said.

The sculpture has stood on the banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu River for ten years, but was criticised by artist Wendy Taylor for being an unauthorised replica of her ‘Timepiece’ artwork, which is located near Tower Bridge.

The copy, which is currently covered up and surrounded by yellow plastic boards, is set to be removed and then demolished by the local landowners, Shenjiang Co, a local official told The Telegraph.

“They said they will demolish the sculpture because it is a copy of a work done by a British artist,” said an official at Pudong New Area Planning and Land Authority, surnamed Wang.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/11/30/Shanghai-pic-China-Daily-large_trans++uWljxTX2ToqwW26CTqWzx7mXGT4nK7DNb0NDo VHuw7I.JPG
The Shanghai sculpture CREDIT: CHINA DAILY

Ms Taylor, who was awarded a CBE in 1988 because of her services to art, voiced her anger over the Chinese statue.

"At first I just couldn’t believe it, then I was totally shocked and upset," she told The Telegraph.

"I am obviously extremely pleased that the sculpture is going to be removed and hopefully destroyed."

Ms Taylor’s Timepiece sculpture was erected in 1972-73 and was awarded a Grade II listing in 2004. The Chinese copy was erected in 2006, Chinese media say.

Ms Taylor said she created the work as a tribute to local dock workers, and that she had an emotional attachment to it as her relatives had also worked in the industry.

The artist contacted British officials to help in her battle against what she called "a blatant infringement of artists copyright".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/11/30/Sculpture-covered-Eastday_1-xlarge_trans++H-B8iTnvHdMJgwP0InBQYQ43YuZMYtX1wbFt9xDnA94.jpg
The covered Shanghai sculpture CREDIT: EASTDAY

China has previously been criticised by British artists amid allegations that artworks have been copied.

Anish Kapoor, one of the UK’s most acclaimed artists, threatened legal action after a sculpture that was almost identical to his Cloud Gate installation in Chicago was erected in a Chinese city.

“It seems that in China today it is permissible to steal the creativity of others,” the British-Indian artist said following the unveiling the sculpture in the north-western city of Karamay in August last year.

Chinese media have also noted similarities to another artwork that is positioned near to the copy of Timepiece.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/11/30/lute-eastday_1-large_trans++9JVN-DY47ILxyGzM7dLlQjadT0uq5sF1kRIibEd9qe4.jpg
Evert Taube playing the lute in Stockholm (r) and a similar Shanghai statue (l) CREDIT: EASTDAY

The statue bears a striking resemblance to ‘Evert Taube playing the lute’, which was erected in Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm, in tribute to one of the country’s most notable musicians.

Zheng Jiashi, former deputy director of Shanghai Urban Sculpture Center, told the China Daily that Shanghai has never previously been embroiled in a plagiarism dispute over a piece of public art.

"China attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, and the statue will definitely be removed if it is proven to have infringed on such rights," he added.

Additional reporting by Christine Wei

"China attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights" srsly? smh.

[GeneChing]

This Chinese 'Mad Max' rip-off will have fans Furiosa (http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/25/asia/china-mad-max-mad-shelia/index.html)
By James Griffiths and Nanlin Fang, CNN
Updated 12:19 AM ET, Fri November 25, 2016

http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/161125113934-mad-shelia-mad-max-poster-exlarge-169.jpg
Now where have I seen that poster before?

Hong Kong (CNN)It scooped up a host of Oscars and drove critics wild, now the influence of "Mad Max" is being felt beyond Hollywood.

George Miller's apocalyptic car chase extravaganza has, er... inspired a Chinese film due out later this month.
From the poster, to the trailer, to even on-screen credits, "Mad Shelia" shares visual cues and style with Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road," and "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iO-zjhHvg4

According to the film's trailer, it follows the travails of a young woman pursued by a biker gang, who eventually takes her revenge -- kind of like "Fury Road" but without Charlize Theron's dominating performance as Furiosa or anywhere near the same budget for effects.

The studio behind the film, Beijing-based New Film Media, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Mad Max is the biggest winner at this year's Oscars," director Lu Lei wrote on Weibo. "Our Mad Shelia salutes!"

"Fury Road" did not get a release in China, where Western films are subject to a strict quota, unless they're a Chinese co-production like "Kung Fu Panda" or "Iron Man 3."

Chinese companies have been investing heavily in Hollywood, with eyes on audiences back home.
This month, Dalian Wanda Group, which already owns "Jurassic World" and "Interstellar" studio Legendary Entertainment, bought Dick Clark Productions for $1 billion.

"Mad Shelia" wouldn't be the first time a Chinese movie has borrowed from a popular Western franchise.

Disney is currently suing the studio behind "The Autobots," a blatant knock-off of Pixar's "Cars," released last year.

I'd watch this. You know I would.

[GeneChing]

This fits the season, yes? Happy holidays everyone!


In town of Jesus' birth, craftsmen take on Chinese knockoffs (http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/In-town-of-Jesus-birth-craftsmen-take-on-10810235.php)
Isma'il Kushkush, Associated Press Updated 6:43 am, Wednesday, December 21, 2016

http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/56/04/47/12077554/3/920x920.jpg
In this Monday, Dec. 12, 2016 photo, a shopkeeper walks through a souvenir shop in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Christmas is approaching and pilgrims and tourists have begun to arrive, crowding the souvenir shops that line the narrow streets and allies of the city where Jesus is said to have been born. But when visitors choose to take a piece of the Holy Land back home with them, they better check the labels. Many souvenirs, including the West Bank town’s trademark rosemary beads, are imported from abroad, mainly China. Photo: Majdi Mohammed, AP / Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/56/04/47/12077553/3/1024x1024.jpg
In this Monday, Dec. 12, 2016 photo, a shopkeeper arranges souvenirs in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Christmas is approaching and pilgrims and tourists have begun to arrive, crowding the souvenir shops that line the narrow streets and allies of the city where Jesus is said to have been born. But when visitors choose to take a piece of the Holy Land back home with them, they better check the labels. Many souvenirs, including the West Bank town’s trademark rosemary beads, are imported from abroad, mainly China.

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/56/04/47/12077555/3/1024x1024.jpg
In this Monday, Dec. 12, 2016 photo, a shopkeeper holds souvenirs in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Christmas is approaching and pilgrims and tourists have begun to arrive, crowding the souvenir shops that line the narrow streets and allies of the city where Jesus is said to have been born. But when visitors choose to take a piece of the Holy Land back home with them, they better check the labels. Many souvenirs, including the West Bank town’s trademark rosemary beads, are imported from abroad, mainly China

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/56/04/47/12077557/3/1024x1024.jpg
In this Monday, Dec. 12, 2016 photo, Palestinian woodcarver Muhammad Yusuf, works on olive wood figures in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Christmas is approaching and pilgrims and tourists have begun to arrive, crowding the souvenir shops that line the narrow streets and allies of the city where Jesus is said to have been born. But when visitors choose to take a piece of the Holy Land back home with them, they better check the labels. Many souvenirs, including the West Bank town’s trademark rosemary beads, are imported from abroad, mainly China.

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/56/04/47/12077556/3/1024x1024.jpg
In this Monday, Dec. 12, 2016 photo, Palestinian woodcarver Muhammad Yusuf, works on olive wood figures in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Christmas is approaching and pilgrims and tourists have begun to arrive, crowding the souvenir shops that line the narrow streets and allies of the city where Jesus is said to have been born. But when visitors choose to take a piece of the Holy Land back home with them, they better check the labels. Many souvenirs, including the West Bank town’s trademark rosemary beads, are imported from abroad, mainly China

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Christmas is approaching and pilgrims and tourists have begun to arrive, crowding the souvenir shops that line the narrow streets and alleys of Bethlehem, the biblical town revered as Jesus' birthplace.
But when visitors choose to take a piece of the Holy Land back home with them, they better check the labels. Many souvenirs — including the West Bank town's trademark rosary beads — are imported from abroad, mainly China.
A small number of souvenir shops are now trying to fight the trend, stocking their shelves almost exclusively with locally made products. Shopkeepers say that while their wares may be more expensive, the quality is much better and they give an important boost to the struggling economy.
"I've got nothing that is made overseas except for one thing, that's the magnets. It's something that sells for cheap and people want them," said Bassem Giacaman, owner of the Blessings Gift Shop and The Olive Wood Factory. "Everything else is made locally so I can keep the local economy working."
Some 120,000 people are expected to visit the Holy Land this holiday season, half of them Christian, according to Israel's Tourism Ministry.
Many will visit Bethlehem, where globalization has left its imprint like everywhere else. Foreign-made crafts, especially Chinese ones, have come to represent a big part of the market here, including Christmas souvenirs. While there are no official statistics, local officials and businessmen estimate that nearly half of the products, perhaps more, are imported.
Giacaman keeps just a few imported products in his store, most of them hidden in a small box beneath a counter. He takes them out to show customers and compare them to Palestinian-made ones.
"This is a plastic Jesus baby made in China and this is a ceramic one made in Bethlehem, and these are the olive wood rosaries that I make and the Chinese ones," he said, proudly showing what he said was the superior craftsmanship of the locally made goods.
Bethlehem is in the West Bank, occupied territory the Palestinians hope will be part of their future state. Tourism remains strong, but the rest of the economy has long languished, in part because of Israeli restrictions. Tourists must pass through a checkpoint in Israel's separation barrier to reach the town.
The "Visit Palestine Center," located in a 200-year-old house along a stone stairway just a few hundred meters (yards) from The Church of the Nativity, promotes a "Made in Palestine" label.
"There's a big influx of imported products and a lot of traditional crafts are declining gradually," said Samy Khoury, the center's founder and general manager.
The Visit Palestine Center, which started as an online store and travel guide five years ago, works with nearly 100 workshops and home-based artisans throughout the Palestinian territories and in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan.
It features Palestinian traditional crafts, including Christmas-related ones like olive wood rosaries and mother of pearl ornaments. The center targets independent travelers and takes a fair trade approach to its business.
Trying to sell only Palestinian-made products comes with challenges.
"Maintaining consistency and quality, the right lead time, figuring how much production capacity the producers can give," are some of them, explained Khoury.
Then there's the issue of price.
Maher Canawati, owner of the Three Arches souvenir shop, sells locally made gifts and even has a wood workshop in the back. But he keeps room for imports as well.
"We have to carry all kinds of merchandise in our shop because we have different markets and different pilgrims with different budgets," said Canawati, whose family has provided services to pilgrims since the 16th century.
Canawati said he wants to give his customers options, and he is clear about the differences.
"A dozen of made-in-China rosaries sell for $4 while a dozen of locally made sell for $25," he said. "The made-in-China Jesus babies sell for $20 and the Bethlehem ones sell for $64."
While craft workshop owners grumble about foreign imports, not everyone believes the imports have seriously threatened local merchants and artisans.
"It's a business," said Samir Hazboun, Chairman of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce. "I'm not aware of anyone running out of business because of the imports."
Ali Abu Srour, director general of the Palestinian Tourism Ministry, said the government is trying to update its tourism laws to protect local producers and merchants.
Under the proposed regulations, shopkeepers would be required to carry 70 percent locally made products, with clear labels that distinguish between imports and "Made in Palestine" ones.
Muhammad Yusuf, a wood craftsman with The Olive Wood Factory, scoffs at the imports.
"It's not good, this is better," he said with a smile as he worked on a figure of the Virgin Mary.
Back at the Blessings Gift Shop, Julie Deler, 24, a tourist from Germany, bought a small olive wood camel made by a Palestinian craftsman.
"I prefer locally made because I want to support the locals," she said.

[GeneChing]

I just can't wrap my head around this. Too weird.


Nigeria seizes smuggled plastic rice (https://www.yahoo.com/news/nigeria-seizes-smuggled-plastic-rice-160511058.html)
AFP December 21, 2016

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/HpzV78tCRzF24PKE7Qsdkg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9MTAyNDtoPTY3MQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/6a9062085b7c4a03f9e9aaaee584a451719e1f21.jpg
Nigeria has seized over 100 bags of plastic rice smuggled into the country (AFP Photo/Tauseef Mustafa)

Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria has seized over 100 bags of plastic rice smuggled into the country, where prices of the staple food are rocketing ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays.

A suspect has been arrested over the haul of 102 bags of the fake rice, which officials warned Wednesday was dangerous for human consumption.

They are suspected to have been smuggled or illegally shipped in from China through Lagos port, a senior customs official in Nigeria's commercial hub told AFP.

The 50-kilo bags, branded "Best Tomato Rice", had no date of manufacture and were intercepted Monday in the Ikeja area of the sprawling city, the official said on condition of anonymity.

"We have done a preliminary analysis of the plastic rice. After boiling, it was sticky and only God knows what would have happened if people consumed it," Ikeja area customs controller Mohammed Haruna was quoted as saying.

Nigeria has banned rice imports as it seeks to boost local production.

Haruna said the plastic rice was to be sold ahead of Christmas and New Year festivities, with the price for the popular Nigerian staple hitting the roof because of galloping inflation.

A 50-kilo bag now sells for around 20,000 naira (63 dollars), more than double the price in December last year.

Nigeria's inflation stood at 18.5 percent in November, its 13th consecutive monthly rise, driven by higher food prices.

The customs service has sent the fake rice to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control for further analysis.

[GeneChing]

This is follow up on an earlier post (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-amp-Knock-Offs&p=1293240#post1293240).


Disney wins ‘Cars’ copyright suit in China
Friday December 30, 2016
04:10 PM GMT+8

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/uploads/articles/2015-07/cars_autobots_22072015.png
Can you tell which is which?

SHANGHAI, Dec 30 — Disney has won a copyright dispute over a Chinese knock-off of its animated movie Cars, a China court said today, a rare victory for a foreign firm in a country famous for counterfeits.

Bluemtv, which makes the Chinese cartoon The Autobots, and the film’s publisher have been ordered to stop their infringement of Disney’s copyrights, the Shanghai High People’s Court said in a statement posted on the Twitter-like Weibo.

The court also ordered the Chinese side to pay 1.35 million yuan (RM872,819) to Disney including compensation and legal fees, a microscopic sum for a company that opened a US$5.5-billion theme park in Shanghai in June.

Produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Disney in 2006, the US film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

The court said The Autobots, released last year, took the design of key characters from the Cars series, including Lightning McQueen in the first film and Francesco Bernoulli in the sequel, violating the copyrights of Disney and Pixar.

The Chinese name for Autobots also has a similar sound and meaning to the translated title of the Disney film, it said, constituting “unfair competition”.

Intellectual property rights are a bone of contention between Western countries and China.

A Chinese court in May ruled against Apple in a case it brought against a small maker of “iphone”-branded leather goods.

But earlier this month, in what many saw as an encouraging sign, basketball megastar Michael Jordan won part of his trademark suit against a China-based sportswear company, following a years-long struggle for control over the rights to his Chinese name. — AFP

[GeneChing]

This one is also follow up on an earlier post (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-amp-Knock-Offs&p=1298951#post1298951).


Nigeria rice 'contaminated, not plastic' - NAFDAC (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38467242?ocid=socialflow_twitter)
8 hours ago
From the section Africa

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/E9F7/production/_93059895_rice2.jpg
Each bag of rice weighed 25kg (55lb)

Lab tests on a consignment of rice seized by Nigerian customs officials show that the product is "contaminated" but not plastic, the National Agency For Food and Drugs (Nafdac) says.
The rice contained bacteria "above permissible limits", a senior Nafdac official said.
Customs officials' claims that the rice seized in Lagos last week was "plastic" sparked confusion and official denials.
The health minister intervened, saying there was "no evidence" for the claims.
Tests on samples of the rice showed that it was "unwholesome for human consumption", exceeding the maximum limit for bacteria including "Coli form", Nafdac said in a statement.
The Nigerian customs service, speaking at the same press conference, said that it had acted on "credible intelligence" that "large consignments of plasticized rice were.... to be shipped from the Far East to Africa".
Regardless of the outcome of the lab tests, intelligence still indicated that "several metric tonnes of expired and dangerous rice are still lying in wait at warehouses in neighbouring countries", with the Nigerian market the ultimate destination, customs chief Ibrahim Ali told media.
Rice is Nigeria's staple food and it is a tradition for people to give bags of rice as a gift during the Christmas period.

[GeneChing]

Better than fake condoms (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-amp-Knock-Offs&p=1294541#post1294541) I suppose... :rolleyes:


Underground factories in Tianjin busted for churning out fake seasonings with banned ingredients (http://shanghaiist.com/2017/01/17/fake_seasoning_factories.php)
BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON JAN 17, 2017 3:00 PM

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning5.jpg

In the latest food safety scandal to shock and disgust Chinese consumers, an underground factory ring has been uncovered illicitly producing large amounts of fake branded seasoning products that could also be harmful to one's health.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning2.jpg

An investigation by The Beijing News uncovered the 50 underground factories operating in a small town about 30km outside of downtown Tianjin. At night, the factories specialized in turning industrial salt, recycled spices and food additives into counterfeit seasonings.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning3.jpg

These seasonings would then be packaged under well-known name-brand labels such as Nestle, Lee Kum Kee, Knorr, Wang Shouyi, Haday and Totole and sold across the country. To make sure that they would pass for the real thing, workers copied barcodes off genuine products and added them to their own knockoff packaging.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning4.jpg

The factories, located in Duliu township in Tianjin's Jinghai District, employed dozens of workers and protected themselves from police with surveillance cameras and a kind of neighborhood watch where locals would keep a look out for strangers poking around.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning.jpg

The industrial salt that the factories used in producing the shanzhai seasoning is banned from human consumption, containing cancer-causing ingredients that could also cause harm to the liver, kidneys and nervous system. Needless to say, the seasonings were also produced in unsanitary environments.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning6.jpg

Whistleblowers told the Beijing News that some of the factories had been operating for over a decade. Each year, they produced about 100 million yuan in fake products, earning managers a tidy profit and allowing them to live a life of luxury.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_seasoning7.jpg

[Images via Sina]

[GeneChing]

The Great Chinese FAKE OFF: Rolexe watches, WiWi consoles and Space Wars toys among the huge number of dodgy goods travellers have spotted on holiday (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4148524/Astonishing-fake-goods-China-revealed.html?ITO=applenews)

Many counterfeit products on China's black market feature deliberate mistakes
For example, customers can pick up a caramel frappuccino at a 'Starbncks' cafe
Elsewhere, shoppers buy groceries at '8-12' convenience stores instead of a '7-11'

By Caroline Mcguire for MailOnline
PUBLISHED: 04:58 EST, 24 January 2017 | UPDATED: 09:32 EST, 24 January 2017

The black market has been providing counterfeit goods to label-hungry shoppers for almost as long as the credible designers.

But while some of the fakes are so good that even a pro would struggle to notice the difference, others can be laughably bad.

Travellers heading to China need to be very careful about what they purchase as it's a country that specialises in producing brazenly fake goods with names clumsily altered from the original.

For instance, it is possible to pick up a caramel frappuccino at a 'Starbncks' coffee house or some groceries from an '8-12' convenience store.

Elsewhere, image-conscious shoppers can buy a 'Rolexe' watch and a pair of 'New Barlun' trainers.

Read on to see some of the funniest counterfeit products currently doing the rounds in China...

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/16/3C6E2E8100000578-4148524-image-a-58_1485188361845.jpg
Can you spot the odd one out? 'Magic Ice' vodka looks suspiciously like a hybrid between Belvedere and Grey Goose vodka

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/16/3C6E2E8B00000578-4148524-image-a-59_1485188365536.jpg
The only thing funny about this Season Five DVD of Breaking Bad is the title translation

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/16/3C6E2E9300000578-4148524-image-a-60_1485188368360.jpg
No gold star for the owner of this coffee shop, who has borrowed heavily from US cafe chain Starbucks

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/16/3C6E2EA100000578-4148524-image-a-61_1485188376222.jpg
Why buy a Sharpie when you could also own a 'Skerple'? Because the latter can't even promise to write permanently on all surfaces

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/16/3C6E2EA800000578-4148524-image-a-64_1485189739975.jpg
We've all heard of the 7-11 but apparently there is also a lesser-known convenience store called the 8-12. Maybe the owner just really enjoys a lie-in

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/16/3C6E2EB200000578-4148524-image-a-63_1485188387062.jpg
Those pesky Storm Troopers get everywhere, even into a franchise called 'Space Wars' apparently

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/15/3C6C0D3400000578-4148524-image-m-54_1485187045375.jpg
Ever fancied a pair of New Balance trainers? For the equivalent of £20 you could get a pair of New Barlun instead

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/15/3C6C0D3D00000578-4148524-image-m-56_1485187069661.jpg
Rolexe watches are a luxury item that many men and women aspire to own during a lifetime, but you could probably acquire a Rolexe a lot sooner

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6E2E7A00000578-4148524-It_s_highly_unlikely_that_Levi_s_approved_the_qual ity_control_me-a-102_1485195224761.jpg
It's highly unlikely that Levi's approved the quality control message that came with this wallet

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/24/09/3C6EE5C400000578-4148524-If_they_can_t_get_the_name_right_it_doesn_t_lead_t o_much_confide-m-3_1485250883088.jpg
Why bother inventing a new name for a soft drink when you can alter one letter of an established brand and make a tidy profit? continued next post

[GeneChing]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EE81C00000578-4148524-image-a-99_1485195197813.jpg
A fake that's just pants: It's a sure bet that this piece of underwear isn't officially approved

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EE9E900000578-4148524-image-a-98_1485195194815.jpg
The name of the 'Where's Wally' costume on the left might put a few shoppers off

This Harry Potter tale never made it to cinema screens, or even bookstores in the West, unsurprisingly (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EEC5200000578-4148524-image-a-97_1485195187696.jpg)
This Harry Potter tale never made it to cinema screens, or even bookstores in the West, unsurprisingly

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EF00C00000578-4148524-Spiderman_appears_to_be_very_popular_in_toy_stores _even_though_n-m-113_1485195805682.jpg
This box is just a web of lies, with Spider-Man toys labelled as Super-Man

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EF71200000578-4148524-image-a-110_1485195548699.jpg
It's game on for the counterfeiters with a games console posing as a fake Wii

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EF71B00000578-4148524-Spiderman_appears_to_have_had_a_name_change_in_thi s_Chinese_toy_-a-109_1485195540916.jpg
Spider-Man appears to have had a name change in this Chinese toy store

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6EF73400000578-4148524-This_backpack_is_really_covers_all_marketing_angle s_with_a_nod_t-m-114_1485195830978.jpg
This backpack really is covering all marketing angles with a nod to Sonic the Hedgehog, Harry Potter and Barrack Obama

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/18/3C6F0B0900000578-4148524-image-a-1_1485196320387.jpg
We can't actually print what this coffee shop is called but here's a hint... it rhymes with the original cafe's name


CHINA'S FAKE ENGLISH TOWN
By Ted Thornhill

When it comes to faking it, the Chinese are in a league of their own.

They’ve invented pirate brands such as King Burger and Anmani, built entirely convincing Apple stores, shopping streets boasting Starbocks Coffee – and even entire fake towns.

One such copycat creation comes complete with red telephone boxes and a Gothic church.

The town in China, which reportedly cost £500million to build, is officially called Thames Town and sits 19 miles outside of Shanghai.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/24/09/3C6F242E00000578-4148524-image-m-2_1485248568301.jpg
When it comes to faking it, the Chinese are in a league of their own. They’ve invented pirate brands such as King Burger and Anmani, built entirely convincing Apple stores, shopping streets boasting Starbocks Coffee – and even entire fake towns (pictured)

But despite being completed in 2006, its mock-Tudor buildings, cobbled streets and English pub remain desolate and many tourists liken it to The Truman Show.

Thames Town is now used primarily by middle-class newlyweds, who choose it as the backdrop for their English-themed wedding snaps.

Thames Town was built as part of Shanghai's ‘One City, Nine Towns’ scheme, which saw a cluster of satellite towns built around the city.

Shops on the high street have names like 'Mike's Records' and 'the Fish Bar' - are empty and hundreds of homes are designed to imitate Victorian, Georgian and Tudor architecture sit idle with no sign of incoming tenants.




This is exactly what this thread is about to me. And I would luv a Star****s T-shirt, if anyone can find one. ;)

[-N-]

Here's a fan remake of Revenge of the Sith with english dubbing of the Chinese translation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XziLNeFm1ok

[GeneChing]

-N- That's more of a Horrible Star Wars translation (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?38086-Horrible-Star-Wars-translations) than a Chinese Counterfeit or Knock-Off, but amusing as always.

Meanwhile, here's a crazy spin on fakes - fake goods sent to fake buyers to fake sales stats:

Chinese 'brushers' are sending unordered parcels of fake designer goods to unsuspecting homeowners to boost the sales figures for online retailers (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4145130/Chinese-brushers-send-unordered-parcels-British-homes.html)

Houses in Britain have been left 'mystified' by delivery of unordered packages
Online gangs take orders from retailers and send them out to delivery addresses
They mimic actions of real buyers, comparing prices, then leaving good reviews
Practice, banned in China, boosts the sales and online prominence of retailers

By James Dunn For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 07:55 EST, 22 January 2017 | UPDATED: 08:24 EST, 22 January 2017

Underground gangs of Chinese 'brushers' are bombarding British households with cheap goods they did not order in order to boost the prominence of online retailers.

The banned practice, known as brushing, is illegal in China and the fake sales can improve a company's rankings on online sites such as Alibaba.

Some hack individual users' accounts to order goods, while people in Britain have been left baffled after simply receiving items without their knowledge.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/22/12/3C64C65D00000578-0-image-a-8_1485089616985.jpg
Underground gangs of Chinese 'brushers' are bombarding British households with cheap goods they did not order in order to boost the prominence of online retailers. Stock image

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/22/13/3C64FFED00000578-4145130-image-a-88_1485091420120.jpg
The gangs take a fee from retailers, send cheap designer goods to British homes, then often leave good reviews on their websites to boost their reputations

Many initially fear they have fallen victim to credit card when they received the cheap, often counterfeit goods through their doors.

Melinda Simmons, who received two fake Nike sweatshirts from China, told James Gillespie for the Sunday Times that she found the situation 'mystifying'.

The gangs take a fee from retailers, send cheap designer goods to British homes, then often leave good reviews on their websites to boost their reputations.

Increasing sales boost their online presence, making the vendor easier to find in the highly competitive world of online retail, leading to more sales.

One agent, Mr Wang, who runs a 'brushing group', claims to make more than £1,000-a-month from the business, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The groups are set up online, with low-level members called 'blue horses' being issued with instructions from 'red horses', who take orders from the retailers.

This means that the people who send the parcels do not have direct contact with the retailers, who can increase their reputation ten times faster by using the method.

Brushers, who masquerade as 'promotion companies', try and mimic the behaviour of real buyers, comparing prices online and using numerous delivery addresses.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/22/12/3C64C66900000578-0-image-a-9_1485089619733.jpg
The banned practice, known as brushing, is illegal in China and the fake sales can improve a company's rankings on online sites such as Alibaba. Stock image

After the purchase, it is common for the brusher to leave a positive review to boost the retailer's reputation.

But the process is banned in China, and sites such as Alibaba - the country's biggest ecommerce company - are taking steps to actively combat it.

The company vowed to take action due to hugely inflated sales on promotion days that have aroused international suspicion, including form the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company's Taobao site deletes fake sales and positive reviews, and can remove their products from its online search rankings or even shut the vendor's online store.

It can also issue fines of up to 70,000 yuan (£2,350) and the vendor risks losing their security deposit, which can be anything up to 150,000 yuan (£17,625).

Serious examples can also lead to criminal convictions.

[-N-]

Meanwhile, here's a crazy spin on fakes - fake goods sent to fake buyers to fake sales stats:

You get fake reviews on Amazon too. Some of those "verified purchase" reviewers are company shills.

The ones with cr@p English and vague accolades are pretty obvious.

[GeneChing]

Happy Year of the Flaming **** (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1337)!


Fake Donald Trump tweets are flooding Chinese social media (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fake-donald-trump-tweets-chinese-social-media-jike-a7551376.html)
Mr Trump has often spoken out strongly against China
Staff Reporter Washington DC Saturday 28 January 2017

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_large/public/thumbnails/image/2017/01/28/15/trump-tweet1.png
Twitter is banned in China Al-Jazeera

A series of fake tweets pretending to be those of President Donald Trump are hitting China’s social media as the Lunar New Year begins.

According to a report in Al Jazeera, people are using an app called Jike, which allows a person to enter content and then screenshot a resulting tweet, and more than a million fake tweets have been created in both Chinese and English.

Twitter is currently blocked in China, which could possibly make it hard for people to spot the difference between a real and fake tweet and has already fooled some people.

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_medium/public/thumbnails/image/2017/01/28/15/trump-tweet2.png
Mr Trump is famous for his outspoken comments about China (Twitter)

Among some of the more humorous tweets is one that says “Wish everybody a very happy Chinese New Year! I love China. I love the Chinese people just as I love Melania or Ivanka”, alluding to Mr Trump’s wife and daughter, respectively.

Another plays off his campaign slogan saying “Make you Chicken year great again!” since this Lunar New Year will be for the Year of the Rooster, while another that likely came from a student wrote “All the universities should cancel their homework and exams for Chinese students to enjoy the Spring Festival”.

Mr Trump has frequently spoken about the need to “get tough” on China, making proclamations such as “China is eating our lunch” and has said he would possibly label the nation as a currency manipulator, which has also been supported by some Democrats.

The president’s rhetoric on China has even led to actor Alec Baldwin to mock Trump’s pronunciation of its name on the American comedy show Saturday Night Live.

[GeneChing]

'Fake' is quickly becoming such an over-used term in English. That being said, I can hardly wrap my brain around this news story. Maybe it's fake news.


In Anti-Piracy Fight, Alibaba Finds Fake Complaints Over Fakes In China (https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/2017/02/09/in-anti-piracy-fight-alibaba-finds-fake-complaints-over-fakes-in-china)
NINA XIANG
February 9, 2017 — 19:32 HKT

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/fakesalibaba.jpg
Alibaba's fight against counterfeits just got a bit trickier

Alibaba's anti-piracy fight just got a bit trickier as the Chinese e-commerce giant finds that companies are making false complaints for "fake products" on its online shopping platforms.

The Hangzhou-headquartered company says that over 20% of the total complaints processed by its Intellectual Property Protection Platform in 2016 were malicious, which means they are either false allegations or they used forged documents, Alibaba said today in a statement.

Trademark squatting, an act of registering other people's marks by squatters in other countries in order to gain benefits from the original marks' owners, is also one tactic used by Chinese companies.

For example, one intellectual property rights agency in Shenzhen used fake documents including the registration of the trademark of Weixin, which is the Chinese name for Tencent's Wechat app, a signature of Tencent chief Pony Ma, and an authorization letter with a Tencent company chop, to file a complaint.

The company asked for the removal of all the listings that offer products or services around Weixin, leading to the removal of hundreds of product listings from dozens of merchants until the false complaint was detected by Alibaba. Tencent reported the case to police afterwards.

In another case, a Chinese company registered a product trademark of Nike that the U.S. company has yet to register in China. The Chinese firm subsequently submitted complaints against all the listings of backpacks with that particular logo on listings including authorized Nike distributors. More than 2,000 listings from hundreds of merchants were deleted erroneously as a result.

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/alibaba-4.jpg
(Image credit: Alibaba)

Alibaba says 5,862 accounts on its Intellectual Property Protection Platform, a location where companies can file complaints over fake products, were involved in malicious complaints in 2016. Around 1.03 million merchants and over six million products were victims of schemes that amounted to a total loss of RMB107 million for victims including major brands such as Nike.

In particular, Alibaba boycotted one company called Hangzhou Wangwei Technology Ltd, which was found to abuse the counterfeit notice and takedown system. Over 60% of the company's complaints were voluntarily withdrawn after counter-appeals from merchants since 2015, Alibaba said.

In December 2016, Alibaba found itself on the 2016 Notorious Markets List put out by the United States Trade Representative. The USTR accused Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce platform as having unacceptably high levels of counterfeiting and piracy products.

Alibaba has expanded its anti-privacy programs in recent years, and moved more than 380 million product listings in the 12 months ending August 2016, more than double that of 2015. The company has also helped detect and close around 675 counterfeit operations during that time, and put hundreds of criminal counterfeiters in jail.

[GeneChing]

'Fake' is quickly becoming such an over-used term in English. That being said, I can hardly wrap my brain around this news story. Maybe it's fake news.


In Anti-Piracy Fight, Alibaba Finds Fake Complaints Over Fakes In China (https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/2017/02/09/in-anti-piracy-fight-alibaba-finds-fake-complaints-over-fakes-in-china)
NINA XIANG
February 9, 2017 — 19:32 HKT

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/fakesalibaba.jpg
Alibaba's fight against counterfeits just got a bit trickier

Alibaba's anti-piracy fight just got a bit trickier as the Chinese e-commerce giant finds that companies are making false complaints for "fake products" on its online shopping platforms.

The Hangzhou-headquartered company says that over 20% of the total complaints processed by its Intellectual Property Protection Platform in 2016 were malicious, which means they are either false allegations or they used forged documents, Alibaba said today in a statement.

Trademark squatting, an act of registering other people's marks by squatters in other countries in order to gain benefits from the original marks' owners, is also one tactic used by Chinese companies.

For example, one intellectual property rights agency in Shenzhen used fake documents including the registration of the trademark of Weixin, which is the Chinese name for Tencent's Wechat app, a signature of Tencent chief Pony Ma, and an authorization letter with a Tencent company chop, to file a complaint.

The company asked for the removal of all the listings that offer products or services around Weixin, leading to the removal of hundreds of product listings from dozens of merchants until the false complaint was detected by Alibaba. Tencent reported the case to police afterwards.

In another case, a Chinese company registered a product trademark of Nike that the U.S. company has yet to register in China. The Chinese firm subsequently submitted complaints against all the listings of backpacks with that particular logo on listings including authorized Nike distributors. More than 2,000 listings from hundreds of merchants were deleted erroneously as a result.

https://www.chinamoneynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/alibaba-4.jpg
(Image credit: Alibaba)

Alibaba says 5,862 accounts on its Intellectual Property Protection Platform, a location where companies can file complaints over fake products, were involved in malicious complaints in 2016. Around 1.03 million merchants and over six million products were victims of schemes that amounted to a total loss of RMB107 million for victims including major brands such as Nike.

In particular, Alibaba boycotted one company called Hangzhou Wangwei Technology Ltd, which was found to abuse the counterfeit notice and takedown system. Over 60% of the company's complaints were voluntarily withdrawn after counter-appeals from merchants since 2015, Alibaba said.

In December 2016, Alibaba found itself on the 2016 Notorious Markets List put out by the United States Trade Representative. The USTR accused Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce platform as having unacceptably high levels of counterfeiting and piracy products.

Alibaba has expanded its anti-privacy programs in recent years, and moved more than 380 million product listings in the 12 months ending August 2016, more than double that of 2015. The company has also helped detect and close around 675 counterfeit operations during that time, and put hundreds of criminal counterfeiters in jail.

THREADS
Jack Ma & Alibaba (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69642-Jack-Ma-amp-Alibaba)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

£100 m = $125+m


Fake cosmetics worth £100 million seized by China police (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/16/100m-worth-fake-cosmetics-seized-china-police/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/16/cztv-com-cri-cosmetics-1-large_trans_nvbqzqnjv4bq1at3q7sc9uaffdhbes0nlmtt0g k_6efzt336f62ei5u.jpg
over 1,200 boxes were seized credit: Cztv.com/cri
neil connor, beijing
16 february 2017 • 10:17am

fake cosmetics worth almost £100 million – including products packaged to look like famous brands including chanel, christian dior and estée lauder – have been seized in china in a wide-ranging swoop.

Police in china’s eastern taizhou city discovered the products in 1,200 boxes that were found during seven raids earlier this month, authorities said in social media posts late wednesday.

The operation has seen 15 suspects being detained, and 13 of those have already been charged by prosecutors.

Police began hunting the gang behind the fake cosmetics after they were made aware of a counterfeit toothpaste being sold online a year ago, state news agency xinhua said.

The gang offered instant refunds to anyone who complained about the products in an effort to ensure that grievances did not go further.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/02/16/cztv-com-cri-costmasitcs-2-large_trans_nvbqzqnjv4bqr92mfvtbszlab1zevoivxi7oay as__z-4czpxvhirvu.jpg
the production base credit: Cztv.com/cri

xinhua said the syndicate had distributed products across the length of china, and that this month's haul had a street value of 827 million yuan (£96m).

"investigation into the online store shone a light on a chain that manufacture and distribute counterfeit top brand cosmetics in henan, heilongjiang, guangdong and zhejiang provinces,” it said.

A gang member told media he bought raw materials for the goods online, while reports also said that bar codes were copied from genuine products.

China struggles to contain a huge industry of counterfeiting, with tens of thousands of people being held each year for making fake goods.

Last month authorities busted a "production hub" of around 50 factories which churned out counterfeit seasoning designed to look like well known brands such as nestle and knorr.

The gang used industrial salt and artificial colouring and food additives, at the manufacturing base which was reported to have existed for more than 10 years.

Additional reporting by christine wei

[GeneChing]

I almost posted the original story but I couldn't figure out where to post it so I just gave up. Just as well now, I suppose...


Western media outlets report Chinese women are going under the knife to look like Ivanka. It's fake news (http://shanghaiist.com/2017/03/14/ivanka-trump-plastic-surgery.php)
BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON MAR 14, 2017 10:45 PM

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/ivanka_trump_hot2.jpg

This week, some international news media outlets have published stories purporting that Chinese women are "flocking" to their nearest plastic surgery clinics in order to go under the knife to look more like Ivanka Trump. And yet, we've yet to see a single woman walking around here resembling the first daughter. So what gives?
Well, it turns out that the stories appear to be sourced only from one section of an article by the Washington Post about how Ivanka Trump had recently become a bit of a hot commodity in China with Chinese companies trying to trademark her name, including one small plastic surgery clinic named Yiwanka, Ivanka's name in Chinese (依万卡).
A company in the southern city of Foshan had the foresight to register its name — Foshan Yiwanka Medical Management — just before the election. With just 15 employees, it offers cosmetic surgery around the eyes and nose, as well as liposuction and breast enlargement, said human resources manager Li Yunxing.
“Young women in China like to change their looks to copy film stars’ eyes, noses and lips,” he said. “No doubt young women here want Ivanka’s big eyes, her pretty nose and lips and her flawless figure.
“Her facial features, disposition and appearance are perfect,” Li added, “no matter whether they are judged by the beauty standards of the East or the West.”
Apart from this tidbit, as far as we can tell, there is no other evidence of an Ivanka Trump plastic surgery craze sweeping China, or even a single Chinese woman going under the knife to look like the president's daughter. But apparently some international media outlets believe that a small plastic surgery clinic in central Guangdong province trying to trademark her name, and vague comments made by the clinic's human resources manager is evidence enough. Here's a few headlines:
"The Ivanka Trump makeover phenomenon hits China" from The New Daily.
"The Ivanka Trump effect: Women flock to plastic surgeons to copy blonde bombshell's looks" from the Daily Star.
"Women in China are flocking to plastic surgeons looking to copy the 'big eyes, pretty nose and flawless figure' of Ivanka Trump" from the Daily Mail.
"Chinese women want to look like Ivanka Trump" from News.com.au.
"Experts Say Women Are Getting Plastic Surgery To Get Ivanka’s Signature Traits" from Elite Daily.
Even if there were one or two Chinese women who did go under the knife to look like Ivanka, these headlines would still appear to be just a tad hyperbolic. After all, nobody reported that Chinese men were flocking to plastic surgeons to look like Jack Ma after one ardent young fan spent 1 million yuan doing just that last year.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/jack_ma_surgery.jpg

[GeneChing]

'Fake aquarium' closes in less than two days after being mocked online for its pitiful amount of fish (http://shanghaiist.com/2017/04/11/fake_aquarium.php)
BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON APR 11, 2017 9:00 PM

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_aquarium.jpg

A temporary "marine biological exhibition" was closed down in Zhengzhou just a day and a half after opening and shortly after a video from inside the exhibition went viral online, inspiring netizens to label the exhibit a "fake aquarium."
The video was shot by one Weibo user who was particularly not impressed by the aquarium. Instead of hundreds of colorful fish swimming around inside giant tanks, there were only a few small fish tanks with barely any fish inside.
Tickets for the exhibit cost 40 yuan. Netizens joked that visitors would have been better off taking a stroll around the local bird and fish market for entertainment.
The bad publicity appears to have done in the exhibit. Visitors who arrived on Sunday afternoon found that the doors to the "aquarium" were locked. A notice on the door informed them that the exhibit had suspended due to false advertising.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_aquarium2.jpg

Apparently, promotional materials may have given the public the wrong idea about the size and scope of the exhibit.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_aquarium3.jpg
http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_aquarium4.jpg

The notice also added that operations had been suspended due to unspecified safety concerns as well. The company behind the exhibit conveyed its sincere apologies, and did not say if the "aquarium" would reopen in the future.
[Images via NetEase]

40 yuan = $5.79 USD right now. Not much, but still...

[GeneChing]

The Story About A Chinese Lesbian Billionaire Couple Is Very, Very Fake (https://www.buzzfeed.com/kassycho/make-them-billionaires-buy-their-album?bftwnews=undefined&utm_term=.tvqNNNdxVz#.lm9WWWm6ZD)
"That WJSN lesbian billionaires fake news tweet saved 2017."
Posted on April 29, 2017, at 3:26 a.m.
Kassy Cho
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Ikran Dahir
BuzzFeed News Reporter

A tweet about two lesbian Chinese billionaires who got married and became the world's richest couple alive has gone viral.

[BREAKING] Lesbian Chinese Billionaires, Meng Mei Qi and Wu Xuan Yi, marry. Making them the richest couple alive.
4:00 PM - 26 Apr 2017
23,281 23,281 Retweets 39,148 39,148 likes
The news that Meng Mei Qi and Wu Xuan Yi were married was shared by thousands of people, including former Disney Channel star Debby Ryan.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/3/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-18925-1493366375-3.png
Twitter: @DebbyRyan
People were shook.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/3/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-19345-1493365589-1.png
Twitter: @alocalteen

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-19291-1493366727-1.png
Twitter: @SpellmanNaomi

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/3/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-32240-1493365786-1.png
Twitter: @chel_c_cam

Just one problem, Meng and Wu are not a couple, and nor are they billionaires. They are, however, members of the South Korean-Chinese band Cosmic Girls, also known as WJSN.

instagram.com (https://www.instagram.com/p/BTL0sfSjswc/)

The photo of Meng and Wu was taken earlier this week at the Beijing International Film Festival, and uploaded by fellow WJSN member Xuan Yi on to her Weibo page.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/5/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-21592-1493370821-2.png
weibo.com

And the story was put together by K-pop fans, who, as it appears, were just trying to promote their faves.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-25427-1493376702-14.png
Twitter: @misswujuniverse

The teenager behind the original tweet, Abby Fry, told BuzzFeed News that she came up with the joke because she thought it would amuse ujungs, WJSN's fan group, and never expected it to go so big.
'I thought they looked like they were at a wedding with the dresses they were wearing and the dresses sure looked expensive,' Fry said.She said that she thought people would fact-check first, but added that it 'just shows the power of what we want to happen.'
Twitter: @merrymeiqi
"I thought they looked like they were at a wedding with the dresses they were wearing and the dresses sure looked expensive," Fry said.
She said that she thought people would fact-check first, but added that it "just shows the power of what we want to happen."
Stans obviously found it hilarious.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-31511-1493375245-11.png
Twitter: @misswujuniverse

And continued with their top-notch trolling.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-6274-1493376769-3.png

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-26901-1493367017-1.png
Twitter: @floweryflesh

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-1169-1493367190-1.png
Twitter: @rapkays
continued next post

[GeneChing]

They even shared pictures of the "happy couple".

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-27124-1493367112-1.png
Twitter: @floweryflesh


Follow
av �� @greyjinsook
good night i love the richest couple alive ����
9:20 PM - 27 Apr 2017
22 22 Retweets 24 24 likes
The plot escalated with an equally fake murder.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter
Follow
宇宙少女48�� @uzzucam
mei qi murdered her husband, married a girl,and became the richest gay couple alive she really did that
2:52 PM - 27 Apr 2017
29,714 29,714 Retweets 40,761 40,761 likes
And that they had ~history~.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/5/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-29287-1493371086-15.png
Twitter: @greyjinsook

They also didn't forget to promote their album.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-26794-1493367135-1.png
Twitter: @rootsmihyun

People are praising the stans for pulling off the ultimate scam.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-846-1493366551-3.png
Twitter: @nyakutagawa

But it wasn't long before people caught onto the joke.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-25400-1493376834-2.png
Twitter: @ohmomona

And are now spreading the word.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-25402-1493376883-9.png
Twitter: @prismwaves

Which left some very disappointed.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/sub-buzz-7170-1493376921-1.png
Twitter: @currypuffs

Ujungs, however, feel that the joke has saved 2017.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-04/28/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-01/sub-buzz-26308-1493376944-1.png
Twitter: @Suendenfall

Kassy Cho is a reporter with BuzzFeed New

I know, I know, really random news post. I just wanted to make a post with the heading 'Fake Chinese Lesbian Billionaires'[/QUOTE]

[GeneChing]

Freakin Commies. Why, in America, we wouldn't oppress weddings for fakery. No, not for fakery. :rolleyes:


Chinese groom arrested for inviting 200 fake guests to wedding (http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Chinese-groom-arrested-for-inviting-200-fake-11116056.php)
David Curran Updated 3:45 pm, Tuesday, May 2, 2017

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/56/02/40/12068913/5/920x920.jpg
Weddings are a tradition that dates too far back to really know and every culture around the world has a different way to do their own version of the ceremony.Continue clicking to learn about wedding traditions from around the world. Photo: Europa Press/Europa Press Via Getty

In an ominous sign for the marriage ahead, a man in China was arrested for hiring 200 people to come to his wedding and pretend they were his friends and family. The people who called the authorities on him were his new in-laws.
Why would someone hire "actors" to come to his wedding in the first place? According to the BBC, his new wife's family objected to the marriage because he was from a poor family. So, in order to save his family from being shamed, he just didn't invite them.
The ruse does not seem to have lasted very long. It wasn't just that the people paid to show up all said they were "just friends" with the groom, but also once the ceremony started, the groom's parents were nowhere to be found.
Soon after, the police were apparently called and the groom arrested. But what crime was actually committed by his fakery is unclear.
In interviews with a regional news station, most of the phony guests said they were either taxi drivers or students. Others met the groom on a Chinese social media platform and negotiated a price to show up.
While all of this was going on, the bride did not seem fazed that she had no idea who these guests were, pointing out that she and her husband had completely different sets of friends.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjv8EahHdGU

[GeneChing]

There's video behind the link.



China Unveils Replica Of Great Wall (http://wsbuzz.com/world-news/china-unveils-replica-great-wall/)
World News - 05/19/2017 016

http://wsbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/4087D52C00000578-0-image-a-31_1495185231600.jpg

Would YOU Believe This Is The Great Wall Of China? Replica Of The Famous Fortress Is So Realistic ‘Some Tourists Think They’re Climbing The Original Site’

Video footage uploaded on May 15 shows a replica of the Great Wall of China located in Nanchang
The ‘copycat Great Wall’ in Nanchang is some 1,500 kilometres away from the real wall in Badaling
Spanning four kilometres long, the replica is 13,000 shorter than the real wonder of the world
Some say once you climb the Great Wall of China, you are truly great.

But it remains unclear what happens when you climb this version of the Great Wall some 1,500 kilometres away from the ‘original’.

This attraction in Nanchang, China may look close to the wall but it only measures 4 kilometres, 13,000 shorter than the real wonder of the world but some tourists believe it to be real.

Great Wall (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69782-Great-Wall-of-China&p=1303119#post1303119) + Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

Underground factory producing fake cans of Budweiser gets busted in Dongguan (http://shanghaiist.com/2017/05/30/fake-budweiser.php)
BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON MAY 30, 2017 8:50 AM

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_budweiser_factory.jpg

Sometimes in China alcohol can be so insanely cheap that it's hard not to wonder where it all comes from.
Well, recently three video clips making the rounds on WeChat have helped to shine light on one source, showing an underground factory in Dongguan which produced thousands upon thousands of fake cans of Budweiser each day before being busted by city authorities on May 5th.
In the first clip, female workers can be seen handling the recycled cans which are then canned by a machine on a conveyor belt in the next clip. Then, the third clip shows a Trade and Industry Bureau task force arriving at the factory to check out its stockpile.
According to city authorities, the underground factory was able to churn out 600,000 boxes of fake Budweiser a month, which were then distributed to bars and nightclubs.
Watch below:

https://www.facebook.com/shanghaiist/videos/10155802454956030/

For more than a decade, Budweiser has been working hard to establish itself as the "King of Beers" in the world's largest beer market. By 2012, Anheuser-Busch had 15 breweries outside of the US, 14 of them in China, helping Budweiser become the country's 3rd biggest beer brand by 2014, and a prime target for counterfeit breweries.

could you really tell the difference? :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

This is the whole point of this thread...this and the amusing knock-off fails.



Hong Kong and China account for 86% of fake goods globally, says Europol (https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/06/23/hong-kong-china-account-86-fake-goods-globally-says-europol/)
23 June 2017 00:01 AFP 3 min read

China and Hong Kong are overwhelmingly the largest shipment centres for fake goods sold around the world, in a growing, complex battle against sophisticated counterfeiters, Europe’s police agency said Thursday.

In 2015, the two territories “were the provenance of 86% of global counterfeiting and US$396.5 billion worth of counterfeit goods,” Europol said in a detailed 74-page report, adding intellectual property theft was “one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises”.

http://i.imgur.com/0wM3IxJ.jpg
Counterfeit bags seized in Hong Kong. Photo: GovHK.

With the rising use of cargo rail links between China and Europe, there are also concerns that criminal networks may begin to seize on what can be a cheaper or faster alternative for transporting goods than container shipping or air links.

Turkey is another important hub for the entry of fake goods into the European Union, along with Thailand and Singapore, said the joint report produced with the Madrid-based EU Intellectual Property Office.

Everything from shampoos, to batteries, electronics and brand-name clothing, toys, medicine and food has been counterfeited and sold, often to unsuspecting customers. There is also a rising trade in fake labels for Europe-based networks producing such goods inside the zone.

http://i.imgur.com/yBPsYCh.jpg
Counterfeit clothing seized in Hong Kong. Photo: GovHK.

But the top category of fake goods seized at the EU’s borders in 2015 was cigarettes — accounting for some 27 percent of some 88,000 cases investigated by customs officials.

As gangs seek to bypass checks and reach consumers quickly and cheaply, rail connections out of China could offer “concrete advantages,” the report warned.

“Intellectual property crime is extensive in the EU and carries very many adverse effects,” warned Europol head Rob Wainwright.

“It harms our economies, generates enormous illicit profits for organised crime groups, and often causes direct physical harm to citizens in the form of the growing supply of fake health and safety goods.”

https://www.hongkongfp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/tsing-yi-shipping-container-terminal-4.jpg
Photo: GovHK.

Sales of fake clothing and shoes amounted to more than 26 billion euros in lost sales of legitimate goods in Europe, or 9.7 percent of total revenues, causing an estimated 363,000 job losses in this “mirror economy”, the report said.

Many items are now being sold online directly to consumers, allowing counterfeiters to send their goods in small packets which may pass more easily through border checks.

“Counterfeiters often need to produce and ship products quickly, usually in reaction to emerging product trends and demands,” the report said.

http://i.imgur.com/7Cxo4sO.jpg
Fake phone chargers. Photo: GovHK.

While the goods may be produced cheaply, “air freight, despite being fast, is often too expensive” while a shipping container can take up to six weeks to reach its destination.

China is developing both its rail and road infrastructure to reach the eastern EU external borders.

https://www.hongkongfp.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1091461.jpg
Suspected counterfeit goods. Photo: GovHK.

And “cargo trains offering logistics solutions between China and the EU for nearly half the price of air freight, which take approximately half the time of traditional container shipping, would appear a logical choice,” the report said.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqxvsY9gto

[GeneChing]

Chinese Theme Parks (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?62642-Chinese-Theme-Parks) meets Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs) (and other countries) :p


5 Infamous Theme Parks That TOTALLY Ripped Off Disney (http://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20120114/5744/top-5-asian-disneyland-clones)
By Brian Krosnick, Tuesday, June 24, 2014 09:20

http://www.themeparktourist.com/sites/default/files/styles/news_feature_image/public/fake-minnie-donald.jpeg?itok=3T9IjM_5
Two characters at Shijingshan

With Shanghai Disneyland in the works, it’s high time to size up the competition. Asia is full of parks that border on (and sometimes surpass) copyright infringement on Disneyland's characters, universally-known buildings, and outstanding attractions.

In fact, so many have tried to duplicate Disneyland’s success and beauty, Asia has more fairytale castles than the United States (though not all are still inhabited). So take a look at the parks below and draw your own conclusions – can Shanghai Disneyland compete with Asia’s other “Disney” parks? And can any of the alleged copycats withstand the "real thing" moving into town?

5. Wonderland (Beijing, China)

http://www.themeparktourist.com/sites/default/files/images/Wonderland%20Beijing%20Castle.preview.jpg
A fairytale castle stands as a beacon of what might have been for farmers working the fields that used to be earmarked for Beijing's Wonderland. Image: Stuck in Customs

A bid to construct Asia’s largest theme park fell through amid troubling economic times in 1998. The land was reclaimed for farm use, with fields of crops overtaking much of the 100 acres designated for the park’s use. As such, farmers found their 100-acre field protected by a twenty-five foot castle wall boundary intended as the park’s gates. Passing through the steel framework of a never-completed main street, crops were tended around the base of a unfinished concrete castle. The images are intriguing and eerie at the least.

4. Dream World (Bangkok, Thailand)

http://www.themeparktourist.com/sites/default/files/images/Dream-World_1.preview.jpeg

Dream World in Thailand’s Pathum Thani province is a truly quaint, entertaining family park with quite a few interesting gardens, family attractions, and some uniquely done rides. But in name, the park borrows quite a few Disney themes. First of all, the Fantasy Land area features “Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.” In Adventure Land, you’ll find an amalgamation of jungle and future themed rides, and a select few attractions that harken to Disneyland favorites: “Haunted Mansion,” “Monorail Tour,” “Space Mountains” and the unfortunately named “Red Indian’s Boats.” And guests entering park pass under a façade that unmistakably resembles Disneyland’s “it’s a small world.”

3. Shijingshan Amusement Park (Beijing, China)

http://www.themeparktourist.com/sites/default/files/resize/u2616/Beijing-Shijingshan-Amusement-Park-600x366.jpg

Where can you find Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Bugs Bunny, and Hello Kitty residing together in a fairytale castle next to a replica of Epcot’s Spaceship Earth? Well, nowhere. But you can find their unauthorized counterparts at Shijingshan. There, in the shadow of Cinderella Castle’s evil-twin of sorts (trading in white and blue spires for tan and red ones) you’ll find familiar characters who the park officially defends are based on Grimm’s Fairy Tales. You can decide for yourself, of course, but the park’s official slogan translated to English reads: “Disney is too far to go, please come to Shijianshan!“'

2. Nara Dreamland (Nara, Japan)

http://www.themeparktourist.com/sites/default/files/resize/images/nara-dreamland-ruins60-490x393.jpeg

From the train station and Mainstreet, to the Castle and Matterhorn, Nara Dreamland was a unique blend of Disneyland and big wooden coaster.

This now-closed theme park – made famous in the theme park community by a photo trip report on Theme Park Review – resembles Disneyland in a way few others can rival. From Main Street to the pink and blue fairy tale castle, the Matterhorn, the monorail, the Jungle Cruise, and a sparsely decorated Tomorrowland were all represented. But something was decidedly amiss – pickup trucks parked on midways, portable carnival rides in “Fantasyland,” and dilapidated, crumbling facades. Add in the aptly named Screw Coaster, a wooden playground, and the actually-decent Aska wooden coaster and you’ve got one strange grab-bag of amusement.

1. Lotte World (Seoul, South Korea)

http://www.themeparktourist.com/sites/default/files/images/lotte_world_theme_park.preview.jpeg

While it does borrow elements from Disneyland, Lotte World is a successful resort of its own doing. It imitates (and sometimes surpasses) Disney Parks in innovation and beauty.

It may be unfair to call Lotte World in Seoul, South Korea a “copyright infringing” park. In fact, Lotte World is a wildly successful and innovative resort all on its own that, like so many others, borrows from the successes of Disneyland here and there. Sometimes, the park’s rides come across as an imitation. Other times, they seem to surpass any potential “sisters” that Disney has devised. Comprised of the world’s largest indoor theme park and an outdoor amusement park built around a white and blue castle, some offerings may sound familiar.

A water, fire, light, projection, and music show called Fantastic Odyssey (perhaps a take on Disney’s Fantasmic!) resides near Jungle Adventure, an indoor river rapids ride past animatronics jungle scenes. One of the park’s most incredible attractions is Pharaoh’s Fury, an EMV ride that resembles and rivals Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure with impressive effects, incredible scenery, and out-of-control motion-base technology. And like any good Disney-esque park, you can always meet Lotty and Lorry, two anthropomorphic raccoons that wear a blue suit and a red skirt & hair bow, respectively. Whatever you call it, it is truly among the “best” borrowers of Disneyland’s ideas in that it succeeds in implementing them in new and inventive ways.

[GeneChing]

I don't know why but this one really amuses me.


Fake Yeezy shop opens in China. Your move, Kanye? (http://shanghaiist.com/2017/08/30/fake-yeezy.php)
BY ALEX LINDER IN NEWS ON AUG 30, 2017 5:35 PM

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_yeezy5.jpeg

While Kanye West has yet to open up an official shop for his personal footwear line, China is already way ahead of the self-proclaimed genius.
Chinese social media users have recently posted photos online of a fake Yeezy shop in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province which offers a colorful range of knockoff Yeezys. The shop is conveniently located right beside Newbunren -- which is not to be confused with Niubanlun or New Boom.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_yeezy6.jpeg

According to a report from Huanqiu.com, the Chinese language version of the Global Times tabloid, the replica shoes at the shop sell for a reasonable fraction of the cost of authentic Yeezys in China, where limited supply has allowed merchants to charge exorbitant prices. For example, a pair of Yeezy Boost 350s might retail at 5,000 yuan in China, but are on sale at the shop for just 999 yuan.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_yeezy2.jpg
http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_yeezy3.jpg

Still, you might notice a few, slight differences between the knockoff Yeezys and the genuine articles. Most noticeably, rather than reading "SPLY-350," they simply say "Yeezy 550." Chabuduo.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_yeezy8.jpeg

Though, the shop also allows you the option of customizing your Yeezys to your own liking with personalized designs and colors.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/fake_yeezy9.jpeg

Meanwhile, it appears that Kanye West has not learned from the mistakes of his predecessors. The owner of the shop, surnamed Hu, told Huanqiu.com that he wasn't worried about the legality of his business because he registered the "Yeezy" trademark in China back in 2013 and authorities had confirmed to him that it is valid.
For some perspective, that's two years before Adidas even released its first Yeezy-branded sneaker.
In China's shady realm of copyright law where trademarks are essentially "first come, first serve," a number of Western companies have lost out to Chinese copycatters. Last year, one Chinese company was granted the right to sell its leather products with the label "IPHONE" after a judge ruled that it had registered the trademark before iPhones arrived in China.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/uncle_martian.JPG

However, last week, a Western brand was granted a rare victory in an intellectual property infringement case in China when a Suzhou court ruled that the managers of "New Boom" must pay New Balance $1.5 million in copyright damages for blantantly infringing upon the American company's logo.
[Images via Huanqiu.com]

[GeneChing]

LEGO compatible isn't quite a 'fake' but this is too postworthy to resist.


China Toymaker Rolls Out “LEGO ***** House” (http://redwiretimes.com/singapore-in-brief/china-toymaker-rolls-out-lego-*****-house/)
Posted on Aug 29 2017 - 11:11am by Redwire Singapore

http://redwiretimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/redwire-singapore-lego-*****-house-2.jpg

If you can’t go to a ***** house, why not bring the ***** house home?

That could have been the thought behind this “LEGO ***** house” produced by China toymaker Xingbao.

It even comes with little prostitutes clad in camisoles and lecherous-looking male customers.

No, their outfits are not removable.

http://redwiretimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/redwire-singapore-lego-*****-house.jpg

The brick brothel is actually aimed at adults, as part of the Adult Fan of LEGO (AOFL) series of toys.

It’s available for purchase online.

Yes you can buy it for your kids, but how are you going to explain that to their mom?

aw crap. forgot the forum censors wh0re. plug that into the ***** to see.

[GeneChing]

Anyone ever had Peninsula mooncakes? Are they that good? $66K HK = $8441.90 USD. That's a lotta cakes.


Fake Peninsula mooncakes yield arrests and HK$66,000 haul (http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2111351/fake-peninsula-mooncakes-yield-arrests-and-hk66000-haul)
Production source still being investigated after customs officers posed as consumers
PUBLISHED : Friday, 15 September, 2017, 3:15pm
UPDATED : Friday, 15 September, 2017, 10:37pm
Clifford Lo

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2017/09/15/eeb9fbb2-99e4-11e7-a089-5a7a21c623ca_1280x720_164337.JPG?itok=rlo91El9

The Peninsula hotel has become the latest brand to fall victim to counterfeiters as more than 200 boxes of mini-egg custard mooncakes bearing its forged trademark were confiscated by Hong Kong customs on Thursday.
A genuine box of the mooncakes described as a “bestseller” and marked with “Sold Out” retailed for HK$338 on The Peninsula Hotels website, but the fakes were priced at HK$368 in a Sheung Shui shop and sold for HK$310 per box on the internet.

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/09/15/ed45e570-99e4-11e7-a089-5a7a21c623ca_1320x770_164337.JPG
Fake products were mingled with the genuine ones at the shop. Photo: K. Y. Cheng.

Customs officers seized 213 boxes of the fake brand-name product after undercover agents posing as consumers were deployed to buy from the shop and browse through an online platform. The haul had an estimated market value of HK$66,000.
Five Hongkongers – three men and two women – were arrested for the sale of the counterfeit mooncakes, according to the Customs and Excise Department.

After receiving online orders, the boxes of fakes were handed over to buyers at MTR stations PEGGY TAM PUI-YING, CUSTOMS OFFICIAL
The Post understands three boxes of the counterfeit products were mingled with about 50 genuine boxes of mooncakes for sale in the Sheung Shui shop that also carries medicine and dried seafood.
The other fakes were seized at a shop in Mong Kok that was used as a warehouse.
“After receiving online orders, the boxes of fakes were handed over to buyers at MTR stations,” assistant superintendent Peggy Tam Pui-ying, head of Customs’ intellectual property general investigation division, said.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/09/15/9214c3c6-99f1-11e7-a089-5a7a21c623ca_1320x770_164337.JPG
Peggy Tam said the fakes were handed over at MTR stations. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

She said initial investigation showed the two parties were not linked.
Officers were still investigating the source of the fakes, but investigations showed they were not produced locally.
Tam said the results of an initial examination of the fakes showed no heavy metal was present in them but that further tests were needed.
The authority believed a very limited quantity had been sold in Hong Kong for Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on October 4.
“The fake brand-name mooncakes were put on sale recently,” Tam said. She urged consumers to shop through authorised dealers and reputable shops.
The five suspects were released on bail pending further investigation.
Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, those who sell goods bearing a forged trademark face a jail term of up to five years and a HK$500,000 fine.
In the run-up to next month’s festival, customs officials have stepped up patrols across the city looking for counterfeit items such as lanterns.

src="https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/09/15/eff4c6ba-99e4-11e7-a089-5a7a21c623ca_1320x770_164337.JPG"
Fake lanterns were also targeted in the run-up to next month’s Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

On Thursday, they arrested 10 people and seized more than 200 suspected counterfeit lanterns and 800 other dubious-quality goods such as stationery at local outlets. The haul was worth about HK$50,000.
The public may report suspicious activities to Customs’ 24-hour hotline at +852 2545 6182.

Fake (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs) Moon (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?58432-Happy-Autumn-Moon-!!!) Cakes.

[Jimbo]

When I lived in Taiwan, I actually used to like moon cakes. But I thought I was one of the very few who did. The impression I got was that, while they were commonly bought and given during the Mid-Autumn Festival, they were mostly viewed in the same way that fruit cakes are seen here. My impression could have been wrong, though.

Then one year, there was a big news report that at least one maker of moon cakes was caught using recycled fat from restaurants in their product, and that ended my liking of moon cakes.

[GeneChing]

‘Fake general and colonel’ arrested as Chinese authorities target scammers posing as members of army (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2114657/fake-general-and-colonel-arrested-chinese-authorities-target)
Pair accused of trying to con millions of US dollars out of members of the public by offering to sell them senior military ranks
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 10 October, 2017, 12:25pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 10 October, 2017, 2:52pm
Mandy Zuo
mandy.zuo@scmp.com

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2017/10/10/8a3b3d40-ad6c-11e7-9cb1-5f6b75e2d8b2_1280x720_143211.jpg

China’s army and police have arrested two people accused of pretending to be senior officers to extort money from members of the public, state media reported.
The arrests in Beijing were the latest in a crackdown since July on impostors masquerading as members of the People’s Liberation Army.
A man, who posed as a general, and a woman, who pretended to be a senior colonel, had claimed that they could make a person a colonel as long as they donated 15 million yuan (US$2.3 million) to a special fund called “Royal Soldier”, China Central Television reported last week.
The man, using a pseudonym and claiming to be the fund’s secretary general, was reported to have confessed that the pair had started the scam at the start of last year.
It was not known whether they had succeeded in getting any money this way.
Authorities also found more than 10 boxes of counterfeit uniforms and regalia at their home, the report said.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/10/8422d5e4-ad6c-11e7-9cb1-5f6b75e2d8b2_1320x770_143211.jpg"
Many of those accused of buying fake military items are thought to have used them to commit fraud. Photo: Thepaper.cn

More than 270 people have been detained in similar cases since the launch of the crackdown, spearheaded by a special task force set up by the PLA and the Ministry of Public Security.
More than 15,000 fake uniforms and other items emblazoned with the PLA’s logo were seized during this period.
CCTV said criminals were continuing to manufacture and sell fake army gear and posing as officers despite repeated crackdowns.
According to a previous CCTV report, the authorities raided eight places making or selling counterfeit army uniforms.
Those items were often bought by people who were trying to trick members of the public into donating money in the belief it would benefit members of the PLA.


Not really unique to China. Military impersonation is despicable.

[GeneChing]

They are kidding people who don't normally read the alphabet. Just imagine the reverse using Chinese characters. :rolleyes:


Who are they kidding? Hilarious pictures of made-in-China knockoffs show 'Nibe' sneakers, 'Paradi' handbags and 'Owega' watch shops (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4997564/Made-China-knockoffs-Paradi-handbags-more.html)
Counterfeit goods that are made in China took designs and names of the original
They usually sell at a much cheaper price, or being exported to other countries
Pictures emerged showing a collection of different 'Made-in-China' knockoffs
By Tiffany Lo For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 11:22 EDT, 19 October 2017 | UPDATED: 11:21 EDT, 20 October 2017

Over the years, the Chinese commercial market has been expanding and the nation has been exporting goods to other countries.

It's not surprising to see Chinese companies producing counterfeits after some of the world's most famous brands.

Whilst some of these knockoffs might have good quality, others could get so wrong that they appear to be hilarious.

Such fake products range from an Owega (Omega) watch, a pair of Nibe (Nike) shoes to a Pearlboy (Playboy) shop.

According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, counterfeit goods that trade from southeast Asia to other countries are worth about 24.4 billion USD ( £18.51 bn) in a year.

Read on below to find out more 'Made in China' knockoffs.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC57500000578-0-image-a-32_1508424590263.jpg
Chinese company Chongqing Lifan made a car model copying BMW's MINI Cooper

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC52100000578-0-image-m-34_1508424690463.jpg
A Playboy-like clothing brand called Pearlboy that sells down jackets in China

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC48100000578-0-image-a-35_1508424789627.jpg
The headphone set is printed with a trademark which was supposed to say 'Sony'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/14/457CC4F900000578-0-image-a-3_1508420836310.jpg
Because everything looks better when it's complete: The AEIPPIE logo is not bitten off

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/14/457CC50E00000578-0-image-a-4_1508421238414.jpg
Corcs clogs! These popular shoes looks as real as the official brand, but not the spelling

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC52900000578-0-image-a-5_1508421603691.jpg
Will young people have more fun playing Grand Theft Auto on their POP Station Portable?

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC49900000578-0-image-m-9_1508422038808.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC5A300000578-0-image-a-10_1508422046240.jpg
The fake Heineken, called Heimekem (left), guarantees that customers would enjoy premium quality. Mr Jack Daniel would not approve for this knock-off version whiskey (right)

continued next post

[GeneChing]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC51900000578-0-image-a-11_1508422763823.jpg
When Panasonic battery marks to perform 'super heavy duty', a PenesamiG battery can only be used for 'general purpose'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC49100000578-0-image-a-13_1508422967211.jpg
Devils wear Paradi? Copying a similar font as the luxurious Prada, Paradi offers casual wear

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC54500000578-0-image-a-14_1508423081358.jpg
Two horses, one message: This jeans brand gives a cartoon-like imitation of the Levi Strauss & Co classic trademark

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC58900000578-0-image-a-17_1508423323057.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC58600000578-0-image-m-18_1508423331891.jpg
Impossible is nothing: Chinese workers have redesigned the logo of German sports brand Adidas in many amusing way (left and right)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC56A00000578-0-image-a-19_1508423455284.jpg
Just do it! The signature swoosh of Nike is being used as the Chinese knock-off 'Nire'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC54100000578-0-image-a-20_1508423462374.jpg
Don't mind the swoosh! This shop, Nibe, changes the name and design of popular brand Nike

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC55100000578-0-image-a-26_1508423820786.jpg
Because one swoosh is not enough, you need two to swirl around a basketball continued next post

[GeneChing]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC53100000578-0-Nobody_s_Lovin_It_People_will_get_confused_if_fast _food_are_sold-a-25_1508423816330.jpg
Nobody's Lovin' It! A jewellery and jade shop used the iconic McDonald's yellow arches

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC59300000578-0-When_Burger_King_said_you_can_have_it_your_way_Kin g_Burger_surel-m-30_1508424160482.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC55700000578-0-image-a-31_1508424170172.jpg
When Burger King said you can 'have it your way', King Burger surely takes the word in account (left). If you can't afford an Omega, try this Owega store (right)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC47000000578-0-image-m-42_1508425065125.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC48900000578-0-image-a-43_1508425072691.jpg
A value pack of fake Gillette', called GilnGhey, that comes with a razor, blades and shaving cream (left); China's clothing brand 'HengHee' took the inspiration from Lacoste (right)



Knock Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs) - Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China) of course.[

[GeneChing]

Kids’ craze for ‘counterfeit’ currency bookmarks could be illegal, China’s central bank says (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2117655/kids-craze-counterfeit-currency-bookmarks-could-be-illegal-chinas)
Authorities may take action as retailer in central Chinese province admits to selling almost US$1,000 worth of ‘fake notes’ annually
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 31 October, 2017, 10:01am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 31 October, 2017, 10:00am
Alice Shen

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2017/10/31/27ca021a-bd55-11e7-b942-6d23cbdef96a_1280x720_091013.JPG

A craze among schoolchildren in central China for collecting bookmarks printed to look like Chinese and US banknotes could be against the law, according to local media.
In a report by Changsha Evening Daily on Monday, the mother of a fourth-grader in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, said she spotted one of the “billionaire bookmarks” when she was checking her son’s homework.
The boy said that he and his classmates bought the notes from local shops and traded and collected them with friends. It was the hottest craze in school, he said.
While the printing on the notes closely replicates the look of genuine yuan and US dollar notes, their size and form – some come in the classic cartoon shape of a dog’s bone – clearly suggest they are intended for nothing other than fun.
“They look exactly like real paper money,” the mother, surnamed Zuo, was quoted as saying, “only in different shapes”.
However, that does not appear to be sufficient for the local branch of the People’s Bank of China, an official from which was quoted as saying that it was illegal to reproduce Chinese banknotes and that it reserved the right to take legal action.
The owner of a shop near a school in Changsha said he sold about a dozen packs of the banknotes a week, with each pack of 24 retailing for 10 yuan (US$1.50). Based on the South China Morning Post’s calculations, his share of the “counterfeiting” business would therefore be more than 6,200 yuan a year.
The report did not say if he would face any criminal charges.
Most people on social media found the claims of counterfeiting baffling.
“The regulation is too strict,” one person wrote.
“Schools use them as teaching aids in maths class. That can’t be illegal,” said another.

So would this be fake counterfeits? :p

[GeneChing]

NOT 10K after all (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?59392-Let-s-talk-Whisky!&p=1304227#post1304227).


World's priciest whisky bought by Chinese millionaire revealed to be fake (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/02/worlds-priciest-whisky-bought-chinese-millionaire-fake/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/11/02/TELEMMGLPICT000145448831_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrWYeUU_ H0zBKyvljOo6zlkYMapKPjdhyLnv9ax6_too.jpeg?imwidth= 1400
Zhang Wei, centre, splashed out £7,600 on the world's most expensive whisky shot in the Waldhaus am See hotel in St Moritz, Switzerland CREDIT: SANDRO BERNASCONI

Nicola Smith, taipei
2 NOVEMBER 2017 • 12:48PM

When Chinese millionaire, Zhang Wei, splashed out £7,600 on the world’s most expensive whisky shot in a Swiss bar, he boasted to his fans that it was the same age as his great, great grandmother would have been – 139 years old.

Unfortunately for the martial arts fantasy writer, the headlines generated not only admiration, but suspicion by experts who doubted the authenticity of the spirit’s true provenance when they spotted discrepancies in the bottle’s cork and label.

An analysis from Scottish experts has now confirmed that Mr Zhang was unwittingly duped into buying a fake dram, and the Waldhaus am See hotel in St Moritz has recently flown its manager, Sandro Bernasconi, to China to reimburse him, reported the BBC.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/11/02/TELEMMGLPICT000070043865_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqQfMTxcT zWVbqCFMGyzs1iOyUq2cNTq2A9BNg5VCQiY8.jpeg?imwidth= 1240
Analysis has shown the whisky was not as advertised CREDIT: DAVID CHESKIN/PA WIRE

The whisky had been poured from an unopened bottle labelled as an 1878 Macallan single malt, and Mr Zhang’s shot is believed to have been the largest sum ever paid for a poured dram of Scotch. Had the bottle been genuine, it would have been worth £227,000.

When doubts emerged about its provenance, the hotel sent the whisky to specialists in Dunfermline who carried out carbon dating tests that showed it was probably made between 1970 and 1972. Further lab tests revealed it was probably a blended a Scotch and not a single malt.

Mr Bernasconi flew to China to break the bad news to Mr Zhang and to pay him back but he said the author was not angry. “He thanked me very much for the hotel’s honesty,” he told the BBC.


Wuxia (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?51641-Wuxia-resources) writing + whiskey (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?59392-Let-s-talk-Whisky!) = fake (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

This is really intriguing. I'm trying to imagine the reverse - like an American copycat of the Three Kingdoms videogame with embedded core capitalist values. What would the core capitalist values be? Are there core capitalist values? :confused::o


Chinese copycats of the world’s hottest videogame added “core socialist values” (https://qz.com/1131079/chinese-copycats-of-video-game-playerunknowns-battlegrounds-pubg-adopted-xi-jinpings-core-socialist-values/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/wildness-action-1-e1510816072972.png?w=940
“Never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission.” (Wildness Action)

WRITTEN BY Zheping Huang
November 16, 2017

You’ve logged onto your favorite game, and you’re ready to shoot and kill your enemies. Before being parachuted into the battleground, you see a banner hanging over your head that reads: “Never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission.”
It’s Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s newest catchphrase, taken from his work report presented at a recently concluded Communist Party congress.
Survival-shooter game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is the hottest videogame of the year, selling over 13 million copies globally, and Chinese companies are racing against one another to create their own copycats of it. Chief among them is a mobile version titled Wildness Action, which recently took the top spot in China’s iOS store.

In the latest update of the game, released by gaming company NetEase this week, red banners with slogans reflecting China’s “core socialist values” are emblazoned everywhere from buildings to bridges to containers. Another slogan, “Safeguard national security, safeguard world peace,” can also be seen in the game.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOpTQ80V4AAXnJC.jpg
View image on Twitter (https://twitter.com/luluyilun/status/930647836886208514/photo/1)
Lulu Yilun Chen ✔@luluyilun
Logged on Chinese copycat of #PUBG to shoot some heads, found it festooned with “socialist core value” banners. Ingenuity of Chinese co.s
8:05 PM - Nov 14, 2017
7 7 Replies 34 34 Retweets 47 47 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
It’s a vivid example of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to both expand and control the country’s tech sector and internet. As Xi noted in his work report, “East, west, north, or south, the Party leads everything.”

NetEase added the slogans as part of its overhaul of the game’s narrative. Previously the game was about fighting to be the last survivor on a deserted island; now, it is presented as a military drill for soldiers who’ll be recruited for China’s peacekeeping operations. That said, the key elements of the play mode remain the same, and are still uncannily similar to that of PUBG.

The changes came after China’s media watchdogs took aim at PUBG and similar survival games, saying they are unlikely to get a license to officially launch in China because they contain too much blood and gore. The violent, competitive spirit behind such games is “against our country’s core socialist values… and bad for teenagers’ physical and mental health,” according to a notice from China’s official video copyright association in October.

In response, NetEase published a notice (link in Chinese) saying that the company would comply with official instructions to modify its own survival games, ensuring that they convey core socialist values.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi—which also operates a PUBG-esque mobile game titled Xiaomi Gunfight—released a statement this week (link in Chinese) saying that it would work with censors to modify the game. “Our main theme is to safeguard world peace and defend the motherland,” the company said.

Xiaomi Gunfight didn’t include slogans with socialist values in the game, but also changed the story to depict a military drill. In the latest version, players who are shot in head don’t die; they simply get “eliminated” from the training.
screenshots of PUBG-like games

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/screenshots-of-pubg-like-games.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=640
From top to bottom: screenshots from PUBG, Wildness Action, and Xiaomi Gunfight.

NetEase and Xiaomi didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment. In response to the Chinese regulator’s October notice, Chang Han Kim, CEO of PUGB Corp, a subsidiary of PUGB’s South Korean developer, said: “We respect the decisions of all review boards, and we look forward to working with them to bring PUBG to as many fans as possible around the world.”

Chinese social-media and gaming giant Tencent is also launching its PUBG-like mobile game this month—Glorious Mission: Mission Action has already garnered more than 4 million pre-registrations on its official site.

[GeneChing]

'Fake parents' offer themselves as stand-ins to meet teachers... and lovers (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/10/fake-parents-offer-stand-ins-meet-teachers-lovers/)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/12/08/TELEMMGLPICT000148774577_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqaRL1kC4 G7DT9ZsZm6Pe3PehAFAI_f6ud569StXyOKH0.jpeg?imwidth= 1400
Chinese students looking to avoid embarrassment on parents' evenings can rent mum or dad for the occasion CREDIT: AFP

Neil Connor, beijing
10 DECEMBER 2017 • 1:02PM

China is well known as the home of the rented boyfriends and rented bridesmaids, but now stand-in parents are offering their services, for when you just can’t abide teachers – or lovers – meeting the real ones.

Offering stand-in help for anything from a tricky school parents’ evening to that awkward first encounter between the new girlfriend and mum and dad, fake parents believe they can ward off potential social catastrophes – temporarily at least.

“Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend who wants to meet your parents but you actually don’t want them to meet?” asks one advert on the Chinese Internet.

The Global Times newspaper, which said the service is usually charged at 50 yuan (£5.60) an hour - spoke to a rent-a-parent who takes his "profession" very seriously indeed.

"I study psychology," the fake dad told the newspaper. “No matter how nasty your teacher gets, I won't get angry.”

Young Chinese who are seeking fake parents are also posting on the Chinese web.

"A rented parent is needed,” said one comment. “Just need to make a phone call to my teacher."

Another asked: "Is there anyone in Shanghai who can be rented as parents to have a meal with my girlfriend?"

China is experiencing massive social changes, but most people are still deeply conservative.

Many marriages are arranged – even in the modern cities – and parents are often involved in their children’s relationships from an early stage.

It is unclear how many of the postings relating to ‘rented parents’ are people authentically seeking help, but China has a booming trade in renting people for a range of ‘personal’ services.

Boyfriends and girlfriends are rented over the New Year holiday period by singletons who want to put a stop to intrusive questions from parents.

Bridesmaids are also for hire in China, where wedding’s can often get out of hand and bridesmaids can be subjected to sexual harassment and physical abuse.

Chinese media also reported this week the growing trend of people using ‘rent me’ apps to offer themselves as friends.

Additional reporting by Christine Wei

What a funny job...

[GeneChing]

I'm only posting this because I like the title of this post that I just made up. Honestly, I can't even wrap my head about what this is and why they are making so much bank with it in China. :o


“CryptoKitties” clones are already popping up in China (https://qz.com/1174233/cryptokitties-clones-are-already-popping-up-in-china/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/e585a8e983a8e78cab_-_e4ba91e5aea0e59586e5ba97_-_e5aea0e789a9e993be.png?w=1600
Copycats. (PetsChain)

WRITTEN BY Josh Horwitz Zheping Huang
January 08, 2018

Last month, the global cryptocurrency community flocked en masse to CryptoKitties, a game that lets users breed and trade virtual kittens using ethereum, a virtual currency like bitcoin. At one point, 12% of all ethereum transactions were going toward the game, as users spent the equivalent of tens (and possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars on the virtual felines.

Chinese crypto enthusiasts have been left out of the fun, however. Playing CryptoKitties requires using a wallet service called MetaMask, an extension for the Chrome browser. Downloading MetaMask requires access to the Chrome web store, which is blocked by the Great Firewall—there are ways around that, but it’s a hassle.

To fill the absence, a number of CryptoKitties clones have popped up in China—highlighting pent-up demand for the game, as well as Chinese companies’ tendency to ape a fad that’s heating up elsewhere.

In recent days, news hit Chinese media that NetEase, one of China’s largest game distributors, will release a game entitled Beckoning Cat, named after the feline figurines often found in Chinese and Japanese homes and restaurants. Details remain scarce—NetEase offered only a website showing a cat silhouette and text reading “Blockchain pet cats, collect limited supply, coming soon!”

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/e3808ae7bd91e69893e68b9be8b4a2e78cabe3808be5ae98e6 96b9e7bd91e7ab99-e7bd91e69893e5b883e5b180e58cbae59d97e993bee9878de7 a385e4baa7e59381.png?w=640
Virtual felines coming soon. (NetEase)

It’s unclear how the game will work, or when exactly it will be released. NetEase did not respond to Quartz’s requests for comment. But if it is taking cues from CryptoKitties, it won’t be the first Chinese company to do so, as at least two others have beaten it to the punch.

A firm calling itself PetsChain launched a title called Cloud Petstore late last year. The company did not respond to Quartz’s emailed questions. Aside from the Chinese language and other localized tweaks, it closely resembles CryptoKitties—the cats themselves look lifted from the original. The title currently lists 3,735 felines for sale (compared to CryptoKitties’ 96,684), and a quick scan of the prices suggests most “Gen 0” characters—the pet-breeding game’s first-generation felines—are selling for about 0.02 ethereum (roughly $25).

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/e585a8e983a8e78cab_-_e4ba91e5aea0e59586e5ba97_-_e5aea0e789a9e993be.png?w=1600
Virtual cats offered in “Cloud Petstore.” (PetsChain)

And then there’s the cryptodogs, which can be bred and traded in a game called Pet Planet, launched last week. That title is based on Tron, a blockchain-based platform for digital entertainment content started in September. Tron features a virtual currency called tronix that’s experienced a meteoric rise since the end of last year, becoming the world’s best-performing cryptoasset in the first week of 2018.

Cryptodogs in Pet Planet can be traded among gamers at a fixed price of 200 tronix, which is about $35. In an upcoming update, players will be able to marry their dogs to each other, after which they’ll give birth to a cryptopuppy. The dogs come in different breeds and costumes, and have names that describe their looks, such as “Gangster Boss” and “Little Lion.” The game is currently available only in Chinese.

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/screen-shot-2018-01-08-at-6-06-33-pm.png?w=640
Virtual dogs in “Pet Planet.” (tron.game.com)

Tron founder and CEO Justin Sun is a 27-year-old tech entrepreneur based in Beijing. Before starting his own businesses, he worked as a chief representative for Ripple, now one of the world’s fastest-growing virtual currency systems, in greater China.

It’s not uncommon for Chinese companies to launch copycat versions of games that become popular globally, especially when Chinese gamers are locked out of playing the original. In July 2016, barred from playing Pokemon Go, Chinese users instead played City Elves Go, a knockoff that stripped away the augmented-reality features. Last year, while the global gaming community flocked to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Chinese users played copycats like NetEase’s Wildness Action, which peppered the gameplay area with propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party.

[GeneChing]

Jan 26
Can you tell the difference between China’s fake Paris and the real thing? (https://medium.com/shanghaiist/can-you-tell-the-difference-between-chinas-fake-paris-and-the-real-thing-38ab3c95de9c)
These photos comparing a real estate development outside of Hangzhou with Paris have gone viral on Chinese social media

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*JXgbKjccOYSoReqsSI4ZIQ.jpeg

China’s “Little Paris” is making headlines once again after a photo series went viral on Chinese social media this week comparing the town’s sights with those of the real deal.

Opened back in 2007, the development of Tianducheng (天都城), located near Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, is filled with Parisian architecture, complete with replicas of the Eiffel Tower and Versailles. It’s one of China’s many “replica cities,” which often seem populated more by couples shooting pre-wedding photos than actual home-owners.

In 2016, it served as the eerie backdrop for a Jamie xx music video.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*xiYRI-K14hPhkwlLO71ZKQ.png

And it also has caught the attention of French photographer François Prost, who has documented the striking similarities between Paris and Tianducheng in a photo series called “Paris Syndrome.”

You can view some of Prost’s photos below. See if you can figure out which is which…

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*T4E80V2CzsSItTW9OQI6ZQ.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*JjliLYRy5XinNRqaiCdrog.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*QfLgQs-8FULeWL-e-dMzJQ.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*X9fy7I5t3SDmTwB_W85oRQ.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*5dgtZ0HoNu8eN8yPRO6PfQ.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*BSwsZOEXG1MHhMI-NO0ItA.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*YEafjvyzGKrAyr7dtrjx2Q.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*bFhko_ynlpv9ZOU17WqQvQ.jpeg continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*UpoGFJ3aYvQ8EFQq2MQlOQ.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*e8pUTBaAN1BsTjxSmUseqg.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*9KiSHaXxhW544FTTaiKsSQ.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*qsoEkWjYpVR-Mhx1bpHnCw.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*xrpF8PfJGoR95q9A7DP5kA.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*w6oHvjYzJCsuncA5wtmXIA.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*LzBUppDMptl5qCR5-NVUrA.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*fYiny1iSv4Pdy7G2-EiQvA.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*xdW0cwNv7vtPeTs7tKOxkA.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*dQS6oKifTdXnz7Ibw7Sa9w.jpeg

In case you failed to pick up on the clues, we’ll now inform you that the photos on the left are from Tianducheng, while photos on the right are from Paris.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*g48FfKuCVuaMXJsFzCiJPw.jpeg
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*mbaCrnBYm6r32ymsh_vi_w.jpeg

This series of images hit Weibo earlier this week and was met with a mix of mirth and shame with one web user joking that the development was built in retribution for French troops looting and destroying the Old Summer Palace more than 150 years ago.

Here are a few more comments from the same thread:

“Where else can you see the Eiffel Tower and Versailles within walking distance but in China?”

“No matter what you build, there is nothing we cannot imitate.”

“The French can also go ahead and start work on the Great Wall.”

[Images via François Prost] I've never been to Paris. It's on my bucket list for sure.

[GeneChing]

With all the weird fakes on this thread lately, it's nice to see a classic resurface...:rolleyes:


Haul of 6,000 fake designer handbags found in shipping container in Hong Kong (http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2131796/haul-6000-fake-designer-handbags-found-shipping-container)
Stash, which arrived from mainland China en route to Chile, had an estimated value of HK$850,000
PUBLISHED : Friday, 02 February, 2018, 8:34pm
UPDATED : Friday, 02 February, 2018, 8:34pm
Clifford Lo

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2018/02/02/bc1a3dae-0805-11e8-82e3-6b95ccc67ee3_1280x720_203453.jpg?itok=zXYoTShT

Customs officers in Hong Kong confiscated about 6,000 fake designer handbags and wallets hidden in a shipping container that arrived from mainland China destined for Chile, they announced on Friday.

They searched the container after it arrived from Huangpu, Guangdong province, on Monday.

During the inspection at the Customs Cargo Examination Compound in Tuen Mun, officers found 5,000 suspected counterfeit handbags and 1,000 suspected counterfeit wallets, according to the Customs and Excise Department. The haul had an estimated market value of HK$850,000 (US$110,000).

In Hong Kong importing or exporting any goods with a forged trademark carries a maximum penalty of a five-year jail term and a HK$500,000 fine.

In a separate incident on Thursday night, customs officers arrested four men aged between 31 and 59, seizing about 32,000 pirated DVDs and pornographic DVDs from four shops during an anti-piracy operation in Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok.

“Customs has been carrying out stringent enforcement actions against the sales of infringing goods and will continue to step up patrols and enforcement actions against piracy activities during the Lunar New Year holidays,” a spokesman for the department said.


Thread: Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
Thread: 2018 Year of the EARTH DOG (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70579-2018-Year-of-the-EARTH-DOG)

[GeneChing]

Not sure this counts. Maybe as a Knock-Off FAIL. :rolleyes:


Jan 23
Chengdu has its own knockoff version of London’s Tower Bridge — and it’s butt-ugly (https://medium.com/shanghaiist/chengdu-has-its-own-knockoff-version-of-londons-tower-bridge-and-it-s-butt-ugly-7c4afbf7bc40)
This is not the first Tower Bridge ‘replica’ to be built in China, but it’s certainly the worst

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*saUKDGUuxR_3Wfirm4gSHg.jpeg

Photos have hit the Chinese internet of a less-than-faithful “replica” of one of the world’s most iconic bridges.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*LhNsp4kK-3qA5de2hBJQfg.jpeghttps://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*tWXlaKkqWTNdHI91pHpuKQ.jpeg

Spanning across a river in Chengdu’s Tianfu New Area, a plaque near this modern marvel claims that its design, featuring eight, red “European-style” steeples, was inspired by London’s Tower Bridge.

Work on the bridge began back in 2012 and it was finally completed recently after many years of construction.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*1bNNT6T3lR0TTjI6eR8vWA.jpeg

Of course, locals have taken to calling it the “Shanzhai” Tower Bridge, a Chinese term that has become shorthand for fake, copycat, or pirated goods.

Meanwhile, after viewing the photos, netizens have wondered, “What can not be shanzhai’d?”

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*mZ3PlxbsfbojBGfTD4JXkQ.jpeghttps://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*HwaN1S7EwI6caYRSRmIeFQ.jpeg

In fact, China already has a much more impressive Tower Bridge recreation that is located in Suzhou. Built back in 2012, the bridge is mostly popular with those looking to take some “European-style” wedding photos.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*qqTAx7hdXqrU9TR43FXe7w.jpeg

For comparison, here’s a photo of the original:

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*E0Pr0WiV8kyxvD-er_CxkA.jpeg

[Images via NetEase]

'shanzhai’d' is the word for this here thread. :)

[GeneChing]

Actually not quite fake - a plagiarist.


Chinese art professor sacked after award-winning poster series found to be plagiarised (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2143909/chinese-art-professor-sacked-after-award-winning-poster-series)
Fan Yu has lost his job and his Red Dot design award after it emerged he had borrowed many elements of a work by British illustrator Russell Cobb

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 29 April, 2018, 4:33pm
UPDATED : Monday, 30 April, 2018, 6:04pm
Sidney Leng
sidney.leng@scmp.com
http://twitter.com/SidneyLeng

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2018/04/29/bdc5a002-4b5e-11e8-85b3-af25d27017e0_1280x720_163317.jpg?itok=eq1tZy0s

A Chinese art professor has been sacked after he was found to have plagiarised the work of a British illustrator for a poster series that won him an international award, a mainland newspaper reports.

The Xian Academy of Fine Arts said Fan Yu was dismissed from his job on Friday after the school confirmed the plagiarism, Chengdu Business Daily reported on Saturday.

Fan’s artwork won the Red Dot: Best of the Best award for communication design in October, but has been stripped of the prize following the revelation, according to the report.

The Red Dot Design Award is an international competition with prizes in categories covering product and communication design that started in Germany in 1955.

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/04/29/bd966bca-4b5e-11e8-85b3-af25d27017e0_972x_163317.jpg
Fan Yu’s poster (left) is compared with a work by Russell Cobb (right). Photo: Chaoxiart

The description of Fan’s winning four-part poster series, Open Air Cinema National Museum, said it was designed for the Xian Concert Hall and the drawings “explore how the brain, the ‘strange cavity’, works and processes information with its countless cells and lobes”.

Fan was also promoted by the academy after he won the award.

But last week, concerns were raised online about striking similarities between Fan’s posters and a 2011 work by British artist Russell Cobb, entitled New Ideas II.

A detailed comparison by Chaoxiart, or “the art of plagiarism” – an account on Chinese social media platform WeChat that exposes such cases – showed that Fan had borrowed many elements of Cobb’s work, with the only variations being the use of different colours in some places.

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/04/29/bd3594a8-4b5e-11e8-85b3-af25d27017e0_972x_163317.jpg
Chinese social media account “the art of plagiarism” put together a detailed comparison of Fan Yu’s work (left) and Russell Cobb’s (right). Photo: Chaoxiart

Chaoxiart said it contacted Cobb, who told them in an email that he had not met or heard of Fan until April 21, when Fan asked him to collaborate on an artwork. Fan had aggressively tried to pursue the collaboration after Cobb discovered his work had been stolen, according to the email posted on Chaoxiart.

Producers of hit TV show about corruption in China facing US$2.7m plagiarism suit

Cobb teaches at the University of the Arts London and was previously chairman of the Association of Illustrators.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/04/29/bd68e0c4-4b5e-11e8-85b3-af25d27017e0_972x_163317.jpg
Fan Yu borrowed many elements of Russell Cobb’s work for his poster series. Photo: Chaoxiart

In a statement, Xian Concert Hall said it had not worked with or had any contact with Fan and only found out about the poster series on April 24, when the plagiarism was exposed by Chaoxiart. The concert hall said it had not commissioned any such work.

China rises to No. 2 art market as billionaires more than double in 2017, closely watched report says

Red Dot meanwhile said it had removed Fan’s name and artwork from its website after confirming it had been plagiarised and that the client information was fabricated, according to the newspaper report. It said anyone who infringed on copyright would be banned for life from taking part in the award.

[GeneChing]

This is the other edge of this double-edged sword...


JUST LIKE THE REAL THING?
“Unbranded” luxury items in China are like knockoffs, with one vital difference (https://qz.com/1278501/unbranded-luxury-items-in-china-are-like-knockoffs-with-one-vital-difference/)
Marc Bain May 15, 2018

https://qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/h_00996152-e1526417650912.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1600
What's in a label? (Michael Reynolds/EPA)

The fashion manufacturers in China have gotten so good that they’ve earned public praise from Miuccia Prada herself (paywall).

Some of these factories are using their prowess and reputation for quality to make products nearly identical to those they’re creating for their foreign clients, including prestigious luxury labels, but selling them unbranded at lower prices in China.

Since 2016, manufacturers for brands including Gucci, Burberry, and more have been working with Chinese technology company NetEase to sell such products on its e-commerce site, Yanxuan. The practice has helped drive the rapid growth of Yanxuan, which is emerging as a big e-commerce player in China.

As Forbes pointed out, products you might find on the site include unbranded boots that look an awful lot like Ugg boots, made by a manufacturer of Uggs. But where actual Uggs might cost a couple hundred dollars on Tmall or JD.com, the boots are more like $45 on Yanxuan.

Pan Xiaoning, director of intellectual property at the Chinese law firm Yingke, told Forbes that this manufacturer would probably be violating the terms of its agreement with Ugg. “A majority of brands would have binding terms with their manufacturers that forbids them to use the brands for third-party promotion, in which case NetEase’s conduct is more likely an infringement,” she said.

While Yanxuan has been described as a “knockoff marketplace,” Jing Daily reports that in certain cases, whether or not the products really are knockoffs can be complicated because of a distinction in how factories may work with brands. Not all of them are simple contract manufacturers hired to stitch together fully-finished designs that brands provide them. They may also participate in developing parts of the design to get it ready for commercial manufacturing, in which case they may claim ownership of the intellectual property.

Steve Dickinson, an attorney who helps foreign companies to do business in China, explained the tricky situation in a blog post for his firm, Harris Bricken. He focused on the simplest type of arrangement, explaining, “In this most fundamental form, the foreign buyer provides drawings and a specification sheet. The Chinese factory does the rest of the work, in consultation with the buyer.”

Whether or not NetEase or the manufacturers are infringing on intellectual property, brands, including Ugg, and organizations such as the American Apparel & Footwear Association aren’t happy with the behavior. But it isn’t likely to soon go away.

The site Biyao, for example, started with a similar idea, except it allowed shoppers to customize products from the same manufacturers producing for top foreign brands. The factories themselves can use it as another source of income, too, at a time when more of them are seeing their manufacturing contracts leave China for lower-wage neighbors.

[GeneChing]

These are so awesome. Next time I'm in China, I'd love to visit one.


INSIDE CHINA'S INCREDIBLE 'FAKE CITIES': WHY EVEN XI JINPING COULDN'T STOP REPLICAS OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST LANDMARKS (http://www.newsweek.com/fake-cities-exploring-chinas-eerie-replicas-paris-rome-and-jackson-hole-1017249)
BY CHRISTINA ZHAO ON 7/12/18 AT 6:00 AM

In China’s eastern coastal province of Zhejiang sits a 354-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by 12 square miles of Parisian-style buildings, fountains and landscaping. Although the pastiche town is more than 5,000 miles away from Paris, it was designed to capture France’s essence—and to ensure that those who visited it would no longer need to see the real thing.

Tianducheng—also known as “Sky City”—opened its doors to the public as a luxury housing estate in 2007 with capacity to accommodate more than 10,000 residents. But it remained largely unoccupied as Chinese citizens’ rejected its bizarre theme and undesirable location.

In 2013, a video surfaced showing the town’s long-empty boulevards and Eiffel Tower overgrown with weeds. The footage led to several reports deeming the design a failure and the city a “post-apocalyptic ghost town.”

But Sky City isn’t the only Chinese town that carries an uncanny familiarity to somewhere else entirely. As the Chinese economy began to boom in the 1990s, duplicating Western architecture became a fad, as citizens increasingly wanted homes that conveyed success and wealth on a global scale. Starting in the early 2000s, “fake” cities and knockoff global cultural landmarks have sprung up in all corners of the country.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/1agettyimages-507012500.jpg
A street cleaner crosses the street in front of a replica of the Eiffel Tower in Tianducheng, a luxury real estate development located in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province. The replica Eiffel Tower rises to 108 meters (354 feet) in the heart of the city's plush Tianducheng development.
GETTY IMAGES

In Hebei, two hours north of Beijing, lies a version of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, eerily similar to the American West. The resort town—where wealthy Chinese city inhabitants go for vacation—has a town square, cowboys, a church and Route 66 running through it. In 2001, the Shanghai Planning Commission embarked on the “One City, Nine Towns” project, which aimed to create multiple-themed satellite villages in a bid to alleviate the inner city’s growing population.

Thames Town in the Songjiang District looks like a caricature of London's boroughs. Its rowhouse streets are paved with cobblestone, and have red telephone booths, cathedrals, guards dressed in British uniforms and a statue of Winston Churchill. Only an hour’s drive east, in Suzhou, is a replica of Tower Bridge, which boasts four towers instead of two.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/8a-gettyimages-645812534.jpg
A bridge modeled on London's Tower Bridge, in Suzhou, in China's eastern Jiangsu province. The bridge features four 40-meter-tall towers instead of two, but otherwise uses many design elements from the London original.
GETTY

Anthony MacKay, the masterplanner and architect of Thames Town, told Newsweek that he was disappointed with the finished product, calling the entire village “comical.”

“It’s not how I intended Thames Town to be. It’s doesn’t look right. I’m angry about it,” he said. “They came [to England], took photographs of lots of buildings, went back and copied them… It’s like a collection of facades, there’s no depth to the buildings.”

Thames Town and the other eight cities modeled after the West’s greatest architectural hits function both as housing estates and tourist attractions for those who can’t make it to the real thing.

Chinese families who can’t afford to travel to the Parthenon in Greece can instead visit Lanzhou in Gansu to see a copy. Other famous landmarks have also been erected all across China, including Washington D.C.’s White House, Rome’s Colosseum and Egypt’s Great Sphinx of Giza.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/5a-rtr19o3v.jpg
Workers build a pavement outside a replica of the Roman Colosseum at the Fisherman's Wharf, a locally invested entertainment park with a casino in Macau.
REUTERS

In recent years, Beijing’s attempts to limit the spread of these “weird, oversized and xenocentric” architectures have been in vain. In 2016, China’s State Council released a document that required all new buildings to be “suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye.”

President Xi Jinping, who initially called for the end of “weird architecture,” spearheaded the directive after the rapid expansion of Chinese cities and increased urbanization resulted in a surge of strange buildings, including doughnut-shaped skyscrapers and a phallic-shaped high rise.

Although the order was not aimed specifically at pastiche buildings, they were included in the directive. "Fine art works should be like sunshine from the blue sky and the breeze in spring that will inspire minds, warm hearts, cultivate taste and clean up undesirable work styles," Xi said. The order also banned gated communities and nonpermitted developments.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/rtx1qlre.jpg
A Chinese future bride has her friends playing with her dress during a pre-wedding photo shoot in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris, August 28, 2015.
REUTERS

Xi’s criticism of excessive architecture has since influenced local governments’ decisions when granting consent for buildings. “Generally speaking, local governments now tend to approve more conservative designs," Feng Guochuan, a Shenzhen architect told the The New York Times.

Despite the nationwide crackdown, William Shakespeare’s historic hometown Stratford-upon-Avon is currently still being recreated as part of a new tourist town called San Weng, in Jiangxi province.

“China’s rising middle and upper class are exploring the world, but its still expensive and difficult. For many Chinese citizens, a visit to the Paris replica in Hangzhou is the next best thing,” Bianca Bosker, an American journalist and novelist, told Newsweek.

“These are not just theme parks, some of them do double duty as both home and tourist attraction, which is not so different from the real Paris or Rome.”

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/15a-rtra7vf.jpg
A Chinese worker walks past a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Shanghai.
REUTERS

In 2013, Bosker published the book Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, which presented the first definitive chronicle of Chinese “duplitecture,” a word she coined to describe the phenomenon. While researching the book, Bosker traveled to multiple locations in China in a bid to better understand why the world’s most populous country was appropriating historical Western architecture.

“For those people who haven’t been to Sky City, when you step foot in these duplitecture communities, it feels as though you’ve been transported thousands of miles away,” Bosker recalled. “The smell of the air changes. There’s such a close attention to detail.”

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/16a-rtx16s7p.jpg
A government building in Mentougou district of Beijing. Local residents said the new building resembles Moscow's Kremlin.
REUTERS

Although Tianducheng may look like Paris, the city is still culturally Chinese and isn’t as well maintained as the French capital. “French-style” bakeries sell taro, salted egg and red bean treats rather than Parisian baguettes, the fountains are dry, and smog clouds the air.

"I think [the city is] a little strange. I live here because it's cheap. In Hangzhou, this is very, very cheap," Rachel Ni, a resident, told ABC News in 2016. "The environment is good, especially for the baby."

While some homebuyers found Tianducheng too weird and inconvenient, other towns located closer to main cities have sold much better. According to a Nightline report, one highly sought-after home in China’s Jackson Hole sold for $2 million because of its close proximity to Beijing.

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/7a-gettyimages-466383900.jpg
Tourists visit a full-size replica of the Great Sphinx in Chuzhou, Anhui province. The replica was built as part of the World Cultural Heritage Expo Park.
GETTY

In recent years, as more people moved into Tianducheng, the city has been transformed from a ghost town to a normal place where people live. Nowadays, most of the parking spots are occupied, couples stroll its streets in the evenings, and beneath the faux Eiffel tower, tourists and wedding parties can be seen posing for photos throughout the day, every day.

After spending years trying to figure out the reason behind China’s obsession with duplitecture, Bosker and MacKay have only ended up with more questions.

“Maybe it doesn’t actually matter that much because they are so clearly a pastiche it’s almost comical,” MacKay said. “If the people are happy to go there and walk around and have a drink. That’s OK.”

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2018/07/11/4a-gettyimages-80926369_0.jpg
A view of the government office building in Yingquan district in Fuyang, Anhui province, east China. At a cost of $4.28M, the "Western-style" building is called the "White House" by locals. Its construction was made possible through the demolition of a local school and the repossession of farming land.
GETTY

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=KxAW3t423rg

[GeneChing]

This is really a tad off topic.



China officials 'faked water tests with bottled water' (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-45355948)
2 hours ago

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/A1F6/production/_103226414_mediaitem103226411.jpg
GETTY CREATIVE
The officials reportedly faked the data by using bottled water instead of river water

China is sending investigators to Hunan province after local officials were accused of faking data at a water monitoring station, state media report.

The officials are alleged to have placed sensors intended to measure the water quality of Lujiang River inside bottles of mineral water instead.

The river, in Zhuzhou, is badly polluted by sewage water, reports say.

There is widespread suspicion that some local officials and companies in China ignore environmental policies.

The environment ministry says it is investigating in Zhuzhou and "will seriously punish" any "violations".

One monitoring sensor was even placed in a cup of tea instead of the Lujiang River, Xinhua news agency says.

Water monitoring currently takes place at 2,050 sites in the country, China Daily reports.

The Chinese government has vowed to improve its efforts to monitor and combat pollution - but there continues to be concern about air and water quality in China.

In 2016, one government report said more than 80% of rural wells in the north-east contained water unsafe for drinking.

Meanwhile, a separate 2017 government survey found more than 13,000 companies in China failed to meet environmental standards.

[GeneChing]

LOOK: Fake Angkor Wat opens in Nanning (https://shanghai.ist/2018/09/18/look-fake-angkor-wat-opens-in-nanning/)
You can now experience the beauty of Angkor Wat without ever leaving China
by Alex Linder September 18, 2018

https://shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/angkor-what13-950x570.jpg

Always wanted to see the world famous temple complex at Angkor Wat, but don’t feel like going all the way to Cambodia? Don’t worry, China has you covered.

Recently, a new tourist attraction opened in the southern city of Nanning which mimics the iconic world heritage site, featuring Angkor Wat-like architecture, carvings, and statues. Reportedly, the design team made trips to the actual Angkor Wat to make sure to get all of the details right.

China is infamous for its reproductions of some of the world’s most famous sites, boasting entire theme parks where you can travel the globe without ever leaving China. Occasionally, these imitations anger the original owner, resulting in Sphinxes being beheaded (http://shanghaiist.com/2016/04/04/sphinx_gone/).

[Images via Imagine China / Cambodia News English]

And I thought Vegas was silly. :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

...and it's a bad time to be in the martial arts business. We've already felt negative impact of this looming trade war. At Kung Fu Tai Chi (http://www.martialartsmart.com/19341.html), we just have to eat bitter (glad I took my vacation before this hit). At Tiger Claw (https://www.tigerclaw.com/home.php), they are absorbing as much as possible so as not to pass the rising cost of goods to their clients. Hopefully, this doesn't go on for too long.


Trump’s trade war brings unexpected boom for knockoff designer bags from China (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/an-unexpected-winner-from-trumps-trade-war-knockoff-designer-bags-from-china/2018/09/19/69d8fd80-b667-11e8-b79f-f6e31e555258_story.html?utm_term=.a777bf273dd4)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/B-rT0lHqdYsclrnWqSqjmWgLO1Y=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ASR274VXMQI6RLSPFQKDTSLNPE.jpg
People shop at fake designer handbag stalls in Beijing's famous Silk Alley market on June 11, 2006. (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images)
By Danielle Paquette
September 19

BEIJING — When President Trump threatens China with more tariffs, Lulu thinks of her commission checks and smiles.

It’s a good time to work in the fake-handbag business.

The shadow industry — already a big moneymaker — stands to reap another potential windfall from the trade war, which escalated this week.

Knockoffs of famous brands — Coach, Kate Spade and others — are mostly made in China and arrive at U.S. shores through clandestine channels built to dodge authorities. The authentic purses and their components, also made in China, are shipped through official routes and would face Trump’s proposed new duties of 10 percent effective next Monday.

This all stacks up in favor of the counterfeit labels at every step of their illicit journey: from factory floors in China to street vendors in cities worldwide.

In the game of "Trade Wars," perhaps the winning move is not to play. (Daron Taylor, Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

The 32-year-old copycat merchant, who agreed to an interview using only her nickname to stay under the radar, said the goods come from a site in the southern province of Guangdong. “No middleman” and no taxes, she said.

If prices for brand-name bags swell on international markets because of tariffs, Lulu predicts it can only be good for Chinese knockoffs. “More people will think: ‘Why not just buy a bag here?’ ” she said.

The next wave of tariffs targets another $200 billion in Chinese imports, including handbags, leather and silk.

This prospect alarms both American fashion designers and global authorities, because U.S. firms already lose billions each year to counterfeiters. Officials also link knockoff sales to organized crime groups that exploit child labor.

“A tariff on a genuine bag is a subsidy for a fake,” said Susan Scafidi, a New York fashion lawyer focused on intellectual property.

The global counterfeit trade for all items, from purses to electronics to software, is worth $461 billion, according to the latest estimate by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That is more than the global drug trade.

And more than 85 percent of the handbag replicas originate in mainland China and Hong Kong. A fifth of counterfeit busts worldwide involve American brands.

Middle-income shoppers are particularly vulnerable to cost increases, analysts warn, and could swing to the faux side for their splurges at a time when finding Chinese fakes on the Internet has never been easier.

The tags on Lulu’s purses in Beijing say 1,280 yuan, or about $186. She gets a cut of the sales but would not say how much. Another merchant, who declined to provide her name, told The Washington Post that she earns between $730 and $1,200 per month, depending on the appetite for knockoffs.

That’s good money in a country where workers on average earn $8,250 annually, according to World Bank data.

Most customers won’t spend more than $150 on a knockoff purse, Lulu said.

That includes Lauren Everett, a 29-year-old flight attendant from London, who visited the Silk Market on a recent afternoon to browse the deals.

Normally, she wouldn’t seek out fakes, but if someone there is hawking a near-identical copy of a French tote she likes, and it’s cheaper than the $125 version in stores, “you may as well,” she said.

About 7,000 miles away, New York handbag designer Rebecca Minkoff became the most prominent face of the fashion industry’s rising concerns last month.

She testified to the U.S. trade representative in a written statement that Trump’s tariffs would hurt her namesake brand, known for bags with cross-body straps that start at about $150.

New duties on handbags, Minkoff wrote, “will only ennoble the bad actors in the Chinese economy who pose a genuine threat to our business via bad faith registrations of our recognized trademarks.”

Research from economist Vincent Wenxiong Yao supports Minkoff’s fear. When the cost of legitimate goods rises, so does demand for counterfeits, Yao wrote, sparking a “substitution effect.”

Soaring prices are inevitable if businesses have to absorb higher border taxes in the widening trade battle, said Brent Cleaveland, executive director of the Fashion Jewelry and Accessories Trade Association, which represents 225 U.S. companies.

“Any disruption of the supply chain will obviously increase costs, challenge compliance and promote discord,” Cleaveland said.

Warnings from industry groups came weeks after authorities made their largest seizure of fakes at the Port of Newark.

In late August, the federal government announced that it had confiscated enough knockoffs from China imitating Coach, Michael Kors and Tory Burch, among other fashion brands, to stuff 22 shipping containers. Authorities estimated that the load represented a loss to U.S. companies of nearly $500,000.

Beijing has pledged over the years to crack down on the fakers, slamming online retail giants such as Alibaba for failing to eradicate replicas on its platforms.

Officials also routinely inspect brick-and-mortar stores. But, as the economist Yao points out in his research, they may not take the job too seriously because local vendors rely on the income. Often, he wrote, sellers seem to know precisely when to hide their merchandise.

Such appeared to be the case this month at Beijing’s Pearl Market, another counterfeit hot spot.

As hundreds of African delegates visited the capital in September for an economic summit, merchants told The Post that security had tightened so they did not have their goods on display.

Instead, they led buyers to unmarked apartments down a nearby alley and showed them closets full of knockoff Gucci, Prada, Michael Kors and Louis Vuitton handbags — also from Guangdong, the manufacturing hotbed in the south.

Merchants encouraged foreign customers to share their social media usernames with friends back home. They were happy to take international orders.

Luna Lin contributed to this report.

[GeneChing]

Wait...what?


China to launch artificial 'moon' into orbit to light up city (https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-launch-artificial-apos-moon-181705664.html?.tsrc=fauxdal&fbclid=IwAR0P4Uf8ionS2RGV-lKKme5f4k_PegnEUdi6jBSiQNM1KOYPMy-rcf7UktU)
Joseph Archer
,The Telegraph•October 17, 2018

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/.fFgYbcKzP3gywPApJ_AEw--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en-GB/homerun/the_telegraph_258/e6058e878ba6d52a585aec7b446a42da
Officials have intentions to have a satellite in orbit by 2020 that will be able to reflect light from the Sun onto its streets at night - Pacific Press / Barcroft Media

China is to launch a fake "moon" into space that it hopes will illuminate one of the country's biggest cities.

Officials in Chengdu, a city of 14 million people in China's southwestern province of Sichuan, announced plans to place a satellite in orbit by 2020 capable of reflecting sunlight onto its streets at night, claiming it will be bright enough to entirely replace street lights.

The satellite would use a reflective coating to direct light to illuminate an area on earth of up to 50 square miles, according to Wu Chunfeng, chairman of the city’s Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute.

The launch follows a similar project in 1999 when Russian researchers planned to use orbiting mirrors to light up cities in Siberia, hoping it would be a cheaper alternative to electric lighting.

The scheme developed by Russia used a device called Znamya 2. It was equipped with a 25-metre mirror to illuminate a three-mile wide patch of land. During its first orbit the craft was destroyed following a collision in space. The scheme was abandoned.

In remarks first reported by CIFNews, Mr Chunfeng told a science event in Chengdu that the artificial moon, which has been undergoing testing for several years, will produce at least eight times more light than the real moon.

He did not say how much the project would cost.

Scientists have warned the device could disturb wildlife and disrupt systems that observe the earth’s atmosphere.

However, Kang Weimin, a director at the School of Aerospace at the Harbin Institute of Technology, told CIFNews that the satellite will produce a dusk-like glow, meaning it will not affect animals.

THREADS:
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
That's no moon...it's a space station!

[GeneChing]

NOVEMBER 7, 2018 4:39PM PT
Kris Wu’s iTunes U.S. Sales Acquired ‘Fraudulently’ and Won’t Count Toward Charts (https://variety.com/2018/music/news/kris-wus-massive-itunes-u-s-sales-were-acquired-fraudulently-and-will-not-count-towards-charts-1203022049/)
Fans of fellow Universal Music artist Ariana Grande, as well as industry insiders, contend that the Chinese artist gamed the system.
By SHIRLEY HALPERIN
Executive Editor, Music
@shirleyhalperin

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/wu-ariana-grande.jpg?w=1000&h=562&crop=1
CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

UPDATED: A strange thing happened on the iTunes U.S. store on Monday (Nov. 5) when Kris Wu, a Chinese-Canadian actor and artist, practically swept the Top 10 songs chart. For much of the day and into the night, the only non-Wu track in the top five was Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next,” which had premiered amid much fanfare just ahead of “Saturday Night Live” on Nov. 3. For an artist who was accustomed to topping the chart with every new release, it was a bitter pill for Grande to swallow. At the same time, it seemed curious that Wu, whose album “Antares” had yet to be released in China, would have such momentum on a U.S. chart. While he’s a household name in Asia, in America he’s comparably an unknown. Also, Wu’s tracks weren’t streaming in significant numbers which was reason enough for some industry insiders to cry foul.

Indeed, according to a well-placed insider, Wu’s album sales were acquired fraudulently and will not count toward the iTunes sales chart reported to Nielsen and disseminated by Billboard. The determination was made to “suppress those sales numbers” on Wednesday afternoon following patterns of high-volume purchases on iTunes, first of the explicit version of “Antares,” and then of the clean version.

In a statement early Thursday, a rep for Nielsen (which publishes chart data in Billboard) said the data is under review: “Billboard and Nielsen Music are working closely to ensure both the accuracy and legitimacy of the sales volumes being reported for Kris Wu this week. We capture data from a number of sources including streaming, radio and retail, allowing us to validate the accuracy of sales and playback information as well as identify anomalies. As we do with all reports when irregularities are noticed during the normal weekly validation process, we work closely with our partners to address the issue, which may result in excluding any irregular or excessive sales patterns, prior to charts being finalized.”

So how did this happen? According to insiders, there were several factors that contributed to Wu’s showing. First, his album hadn’t yet been released in China where the label purportedly purposely held it back so it could come out on Wu’s birthday, Tuesday, Nov. 6. Typically, albums come out on Fridays worldwide, as per the global release date change instituted in 2015. But in the U.S., it was already available on iTunes, released by Interscope Records on Nov. 2. What transpired was a classic supply and demand scenario where “supply in the U.S. met the demand in China.”

This theory was supported by Ariana Grande manager Scooter Braun in an Instagram post early Thursday, relating a conversation he’d had with Wu. “Last night we had an opportunity to connect and talk and show respect,” he wrote. “It was explained to he and I last night that because his release was held back in China for his birthday his fans went and got the music any way they could and that was US Itunes. Once the release in China took place the fans had their access. He has never been removed from the charts on iTunes. That is false. Those were real people from the US and international community and not bots like many have rumored. I have never wished anything bad for Kris nor any other artist and those saying otherwise are wrong. Any fans of anyone I manage who are using this opportunity to spread any sort of division or racism are dead wrong and I won’t stand for it.”

A comment from Universal Music China (to which Wu is signed, and with Interscope as the U.S. licensee) was less clear in translation, but according to the site SixTone it claims the chart numbers were “genuine and effective.”



scooterbraun (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp4P0l6gZYk/?utm_source=ig_embed)
Verified
•

27,256 likes
scooterbraun Over the past few days I have become aware of an artist named @kriswu. Last night we had an opportunity to connect and talk and show respect. We learned of eachother since many rumors have come out about both us in connection to his newest release. Kris is a great artist who on a global scale is a star. It was explained to he and I last night that because his release was held back in China for his birthday his fans went and got the music any way they could and that was US Itunes. Once the release in China took place the fans had their access. He has never been removed from the charts on iTunes. That is false. I have never wished anything bad for Kris nor any other artist and those saying otherwise are wrong. Any fans of anyone I manage who are using this opportunity to spread any sort of division or racism are dead wrong and I won’t stand for it. The music community is international and no longer held by borders. Kris happy birthday and you showed yourself to be a global star. Glad we got to connect and speak and keep your head held high. This is just the first of many achievements for you. And for those using my name for false rumors now you know exactly where I stand. Keep it positive.

While it’s not hard to see how fans from China, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, could impact a chart so swiftly, it is less clear how those living in the famously curtained country, which doesn’t even have access to Twitter, able to make a purchase on a U.S. platform. Another source surmises that there was “a plan to game the U.S. system to gain traction in the U.S. and mobilize a new audience.”

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/kris-wu-itunes2.jpg
CREDIT: THE WHALE REPORT

Still other insiders contend that Chinese fans were able to use VPN manipulation to access the U.S. iTunes store, noting that Spotify is not available in China, so it stands to reason that Wu devotees would resort to any method possible to support their favorite artist (Wu is also a graduate of boy band EXO), and that there are indeed that many diehards in the U.S. Still, the integrity of the iTunes store comes into question if such a VPN breach occurred. And an added anomaly: as soon as Wu’s album was available in China, his rank swiftly slipped on the U.S. iTunes chart to position No. 90. Where did all those U.S. fans go? (Apple declined comment.)

Then there’s the issue of whether Wu’s sales would be counted towards Nielsen Music metrics, which power the Billboard charts. If “bots” weren’t a factor, an argument could be made for Wu to chart, or at least that it’s not Universal Music Group’s problem, which may still be the case in terms of keeping the money. But the explicit determination was made that sales acquired in such a matter are considered “fraud.” Spotify is not unsusceptible to these issues either, as Variety reported in August.

UMG signed Wu earlier this year to release his music internationally, excluding Japan and Korea, through a partnership between Universal Music China, Interscope Geffen A&M in the U.S. and Island Records in the U.K., as well as UMG’s operations in more than 60 countries. UMG Greater China is headed by chairman/CEO Sunny Chang.

All of this is not to say that Wu isn’t deserving of success. He enlisted some of the top hitmakers of the day for the album — the song “November Rain,” for example, features production by Murda Beatz (Drake, Migos), while other tracks credit Frank Dukes — and he’s already notched an iTunes No. 1 in the past, “Deserve,” featuring Travis Scott, which has racked up more than a billion streams (and is also on the track list for “Antares”). He’s also starred in such films as “XxX: Return of Xander Cage,” “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” and “Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back,” in addition to recently being named the face of Louis Vuitton.

Ariana Grande tried to take things in stride — she did, after all, have a No. 1 on streaming service Apple Music, the first pop artist to top that tally, and “Thank u, next” currently sits comfortably atop the iTunes single chart — but her fans didn’t hold back, launching the hashtag #kriswho and pointing to Wu fan groups which had detailed instructions on how purchase individual tracks or download the album and make it count. Making matters a bit more awkward, both Grande and Wu are signed to UMG labels (Grande to Republic Records).

Of course, we all know Kris Wu.

[GeneChing]

Column by Nicolas Groffman
Top Gun was twice remade in Chinese, why didn’t anybody notice? Clue: PLA (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2170552/top-gun-was-twice-remade-chinese-why-didnt-anybody-notice-clue)
Chinese fans loved the original so much there just had to be a remake. But, writes Nicolas Groffman, that’s when the military got involved
PUBLISHED : Monday, 29 October, 2018, 8:02am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 November, 2018, 4:41pm
Nicolas Groffman

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2018/10/29/b76b0300-da6f-11e8-a41d-3d2712b32637_1280x720_115057.jpg?itok=NsDV26hL

In the summer of 1986, my friend Charles and I saw a trailer for the most amazing film conceivable, with F-14s landing on carriers.

They crashed down amid the steam in super-modern all-grey livery. The film came out a few months later and only those with large reserves of intellectual snobbery failed to enjoy it. It was Top Gun.

In mainland China and Hong Kong, the movie was called “Zhuang Zhi Ling Yun”, a good metaphorical name implying reaching for the clouds. It is a perennial favourite in China, and many know the movie scene by scene, as became apparent when in January 2011 the PLA Air Force released footage of aerial combat exercises, including a scene of a successful attack on a drone.

Except it wasn’t.

It was a clip from Top Gun. Chinese internet users spotted this immediately, exposed the trick, and humiliated the air force, which removed the clip from its website and presumably told off whoever was responsible – but the seed of an idea had been planted. China must have its own Top Gun!

The 2017 film Kong Tian Lie, or Sky Hunters, which stars Fan Bingbing and her boyfriend Li Chen, was billed as being the first movie to have the full cooperation of the PLA Air Force. It was not.

That honour goes to Jian Shi Chu Ji, or Sky Fighters, released in March 2011. It did not get good reviews from ordinary cinema-goers, because it managed to strike that special blend of cliché and tedium that robs even potentially exciting situations of all passion.

You would think that filming J-10s in dogfight sequences would inevitably be thrilling.

But all suspense is removed; no one is ever in danger for more than 30 seconds, and scenes of the inquiries into dangerous flying last longer than the scenes of the actual dangerous flying.

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/10/29/c8c3d1be-da6e-11e8-a41d-3d2712b32637_1320x770_115057.jpg
Top Gun is a perennial favourite for many Chinese film-goers. Photo: Alamy

Sky Fighters does however have moments of comedy. At a press conference for obsequious civilians, the film’s hero, General Yue, answers a foreign woman who throws him a tricky question. “You are the bravest pilot I have ever seen,” she says, “but what do you think of George W Bush?” to which Yue replies, “I’m better than him, because he can’t speak Chinese, and I’m a better pilot.”

He also explains to another foreign reporter that “war is best avoided, but if it comes, it is better to be prepared”. The reporter is at first surprised but then nods as he slowly comprehends these sage words.

Other reviews of this film have noted its scene-by-scene mimicking of Top Gun – granted it has a motorbike-along-the-runway scene, and it has the two male protagonists at odds who are reconciled at the end.

But it’s definitely a movie in its own right – and one which is old-fashioned and uncool. It even has a scene where the general’s wife sneaks up behind her husband and covers his eyes to make him guess who she is, while he pretends to run through a list of other girls. What comedy!

Chinese people of a certain age will remember a popular song from 1991 with lyrics describing a similarly annoying event and a man who guesses Mary, Sunny, and Ivory.

Come on, air force guy who wrote the script for the 2011 movie. You had 20 years to think of something new. Even the bar scene seems struck in the 1990s, with people ordering coffee as if it’s a new invention, and there are fruit bowls holding cherry tomatoes and bananas. Very KTV.

Weirder still, when they move to a new base, the commander hands over a bag of “feminine products” to the two female officers. I’m not making this up. The women are delighted, of course.

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/10/29/5bf98a34-da72-11e8-a41d-3d2712b32637_1320x770_115057.JPG
The 2011 Chinese film Sky Fighters flopped. Photo: Handout

Cut to 2017 and the much flashier Sky Hunters. The heroes are too cool even to wear proper air force uniforms, having been issued with sunglasses and leather jackets. In the six years that have gone by, Chinese studios have learnt to flash cash and get Hollywood bigshots on board.

They have Hans Zimmer for the score; they have the guy who did the computer-generated effects for Game of Thrones; they have lots of foreign extras.

Sadly, however, the PLA, once again, insisted on controlling the script and the production. And once again, they drained it of any real suspense or innovation.

At one point the movie makers seem to realise this – when a Chinese fighter inverts above a US spyplane, the pilot yells, “I think I’ve see this in a movie somewhere.”

Of course he has – it’s from the first five minutes of Top Gun.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/10/29/362018da-da74-11e8-a41d-3d2712b32637_1320x770_115057.JPG
China’s J-10 fighters take a starring role in both films. Photo: Handout

But instead of having the foreigners spout nonsense as in the 2011 film, the Americans say things that sound Hollywood-like – “He’s cute. Cuter than you,” says the female spy-plane crew member to her male colleague, referring to the hero Li Chen.

And – I’m not sure if this is meant to be a joke – Islamic State-style terrorists have one member who roars pointlessly when angry and looks like a comedy version of BA Baracus.

Fan Bingbing doesn’t have much to do in this movie, but she has a key role in its most idiotic scene.

The hero is thought to have perished, and so she stands alone on the runway – until … oh, why are there hundreds of people running behind her with happy faces? What have they seen? She turns and sees his smoking damaged plane is limping towards them through the grey sky.

Her expression turns to joy as she realises he has survived. Meanwhile we, the audience, wonder why so many people are celebrating before he has even landed.

And indeed how can he land with the entire cast – and extras – cheering and dancing jigs in his flight path?

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/10/29/b9d0bf4a-da6f-11e8-a41d-3d2712b32637_1320x770_115057.jpg
Li Chen starred in Sky Hunters, but the air force insisted on having the final say. Photo: Handout

The film has its good points. It’s interesting to see all those new Chinese aircraft: the Y-20 airlifter, the J-20 stealth fighter and the H-6, as well as the J-10s and J-11s that we saw in Sky Fighters.

Li Jiahang is excellent as the dopey pilot who is taken hostage. And Tomer Oz, an Israeli actor sporting an Islamic-looking beard, is weirdly menacing as a Central Asian air force veteran who becomes a terrorist boss. And there’s a parachuting scene with a German shepherd dog which is just plain fun.

Chinese film-goers, not known for their polite reviews, generally panned the film.

It got two stars on Douban.com. About the most positive review was titled, “Is Sky Hunter so awful that you can’t watch it?” concluding generously that it wasn’t.

People were particularly rude about Fan Bingbing, of course, but it’s hardly her fault the movie was no good.

No one was bold enough to blame the military for meddling in the movie, but that is probably why Top Gun succeeded back in 1986 while Sky Hunter fails.

In 1986, the US Navy supported the movie studio but was smart enough not to tamper with the story and the production.

In China, the military made the movie, and expected everyone else to do as they were told. The result was what you’d expect from the military: discipline, technology, and no freedom of expression. Perhaps the 2023 version, which I predict will be called Sky Warriors, will be better.

Nicolas Groffman, who practised law in Beijing and Shanghai, is a partner at law firm Harrison Clark Rickerbys in London

THREADS
Where in the world is Fan Bingbing? (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?70896-Where-in-the-world-is-Fan-Bingbing)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

Chinese Copycats That Will Make You Angry (https://carbuzz.com/features/chinese-copycats-that-will-make-you-angry)
YESTERDAY BY JAY TRAUGOTT CAR CULTURE
They're worse than you think.

It was only a matter of time before a Chinese automaker squeezed its way into the highly lucrative American car market. Many have tried and failed, but now that Zotye has announced it’ll launch an SUV in the US for 2020, we figured it was time to highlight Chinese-built cars and SUVs that shamelessly copied vehicles (with help from the government) from the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Jeep, Bentley, Ferrari, and Porsche.

While some Chinese customers may have been fooled by these blatant design thefts, Westerners are not. So we dug through the archives to find some Chinese vehicles whose designs are the most blatant rip-offs. Before you ask, China passed a law to protect its domestic carmakers by making it nearly impossible for a Western automaker to prove to a Chinese court its patented designs were stolen. So don't expect these ripoffs to stop anytime soon.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494226.jpg

Eagle Came
Let's begin with the worst of them all. Translated as the 'Eagle Came' (presumably, it sounds better in Chinese), where to begin with this one? Well, the Eagle Came debuted back in 2015 attempting the impossible: fusing a Ferrari with a Porsche. Its headlights and grille are very Ferrari California T-like while the rest of is all Porsche 718 Cayman. Even the badge looks like it was ripped off a Porsche.

Built by Suzhou, the Eagle Came is also all-electric, capable of a 0-62 mph of 4.8 seconds. Top speed, however, is only 75 mph.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494211.jpg

BYD S8
Is this just a rebadged Mercedes-Benz CLK-Class convertible? Nope, it’s the BYD S8. BYD stands for ‘Build Your Dreams,’ or, in this case, someone else’s. The S8 first premiered in concept form back in 2006 at the Shanghai Motor Show and went into production for 2009. Fortunately, it lasted for just a single model year. That’s because only seven examples were sold.

Unlike the Mercedes, the S8 was front-wheel-drive and was powered a 140-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine instead of a V6. It also featured a folding metal roof, just like the Mercedes SLK. Now, here’s the ironic bit: BYD not so long ago signed a technical agreement with Mercedes so it's safe to assume that all is forgiven for this blatant ripoff.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494210.jpg

BAIC BJ80
This is the BAIC BJ80, a 4WD luxury SUV that looks suspiciously like the iconic G-Class. On the bright side, it costs an awful lot less, starting off at 288,000 yuan, or about $43,000. Launched for 2016, the BJ80 is powered by a choice of turbo diesel inline-fours linked to either a six-speed manual or automatic. At many angles, it’s a dead ringer for the G-Class, and yet, there was no lawsuit by Mercedes as far as we know.

Like the original G-Class, the BJ80 was initially developed for the military, in this case, the People’s Liberation Army. And just when you thought BAIC couldn’t more blatantly take the design of a foreign automaker for its own purposes, it did so again with another SUV. Read on.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494208.jpg

BAIC BJ90
The mind reels. This is not a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s the BAIC BJ90. And it’s also a Mercedes-Benz GL-Class. Yes, really. The BJ90 is based on the GL-Class as part of an agreement with Mercedes whose parent company Daimler now has a 12 percent stake in BAIC.

Legally use the platform of one automaker and illegally swipe the design of another? Welcome to China. The BJ90’s drivetrain is also all Mercedes. A choice of two engines are offered (sales began earlier this year): a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 with 333 hp and a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with 421 hp. Even the seven-speed automatic and 4Matic all-wheel-drive system is Mercedes-sourced. The interior, not at all shockingly, is from Mercedes, too. The three-pointed silver star, however, has been replaced with BAIC’s logo on the steering wheel.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494206.jpg

Hawtai B35
Try not to laugh too much, but the Hawtai B35 was originally a Porsche Cayenne clone back in 2011. Today, it’s a Bentley Bentayga clone, at least up front. Like we said, there is no shame. Underneath its ugly skin (let’s face it), is a first generation Hyundai Santa Fe platform. Power comes from a 2.4-liter four-cylinder with 184 hp or a turbo 1.8-liter with 160 hp. Two gearboxes are on offer: a five-speed manual and a four-speed automatic. Okay. We’re done here. This one is just too pathetic to keep writing about. Moving on…

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494223.jpg

Geely GE
Perhaps we spoke too soon regarding pathetic. This is the Geely GE, a literal carbon copy of the Rolls-Royce Phantom. Revealed back in 2010, the Geely GE was initially a concept and later went into production in 2014. Supposedly, production ceased earlier this year. Geely has, to its full credit, greatly improved over the past few years by actually getting involved with the global auto industry. Its financial successes enabled it to purchase Volvo and Lotus, for example.

The GE was proof that it was capable of building a luxury car, though not one of its own design. Look closely and even the “Spirit of Ecstasy” hood ornament has been closely copied. But hey, the GE is far cheaper than the Phantom, costing around $45,000.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494228.jpg

Jinma JMW 2200
The Jinma JMW 2200 tries so hard to be a BMW i3. Just look at its twin-kidney grille and curved body panels. It’s absolutely horrible to look at. Sorry about that. But it is all-electric, powered by a lead-acid battery providing energy for its three kWh electric motor. Top speed is said to be – wait for it – only 31 mph. It can barely go 75 miles on a single charge. A full recharge requires about seven hours. Why anyone would buy this for regular road use is beyond us. You’d be better off buying a motorcycle or scooter. But if a Chinese golf course is ever looking for more stylish (to an extent) golf cars, we know exactly what it ought to buy. Photos courtesy of Car News China.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494218.jpg

Land Wind X7
We actually traveled all the way to the Shanghai Auto Show back in 2017 to see this one in-person. The Land Wind X7’s claim to fame was how much it resembled the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque. Jaguar Land Rover even sued Jiangling Motor for its design rip-off, but the Chinese government put a stop to that. It’s almost as if Jiangling Motor reverse engineered an Evoque, made a few slight tweaks and called it a day. Funnily enough, JLR builds Evoques in China, its first Chinese-built SUV. Jiangling Motor could’ve cared less.

https://dmi3w0goirzgw.cloudfront.net/gallery-images/840x560/494000/200/494201.jpg



These don't make me angry. I would enjoy driving one of these here in the U.S., although I don't trust Chinese reliability with cars just yet.

[GeneChing]

CHINA RAIDS UNCOVER MORE THAN 50,000 BOTTLES OF FAKE WINE, WORTH $14.4 MILLION (https://vinepair.com/booze-news/china-fake-wine-penfolds/)
1 Minute Read
Produced by Tim McKirdy / @timmckirdy
Updated on 2018-11-27

https://static.vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wine-bust-header.jpg

Raids in China’s Hebei province have uncovered more than 50,000 bottles of counterfeit wine, with a total value of $14.4 million. The haul included around $1 million worth of fake Penfolds (one of China’s most-popular imported wine brands), as well as around $865,000 of imitation Changyu wines (China’s oldest winery.)

Police were acting on a tip from an authorized Penfolds distributor, The Drinks Business reports, though the date of the raids was not disclosed. Other branded fake wines were also discovered, but their names were not released.

The seizure is the latest in a string of Chinese counterfeit Penfolds busts. In August, around 8,000 bottles were discovered in Liaoning province. In April, police seized roughly 50,000 bottles in Zhengzhou city.

Mike Clarke, CEO of Treasury Wine Estates, which owns Penfolds, spoke out on the counterfeited wines at the beginning of the year, saying: “We’re putting a stop to this. This is nonsense.” But recent busts indicate the task may be even bigger than first expected.

Published: November 27, 2018
The first time I went to China, the tournament I was in was sponsored by a wine company. They made Chinese wine (I still have some) and a western red. Each of us competitor was given complimentary bottles. That red was gawdawful. We drank it anyway.

[GeneChing]

Marvel At China's Own Iron Man Type Movie (https://kotaku.com/marvel-at-chinas-own-iron-man-type-movie-1831142692)
Brian Ashcraft
Yesterday 7:05am Filed to: IRON MAN

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/hkvodaaloqfvcyrh9cgn.mp4
GIF: 機甲戰神孫悟空
Sure, Iron Man 3 was filmed partly in China, but that’s still a Marvel movie and an American superhero. Tomorrow, the country is releasing its own movie inspired one of its greatest heroes, revamped with an Iron Man-style suit.

This is Armored Warfare God: Sun Wukong. Also known as the Monkey King, Sun Wukong is one of the classic characters of Chinese legend and lore.


陳艾斯
‏
@AceTaiwan
Follow @AceTaiwan (https://twitter.com/AceTaiwan/status/1074524826570641408/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwte rm%5E1074524826570641408&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fkotaku.com%2Fajax%2Finset%2F iframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1074524826570641408%26autosize%3D1)
More
我還能說什麼？

中國電影「機甲戰神孫悟空」預告釋出，讓漫威看了也傻眼
https://www.techbang.com/posts/63382-chinese-film-mechatronic-waratahs-monkey-king-this-shape-is-determined-not-to-iron-people?from=home_news …

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dul6lokUcAMu3Ov.jpg

8:40 PM - 16 Dec 2018


Not only is Sun Wukong the main character in one of China’s greatest works Journey to the West, but he also inspired and spawned Goku in Dragon Ball.

Now, the Sun Wukong character has been reworked for modern Chinese cinema audiences, complete with an Iron Man type suit, monkey motif mask and questionable CGI. It certainly does not appear connected with Marvel!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_BJutwV0Bs

As ET Today reports, the reaction online in China has been harsh, with Marvel fans calling out the filmmakers.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Z8NAGCjJ--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/necyouwbjhn6o1cqrj9l.png
Screenshot: 東森新聞 CH51

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--QoYX_rCr--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/nns8ltoer0cwjqmyqd61.png
Screenshot: 東森新聞 CH51

Chinese language media has been quick to point out obvious similarities with the Iron Man movies.

Armored Warfare God: Sun Wukong comes out tomorrow in China.

I wanna see this. :p

THREADS
Armored Warfare God: Sun Wukong (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71122-Armored-Warfare-God-Sun-Wukong)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
Monkey King (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50181-Monkey-King)

[GeneChing]

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/landscape/public/d8/images/2019/01/02/iron-monkey.jpg?itok=YYtn7uks

This Iron Man knockoff got laughed off the internet (https://www.goldthread2.com/culture/iron-man-knockoff-got-laughed-internet/article/3000379)
Zheping Huang
JAN 02, 2019
A new CGI movie adaptation of beloved Chinese classic Journey to the West has met an untimely demise. Meant to be a futuristic spin on the mythological classic, the movie instead got laughed off the internet because its armor-clad hero looks a little too much like Iron Man, from Marvel Comics franchise.

The film, titled Armored War God Monkey King, was expected to stream exclusively on Tencent Video over the festive period, but got yanked before debut, as Marvel fans in the world’s largest internet market pelted it online.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/2019/01/02/641.jpg
Photo: QQ

The promotional trailer of the film drew much flak online after it showed the Monkey King, also known as Sun Wukong, getting a makeover that included wearing a bright red-and-gold armored suit and headgear, with an artificial intelligence-powered assistant and display—similar to that used by Iron Man, the superhero alter ego of business magnate Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Armored War God also features a hi-tech version of antagonist Yang Jian, the three-eyed god in the novel. Yang wears a silver-coloured, full-body armor that people thought was way too similar to War Machine, Iron Man's buddy.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/2019/01/02/screen_shot_2019-01-02_at_8.14.41_pm.png
Yang Jian (L) and Sun Wukong, in the trailer. / Photo: QQ

How dare you?

The trailer ignited outrage in China’s internet community. “Stan Lee passed away not that long ago. How dare you?” one wrote on microblogging site Weibo, referring to the late iconic Marvel comic books writer, editor, and publisher.

The film’s producers, Daishu Movie of Beijing, and Guangzhou-based Grandmet Presentation, said they took inspiration from Iron Man, the Transformers film franchise and Japan’s Gundam series of giant robots.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/2019/01/02/screen_shot_2019-01-02_at_8.13.23_pm.png
The movie poster, before debut. / Photo: QQ

“We can make armored heroes that belong to China,” the producers said in one of the film’s promotional videos. “No matter how difficult the process is, we’ll carry with us our childhood dreams, presenting to the world a Chinese-made smart armor.”

But that attempt to tap into nationalist sentiment did not prevent their film from being yanked off the schedule of Tencent Video, which also removed the unpopular trailer.

The official Weibo account promoting the film was also deleted.

Neither Tencent nor the producers responded to our request for comment.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/2019/01/02/screen_shot_2019-01-02_at_8.19.03_pm.png
Sun Wukong's AI-inspired dashboard, similar to what Iron Man uses in Marvel movies. / Photo: QQ

Sorting out intellectual property rights as online video soars

The widespread criticism of Armored War God has come as intellectual property rights remain a key issue in China’s trade war with the US.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at China’s lax IPR protection laws, forced technology transfer and alleged IP theft, saying they cost the United States as much as US$600 billion each year.

Development work on Armored War God started in 2016 and film production took a month, with more than 200 people involved in post-production work, according to a press release cited by Chinese media.

To be sure, China’s online film market has been booming, helped by the wide adoption of online streaming services like Tencent Video, Baidu-backed iQiyi and Youku Tudou, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding. These platforms are tapping into Chinese consumers’ growing appetite for original content. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.

Still, it is not uncommon for Chinese studios to take inspiration from Hollywood and their domestic peers. For example, a 2016 Chinese online film called Mad Sheila ripped-off the plot and some characters from Oscar-winning post-apocalyptic action film Mad Max: Fury Road.

After Chinese comedy film I Am Not Madame Bovary became a hit two years ago, copycat films followed, sporting titles like I Am Madame Bovary and Who Killed Madame Bovary?.

This story was adapted from an original article (https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/2178961/armour-clad-monkey-king-chinas-iron-man-knock-pulled-tencent-video?_ga=2.249774789.29455113.1546904083-2137603095.1543856849) published in the South China Morning Post.

Zheping Huang
Zheping is a technology reporter covering cryptocurrency, blockchain and gaming for the South China Morning Post. He is a contributor to Inkstone. Previously he wrote about China for Quartz.

THREADS
Armored Warfare God: Sun Wukong (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71122-Armored-Warfare-God-Sun-Wukong)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
Monkey King (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50181-Monkey-King)

[GeneChing]

I confess that I'm guilty of this too. For example: got qi? (https://www.martialartsmart.com/95-036k.html) :o


ADFREAK
A Chinese Washing Machine Brand Blatantly Lifted Design Army’s Stunning Ballet Campaign (https://www.adweek.com/agencies/a-chinese-washing-machine-brand-blatantly-lifted-design-armys-stunning-ballet-campaign/)
New ads circulating online seem copied almost verbatim
By David Griner
|
February 5, 2019

https://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/designarmy-ballet-lifted-hed-page-2019.jpg
Design Army's 2018 Hong Kong Ballet creative, at left, was copied without credit by Little Swan, one of China's 20 most valuable brands.

Last week, Pum Lefebure began to get a flurry of messages from her contacts in Asia, all with a similar question: “Have you seen this?”

Co-founder and chief creative officer of the celebrated Washington, D.C., agency Design Army, Lefebure has an extensive global network of clients, peers and fans, and some who use Chinese social and messaging apps like WeChat or Weibo had noticed something circulating on the apps that seemed frustratingly familiar.

As she soon learned, a Chinese washing machine brand called Little Swan had launched an ad campaign that was lifted almost 100 percent from Design Army’s 2018 visual rebranding campaign for the Hong Kong Ballet. While many ad campaigns duplicate themes, techniques or visual metaphors drawn from other marketing, this one is rather blatant.

Most of the contacts messaging Lefebure were shocked and infuriated when they saw the copycat campaign. Perhaps more unnervingly, one of her Asian clients saw it and asked if Design Army was behind the new campaign as well.

“It’s OK to be inspired,” Lefebure tells Adweek. “It’s not OK to trace and copy and pull in stuff, then bill your client for the creative work you didn’t really do.”

Here’s a look at how some of the images compare:

https://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/designarmy-ballet-2-2019.jpghttps://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/designarmy-ballet-rip-2-2019.jpghttps://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/designarmy-ballet-3-2019.jpghttps://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/designarmy-ballet-rip-3-2019.jpg


In two of the executions, the visuals seem to have been reshot almost exactly as originally designed by Design Army and photographer Dean Alexander. In the version with the dancer doing vertical splits, however, the same photograph seems to have been used with only minor adjustment (namely flipping it to a mirror image).

Little Swan is no small mom-and-pop business lacking the means to build its own ambitious campaign. Its parent company, Midea, says Little Swan was founded in 1958 as China’s first washing machine manufacturer and today is “among the 20 most valuable brands in China, with valuation estimated at 15.02 Billion RMB.” Adweek has reached out to Midea for comment on the similarity between the two campaigns, and we will update this article if we hear back.

It would also be hard for Little Swan to argue it was unaware of the Hong Kong Ballet campaign, which, in addition to running in the same country, was widely featured by news outlets around the world.

For her part, Lefebure is handling the situation with good spirit and, while frustrated, says she holds no grudge against or disrespect for the Chinese marketing community. In fact,

“As creative people, we all get inspired by someone, I understand that,” she says. “But when you start grabbing things, pulling them apart, photoshopping things and reshooting them without trying to hide anything—then you bill the client, put their logo on it, that’s too far.”

She does worry that social media’s sharing economy has created confusion around intellectual property and the ethics of building on someone else’s creative work. Lefebure hopes this incident will be used as an educational lesson for young designers and marketers.

“I’m not sure that kind of education is being communicated to the future generation,” she says. “I hope someone tells them this isn’t right.”


David Griner
@griner
David Griner is creative and innovation editor for Adweek. He's been covering agencies, creativity, technology and marketing innovation for more than a decade and is host of Adweek's podcast.

[GeneChing]

Woah. A White Rabbit (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71120-Follow-the-White-Rabbit) unauthorized 'knock-off (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)' by a Los Angeles ice cream maker. :eek:



White Rabbit ice cream is a hit in Los Angeles (https://shanghai.ist/2019/03/05/white-rabbit-ice-cream/?fbclid=IwAR1wVNvsZRRgCuUFWKP2vUhuTDvnBXnSBgmXkFh7 Mc-xdvbiaKBEVAShne4)
Shanghai-based candy manufacturer calls the flavor 'unauthorized'
by Jethro Kang March 5, 2019 in Food

https://shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/white-rabbit-ice-cream-food-wine-1024x570.jpg
Photo via Food & Wine.

An ice cream made with the famous Chinese candy White Rabbit has proven so popular in Los Angeles over the past Lunar New Year despite it being “unauthorized,” said the Shanghai-based sweets manufacturer.

Wanderlust Creamery in Los Angeles created the flavor with website Foodbeast using 1.3 pieces of the iconic candy in each scoop, including the edible paper wrap, which is mixed into a milk and butter base, said Wanderlust co-founder Jon-Patrick Lopez. The candy wrapper is also used around the cone.

The ice cream debuted over Chinese New Year and was originally planned as a special throughout February. Between February 1 and 20, Wanderlust sold 50 gallons of White Rabbit ice cream, then sold 50 more gallons in three days as news soon spread via Facebook, Instagram, and WeChat.

https://i2.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/white-rabbit-candy.jpg?w=740&ssl=1

Wanderlust now plans to extend the offering to March, but they’re having difficulty sourcing the White Rabbit candy. Stock is not readily available, and rival ice cream makers are also creating White Rabbit flavors and competing for supply.

They might soon encounter yet another obstacle: White Rabbit manufacturer Guan Sheng Yuan, which has been making the candy since 1959, told Shanghai Morning Post that the product was created without authorization and the company has not “cooperated with any relevant parties.” Their US agent is currently investigating for possible brand infringement.

Yet China Daily reported that Guan Sheng Yuan was “inspired by the creation of the White Rabbit ice cream in the US.”

While Wanderlust has inspired copycats in the US as well as in Malaysia and the Philippines, they aren’t the first ice cream maker to dream up a White Rabbit flavor. Singapore dessert cafe Sunday Folks introduced a similar ice cream last November called Little White Rabbit.

I'd be all over this if I wasn't lactose intolerant and pre-diabetic. :o

[GeneChing]

Letter from Lishui
October 26, 2009 Issue
Chinese Barbizon (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/10/26/chinese-barbizon)
Painting the outside world.
By Peter Hessler

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5909739c019dfc3494ea2713/master/w_649,c_limit/091026_r18931_p646.jpg
Chen Meizi and Hu Jianhui at their gallery, which specializes in art for the foreign market. Scenes of Venice and Dutch towns, which Chen refers to as “Water City” and “Holland Street,” are popular.Photograph by Mark Leong

In the countryside southwest of the city of Lishui, where the Da River crosses a sixth-century stone weir, the local government announced, four years ago, that it was founding a Chinese version of the Barbizon. The original French Barbizon School developed during the first half of the nineteenth century, in response to the Romantic movement, among painters working at the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest. Back then, the French artists celebrated rural scenes and peasant subjects. This wasn’t exactly the mood in Lishui: like most cities in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, the place was focussed on urban growth; there was a new factory district, and the export economy was then booming. But the local Communist Party cadres wanted the city to become even more outward-looking, and they liked the foreign cachet of the Barbizon. They also figured that it would be good business: art doesn’t require much raw material, and it’s popular overseas. They referred to their project as Lishui’s Babisong, and they gave it the official name of the Ancient Weir Art Village. One Party slogan described it as “A Village of Art, a Capital of Romance, a Place for Idleness.”

In order to attract artists, the government offered free rent in some old riverside buildings for the first year, with additional subsidies to follow. Painters arrived immediately; soon, the village had nearly a dozen private galleries. Most people came from China’s far south, where there was already a flourishing industry of art for the foreign market. Buyers wanted cheap oil paintings, many of which were destined for tourist shops, restaurants, and hotels in distant countries. For some reason, the majority of artists who settled Lishui’s Barbizon specialized in cityscapes of Venice. The manager of Hongye, the largest of the new galleries, told me that it had a staff of thirty painters, and that its main customer was a European-based importer with an insatiable appetite for Venetian scenes. Every month, he wanted a thousand Chinese paintings of the Italian city.

Another small gallery, Bomia, had been opened by a woman named Chen Meizi and her boyfriend, Hu Jianhui. The first time I met Chen, she had just finished a scene of Venice, and now she was painting a Dutch street scene from what looked like the eighteenth century. A Russian customer had sent a postcard and asked her to copy it. The painting was twenty inches by twenty-four, and Chen told me that she would sell it for about twenty-five dollars. Like most people in the Ancient Weir Art Village, she described Venice as Shui Cheng, “Water City,” and referred to Dutch scenes as Helan Jie, “Holland Street.” She said that over the past half year she had painted this particular Holland Street as many as thirty times. “All the pictures have that big tower in it,” she said.

I told her that it was a church—the steeple rose in the distance, at the end of a road bordered by brick houses with red tile roofs.

“I thought it might be a church, but I wasn’t sure,” she said. “I knew it was important because whenever I make a mistake they send it back.”

Through trial and error, she had learned to recognize some of the landmark buildings of Europe. She had no idea of the names of St. Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, but she knew these places mattered, because even the tiniest mistake resulted in rejection. She worked faster on less iconic scenes, because customers didn’t notice slight errors. On the average, she could finish a painting in under two days.

Chen was in her early twenties, and she had grown up on a farm near Lishui; as a teen-ager, she learned to paint at an art school. She still had a peasant’s directness—she spoke in a raspy voice and laughed at many of my questions. I asked her which of her pictures she liked the most, and she said, “I don’t like any of them.” She didn’t have a favorite painter; there wasn’t any particular artistic period that had influenced her. “That kind of art has no connection at all with what we do,” she said. The Barbizon concept didn’t impress her much. The government had commissioned some European-style paintings of local scenery, but Chen had no use for any of it. Like many young Chinese from the countryside, she had already had her fill of bucolic surroundings. She stayed in the Ancient Weir Art Village strictly because of the free rent, and she missed the busy city of Guangzhou, where she had previously lived. In the meantime, she looked the part of an urban convert. She had long curly hair; she dressed in striking colors; she seemed to wear high heels whenever she was awake. On workdays, she tottered on stilettos in front of her easel, painting gondolas and churches.

Hu Jianhui, Chen’s boyfriend, was a soft-spoken man with glasses and a faint crooked mustache that crossed his lip like a calligrapher’s slip. Once a month, he rolled up all their finished paintings and took a train down to Guangzhou, where there was a big art market. That was how they encountered customers; none of the buyers ever came to the Ancient Weir Art Village. For the most part, foreigners wanted Holland Streets and the Water City, but occasionally they sent photographs of other scenes to be converted into art. Hu kept a sample book in which a customer could pick out a picture, give an ID number, and order a full-size oil painting on canvas. HF-3127 was the Eiffel Tower. HF-3087 was a clipper ship on stormy seas. HF-3199 was a circle of Native Americans smoking a peace pipe. Chen and Hu could rarely identify the foreign scenes that they painted, but they had acquired some ideas about national art tastes from their commissions.

“Americans prefer brighter pictures,” Hu told me. “They like scenes to be lighter. Russians like bright colors, too. Koreans like them to be more subdued, and Germans like things that are grayer. The French are like that, too.”

Chen flipped to HF-3075: a snow-covered house with glowing lights. “Chinese people like this kind of picture,” she said. “Ugly! And they like this one.” HF-3068: palm trees on a beach. “It’s stupid, something a child would like. Chinese people have no taste. French people have the best taste, followed by Russians, and then the other Europeans.” I asked her how Americans stacked up. “Americans are after that,” she said. “We’ll do a painting and the European customer won’t buy it, and then we’ll show it to a Chinese person, and he’ll say, ‘Great!’ ”

Lishui is a third-tier Chinese factory town, with a central population of around two hundred and fifty thousand, and, in a place like that, the outside world is both everywhere and nowhere at all. In the new development zone, assembly lines produce goods for export, but there isn’t much direct foreign investment. There aren’t any Nike factories, or Intel plants, or signs that say DuPont; important brands base themselves in bigger cities. Lishui companies make pieces of things: zippers, copper wiring, electric-outlet covers. The products are so obscure that you can’t tell much from the signs that hang outside factory gates: Jinchao Industry Co., Ltd.; Huadu Leather Base Cloth Co., Ltd. At the Lishui Sanxing Power Machinery Co., Ltd., the owners have posted their sign in English, but they did so from right to left, the way Chinese traditionally do with characters:

dtl ,.oc yrenihcam rewop gnixnas iuhsil

It’s rare to see a foreign face in Lishui. Over a period of three years, I visited the city repeatedly, talking to people in the export industry, but I never met a foreign buyer. Products are sent elsewhere for final assembly, some passing through two or three levels of middlemen before they go abroad; there isn’t any reason for a European or an American businessman to visit. But despite the absence of foreigners the city has been shaped almost entirely by globalization, and traces of the outside world can be seen everywhere. When Lishui’s first gym opened, it was called the Scent of a Woman, for the Al Pacino movie. Once, I met a demolition-crew worker who had a homemade tattoo on his left arm that said “KENT.” He told me he’d done it himself as a kid, after noticing that American movie gangsters have tattoos. I asked why he’d chosen that particular word, and he said, “It’s from the cigarette brand in your country.” Another time, I interviewed a young factory boss who wore a diamond earring in the shape of the letter “K.” His girlfriend had an “O”: whenever they were together, and the letters lined up, everything was all right.

The degree of detail often impressed me. The outside world might be distant, but it wasn’t necessarily blurred; people caught discrete glimpses of things from overseas. In many cases, these images seemed slightly askew—they were focussed and refracted, like light bent around a corner. Probably it had something to do with all the specialization. Lishui residents learned to see the world in parts, and these parts had a strange clarity, even when they weren’t fully understood. One factory technician who had never formally studied English showed me a list of terms he had memorized:

Padomide Br. Yellow E-8GMX

Sellanyl Yellow N-5GL

Padocid Violet NWL

Sellan Bordeaux G-P

Padocid Turquoise Blue N-3GL

Padomide Rhodamine

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[GeneChing]

In the labyrinth of the foreign language, he’d skipped all the usual entrances—the simple greetings, the basic vocabulary—to go straight to the single row of words that mattered to him. His specialty was dyeing nylon; he mixed chemicals and made colors. His name was Long Chunming, and his co-workers called him Xiao Long, or Little Long. He would consult his notebook and figure out the perfect mixture of chemicals necessary to make Sellanyl Yellow or Padocid Turquoise Blue.

He had grown up on a farm in Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces in China. His parents raised tea, tobacco, and vegetables, and Little Long, like both his siblings, left home after dropping out of middle school. It’s a common path in China, where an estimated hundred and thirty million rural migrants have gone to the cities in search of work. In the factory town, Little Long had become relatively successful, earning a good wage of three hundred dollars a month. But he was determined to further improve himself, and he studied self-help books with foreign themes. In his mind, this endeavor was completely separate from his work. He had no pretensions about what he did; as far as he was concerned, the skills he had gained were strictly and narrowly technical. “I’m not mature enough,” he told me once, and he collected books that supposedly improved moral character. One was “The New Harvard MBA Comprehensive Volume of How to Conduct Yourself in Society.” Another book was called “Be an Upright Person, Handle Situations Correctly, Become a Boss.” In the introduction, the author describes the divides of the worker’s environment: “For a person to live on earth, he has to face two worlds: the boundless world of the outside, and the world that exists inside a person.”

Little Long had full lips and high cheekbones, and he was slightly vain, especially with regard to his hair, which was shoulder-length. At local beauty parlors, he had it dyed a shade of red so exotic it was best described in professional terms: Sellan Bordeaux. But he was intensely serious about his books. They followed a formula that’s common in the self-help literature of Chinese factory towns: short, simple chapters that feature some famous foreigner and conclude with a moral. In a volume called “A Collection of the Classics,” the section on effective use of leisure time gave the example of Charles Darwin. (The book explained that Darwin’s biology studies began as a hobby.) Another chapter told the story of how a waiter once became angry at John D. Rockefeller after the oil baron left a measly onedollar tip. (“Because of such thinking, you’re only a waiter,” Rockefeller shot back, according to the Chinese book, which praised his thrift.)

Little Long particularly liked “A Collection of the Classics” because it introduced foreign religions. He was interested in Christianity, and when we talked about the subject he referred me to a chapter that featured a parable about Jesus. In this tale, a humble doorkeeper works at a church with a statue of the Crucifixion. Every day, the doorkeeper prays to be allowed to serve as a substitute, to ease the pain for the Son of God. To the man’s surprise, Jesus finally speaks and accepts the offer, under one condition: If the doorkeeper ascends the Cross, he can’t say a word.

The agreement is made, and soon a wealthy merchant comes to pray. He accidentally drops a money purse; the doorkeeper almost says something but remembers his promise. The next supplicant is a poor man. He prays fervently, opens his eyes, and sees the purse: overjoyed, he thanks Jesus. Again, the doorkeeper keeps silent. Then comes a young traveller preparing to embark on a long sea journey. While he is praying, the merchant returns and accuses the traveller of taking his purse. An argument ensues; the traveller fears he’ll miss the boat. At last, the doorkeeper speaks out—with a few words, he resolves the dispute. The traveller heads off on his journey, and the merchant finds the poor man and retrieves his money.

But Jesus angrily calls the doorkeeper down from the Cross for breaking the promise. When the man protests (“I just told the truth!”), Jesus criticizes him:

What do you understand? That rich merchant isn’t short of money, and he’ll use that cash to hire prostitutes, whereas the poor man needs it. But the most wretched is the young traveller. If the merchant had delayed the traveller’s departure, he would have saved his life, but right now his boat is sinking in the ocean.

When I flipped through Little Long’s books, and looked at his chemical-color vocabulary lists, I sometimes felt a kind of vertigo. In Lishui, that was a common sensation; I couldn’t imagine how people created a coherent world view out of such strange and scattered contacts with the outside. But I was coming from the other direction, and the gaps impressed me more than the glimpses. For Little Long, the pieces themselves seemed to be enough; they didn’t necessarily have to all fit together in perfect fashion. He told me that, after reading about Darwin’s use of leisure time, he decided to stop complaining about being too busy with work, and now he felt calmer. John D. Rockefeller convinced Little Long that he should change cigarette brands. In the past, he smoked Profitable Crowd, a popular cigarette among middle-class men, but after reading about the American oil baron and the waiter he switched to a cheaper brand called Hibiscus. Hibiscuses were terrible smokes; they cost about a cent each, and the label immediately identified the bearer as a cheapskate. But Little Long was determined to rise above such petty thinking, just like Rockefeller.

Jesus’ lesson was easiest of all: Don’t try to change the world. It was essentially Taoist, reinforcing the classical Chinese phrase Wu wei er wu bu wei (“By doing nothing everything will be done”). In Little Long’s book, the parable of the Crucifixion concludes with a moral:

We often think about the best way to act, but reality and our desires are at odds, so we can’t fulfill our intentions. We must believe that what we already have is best for us.

One month, the Bomia gallery received a commission to create paintings from photographs of a small American town. A middleman in southern China sent the pictures, and he requested a twenty-four-inch-by-twenty-inch oil reproduction of each photo. He emphasized that the quality had to be first-rate, because the scenes were destined for the foreign market. Other than that, he gave no details. Middlemen tended to be secretive about orders, as a way of protecting their profit.

When I visited later that month, Chen Meizi and Hu Jianhui had finished most of the commission. Chen was about to start work on one of the final snapshots: a big white barn with two silos. I asked her what she thought it was.

“A development zone,” she said.

I told her that it was a farm. “So big just for a farm?” she said. “What are those for?”

I said that the silos were used for grain.

“Those big things are for grain?” she said, laughing. “I thought they were for storing chemicals!”

Now she studied the scene with new eyes. “I can’t believe how big it is,” she said. “Where’s the rest of the village?”

I explained that American farmers usually live miles outside town.

“Where are their neighbors?” she asked.

“They’re probably far away, too.”

“Aren’t they lonely?”

“It doesn’t bother them,” I said. “That’s how farming is in America.”

I knew that if I hadn’t been asking questions Chen probably wouldn’t have thought twice about the scene. As far as she was concerned, it was pointless to speculate about things that she didn’t need to know; she felt no need to develop a deeper connection with the outside. In that sense, she was different from Little Long. He was a searcher—in Lishui, I often met such individuals who hoped to go beyond their niche industry and learn something else about the world. But it was even more common to encounter pragmatists like Chen Meizi. She had her skill, and she did her work; it made no difference what she painted.

From my outsider’s perspective, her niche was so specific and detailed that it made me curious. I often studied her paintings, trying to figure out where they came from, and the American commission struck me as particularly odd. Apart from the farm, most portraits featured what appeared to be a main street in a small town. There were pretty shop fronts and well-kept sidewalks; the place seemed prosperous. Of all the commissioned paintings, the most beautiful one featured a distinctive red brick building. It had a peaked roof, tall old-fashioned windows, and a white railed porch. An American flag hung from a pole, and a sign on the second story said “Miers Hospital 1904.”

The building had an air of importance, but there weren’t any other clues or details. On the wall of the Chinese gallery, the scene was completely flat: neither Chen nor I had any idea what she had just spent two days painting. I asked to see the original photograph, and I noticed that the sign should have read “Miners Hospital.” Other finished paintings also had misspelled signs, because Chen and Hu didn’t speak English. One shop called Overland had a sign that said “Fine Sheepskin and Leather Since 1973”; the artists had turned it into “Fine Sheepskim Leather Sine 1773.” A “Bar” was now a “Dah.” There was a “Hope Nuseum,” a shop that sold “Amiques,” and a “Residentlal Bboker.” In a few cases, I preferred the new versions—who wouldn’t want to drink at a place called Dah? But I helped the artists make corrections, and afterward everything looked perfect. I told Chen that she’d done an excellent job on the Miners Hospital, but she waved off my praise.

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[GeneChing]

Once, not long after we met, I asked her how she first became interested in oil painting. “Because I was a terrible student,” she said. “I had bad grades, and I couldn’t get into high school. It’s easier to get accepted to an art school than to a technical school, so that’s what I did.”

“Did you like to draw when you were little?”

“No.”

“But you had natural talent, right?”

“Absolutely none at all!” she said, laughing. “When I started, I couldn’t even hold a brush!”

“Did you study well?”

“No. I was the worst in the class.”

“But did you enjoy it?”

“No. I didn’t like it one bit.”

Her responses were typical of migrants from the countryside, where there’s a strong tradition of humility as well as pragmatism. In the factory town, people usually described themselves as ignorant and inept, even when they seemed quite skilled. That was another reason that Chen took so little interest in the scenes she painted: it wasn’t her place to speculate, and she scoffed at anything that might seem pretentious. As part of the Barbizon project, the cadres had distributed a promotional DVD about Lishui, emphasizing the town’s supposed links to world art. But Chen refused to watch the video. (“I’m sure it’s stupid!”) Instead, she hung the DVD on a nail beside her easel, and she used the shiny side as a mirror while working. She held up the disk and compared her paintings to the originals; by seeing things backward, it was easier to spot mistakes. “They taught us how to do this in art school,” she said.

Together with her boyfriend, Chen earned about a thousand dollars every month, which is excellent in a small city. To me, her story was amazing: I couldn’t imagine coming from a poor Chinese farm, learning to paint, and finding success with scenes that were entirely foreign. But Chen took no particular pride in her accomplishment. These endeavors were so technical and specific that, at least for the workers involved, they essentially had no larger context. People who had grown up without any link to the outside world suddenly developed an extremely specialized role in the export economy; it was like taking their first view of another country through a microscope.

The Lishui experience seemed to contradict one of the supposed benefits of globalization: the notion that economic exchanges naturally lead to greater understanding. But Lishui also contradicted the critics who believe that globalized links are disorienting and damaging to the workers at the far end of the chain. The more time I spent in the city, the more I was impressed with how comfortable people were with their jobs. They didn’t worry about who consumed their products, and very little of their self-worth seemed to be tied up in these trades. There were no illusions of control—in a place like Lishui, which combined remoteness with the immediacy of world-market demands, people accepted an element of irrationality. If a job disappeared or an opportunity dried up, workers didn’t waste time wondering why, and they moved on. Their humility helped, because they never perceived themselves as being the center of the world. When Chen Meizi had chosen her specialty, she didn’t expect to find a job that matched her abilities; she expected to find new abilities that matched the available jobs. The fact that her vocation was completely removed from her personality and her past was no more disorienting than the scenes she painted—if anything, it simplified things. She couldn’t tell the difference between a foreign factory and a farm, but it didn’t matter. The mirror’s reflection allowed her to focus on details; she never lost herself in the larger scene.

Whenever I went to Lishui, I moved from one self-contained world to another, visiting the people I knew. I’d spend a couple of hours surrounded by paintings of Venice, then by manhole covers, then by cheap cotton gloves. Once, walking through a vacant lot, I saw a pile of bright-red high heels that had been dumped in the weeds. They must have been factory rejects; no shoes, just dozens of unattached heels. In the empty lot, the heels looked stubby and sad, like the detritus of some failed party. They made me think of hangovers and spilled ashtrays and conversations gone on too long.

The associations were different when you came from the outside. There were many products I had never spent a minute thinking about, like pleather—synthetic leather—that in Lishui suddenly acquired a disproportionate significance. More than twenty big factories made the stuff; it was shipped in bulk to other parts of China, where it was fashioned into car seats, purses, and countless other goods. In the city, pleather was so ubiquitous that it had developed a distinct local lore. Workers believed that the product involved dangerous chemicals, and they thought it was bad for the liver. They said that a woman who planned to have children should not work on the assembly line.

These ideas were absolutely standard; even teen-agers fresh from the farm seemed to pick them up the moment they arrived in the city. But it was impossible to tell where the rumors came from. There weren’t any warnings posted on factories, and I never saw a Lishui newspaper article about pleather; assembly-line workers rarely read the papers anyway. They didn’t know people who had become ill, and they couldn’t tell me whether there had been any scientific studies of the risks. They referred to the supposedly harmful chemical as du, a general term that means “poison.” Nevertheless, these beliefs ran so deep that they shaped that particular industry. Virtually no young women worked on pleather assembly lines, and companies had to offer relatively high wages in order to attract anybody. At those plants, you saw many older men—the kind of people who can’t get jobs at most Chinese factories.

The flow of information was a mystery to me. Few people had much formal education, and assembly-line workers rarely had time to use the Internet. They didn’t follow the news; they had no interest in politics. They were the least patriotic people I ever met in China—they saw no connection between the affairs of state and their own lives. They accepted the fact that nobody else cared about them; in a small city like Lishui, there weren’t any N.G.O.s or prominent organizations that served workers. They depended strictly on themselves, and their range of contacts seemed narrow, but somehow it wasn’t a closed world. Ideas arrived from the outside, and people acted decisively on what seemed to be the vaguest rumor or the most trivial story. That was key: information might be limited, but people were mobile, and they had confidence that their choices mattered. It gave them a kind of agency, although from a foreigner’s perspective it contributed to the strangeness of the place. I was accustomed to the opposite—a world where people preferred to be stable, and where they felt most comfortable if they had large amounts of data at their disposal, as well as the luxury of time to make a decision.

In Lishui, people moved incredibly fast with regard to new opportunities. This quality lay at the heart of the city’s relationship with the outside world: Lishui was home to a great number of pragmatists, and there were quite a few searchers as well, but everybody was an opportunist in the purest sense. The market taught them that—factory workers changed jobs frequently, and entrepreneurs could shift their product line at the drop of a hat. There was one outlying community called Shifan, where people seemed to find a different income source every month. It was a new town; residents had been resettled there from Beishan, a village in the mountains where the government was building a new hydroelectric dam to help power the factories. In Shifan, there was no significant industry, but small-time jobs began to appear from the moment the place was founded. Generally, these tasks consisted of piecework commissioned by some factory in the city.

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[GeneChing]

Once a month, I visited a family named the Wus, and virtually every time they introduced me to some new and obscure trade. For a while, they joined their neighbors in sewing colored beads onto the uppers of children’s shoes; then there was a period during which they attached decorative strips to hair bands. After that, they assembled tiny light bulbs. For a six-week stretch, they made cotton gloves on a makeshift assembly line.

On one visit to Shifan, I discovered that the Wus’ son, Wu Zengrong, and his friends had purchased five secondhand computers, set up a broadband connection, and become professional players of a video game called World of Warcraft. It was one of the most popular online games in the world, with more than seven million subscribers. Players developed characters over time, accumulating skills, equipment, and treasure. Online markets had sprung up in which people could buy and sell virtual treasure, and some Chinese had started doing this as a full-time job; it had recently spread to Lishui. The practice is known as “gold farming.”

Wu Zengrong hadn’t had any prior interest in video games. He hardly ever went online; his family had never had an Internet connection before. He had been trained as a cook, and would take jobs in small restaurants that served nearby factory towns. Occasionally, he did low-level assembly-line work. But his brother-in-law, a cook in the city of Ningbo, learned about World of Warcraft, and he realized that the game paid better than standing over a wok. He called his buddies, and three of them quit their jobs, pooled their money, and set up shop in Shifan. Others joined them; they played around the clock in twelve-hour shifts. All of them had time off on Wednesdays. For World of Warcraft, that was a special day: the European servers closed for regular maintenance from 5 a.m. until 8 a.m., Paris time. Whenever I visited Shifan on a Wednesday, Wu Zengrong and his friends were smoking cigarettes and hanging out, enjoying their weekend as established by World of Warcraft.

They became deadly serious when they played. They had to worry about getting caught, because Blizzard Entertainment, which owns World of Warcraft, had decided that gold farming threatened the game’s integrity. Blizzard monitored the community, shutting down any account whose play pattern showed signs of commercial activity. Wu Zengrong originally played the American version, but after getting caught a few times he jumped over to the German one. On a good day, he made the equivalent of about twenty-five dollars. If an account got shut down, he lost a nearly forty-dollar investment. He sold his points online to a middleman in Fujian Province.

One Saturday, I spent an afternoon watching Wu Zengrong play. He was a very skinny man with a nervous air; his long, thin fingers flashed across the keyboard. Periodically, his wife, Lili, entered the room to watch. She wore a gold-colored ring on her right hand that had been made from a euro coin. That had become a fashion in southern Zhejiang, where shops specialized in melting down the coins and turning them into jewelry. It was another ingenious local industry: a way to get a ring that was both legitimately foreign and cheaply made in Zhejiang.

Wu Zengrong worked on two computers, jumping back and forth between three accounts. His characters travelled in places with names like Kalimdor, Tanaris, and Dreadmaul Rock; he fought Firegut Ogres and Sandfury Hideskinners. Periodically, a message flashed across the screen: “You loot 7 silver, 75 copper.” Wu couldn’t understand any of it; his ex-cook brother-in-law had taught him to play the game strictly by memorizing shapes and icons. At one point, Wu’s character encountered piles of dead Sandfury Axe Throwers and Hideskinners, and he said to me, “There’s another player around here. I bet he’s Chinese, too. You can tell because he’s killing everybody just to get the treasure.”

After a while, we saw the other player, whose character was a dwarf. I typed in a message: “How are you doing?” Wu didn’t want me to write in Chinese, for fear that administrators would spot him as a gold farmer.

Initially, there was no response; I tried again. At last, the dwarf spoke: “???”

I typed, “Where are you from?”

This time he wrote, “Sorry.” From teaching English in China, I knew that’s how all students respond to any question they can’t answer. And that was it; the dwarf resumed his methodical slaughter in silence. “You see?” Wu said, laughing. “I told you he’s Chinese!”

Two months later, when I visited Shifan again, three of the computers had been sold, and Wu was preparing to get rid of the others. He and his friends had decided that playing in Germany was no longer profitable enough; Blizzard kept shutting them down. Wu showed me the most recent e-mail message he had received from the company:

Greetings,

We are writing to inform you that we have, unfortunately, had to cancel your World of Warcraft account. . . . It is with regret that we take this type of action, however, it is in the best interest of the World of Warcraft community as a whole.

The message appeared in four different languages, none of which was spoken by Wu Zengrong. It didn’t matter: after spending his twenties bouncing from job to job in factory towns, and having his family relocated for a major dam project, he felt limited trauma at being expelled from the World of Warcraft community. The next time I saw him, he was applying for a passport. He had some relatives in Italy; he had heard that there was money to be made there. When I asked where he planned to go, he said, “Maybe Rome, or maybe the Water City.” I stood with him in the passport-application line at the county government office, where I noticed that his papers said “Wu Zengxiong.” He explained that a clerk had miswritten his given name on an earlier application, so now it was simpler to just use that title. He was becoming somebody else, on his way to a country he’d never seen, preparing to do something completely new. When I asked what kind of work he hoped to find and what the pay might be, he said, “How can I tell? I haven’t been there yet.” Next to us in line, a friend in his early twenties told me that he planned to go to Azerbaijan, where he had a relative who might help him do business. I asked the young man if Azerbaijan was an Islamic country, and he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been there yet.”

continued next post

[GeneChing]

After I returned to the United States, I talked with a cousin who played World of Warcraft. He told me that he could usually recognize Chinese gold farmers from their virtual appearance, because they stood out as being extremely ill-equipped. If they gained valuable gear or weapons, they sold them immediately; their characters were essentially empty-handed. I liked that image—even online the Chinese travelled light. Around the same time, I did some research on pleather and learned that it’s made with a solvent called dimethylformamide, or DMF. In the United States, studies have shown that people who work with DMF are at risk of liver damage. There’s some evidence that female workers may have increased problems with stillbirths. In laboratory tests with rabbits, significant exposure to DMF has been proved to cause developmental defects. In other words, virtually everything I had heard from the Lishui migrant workers, in the form of unsubstantiated rumor, turned out to be true.

It was another efficiency of the third-tier factory town. People manufactured tiny parts of things, and their knowledge was also fragmented and sparse. But they knew enough to be mobile and decisive, and their judgment was surprisingly good. An assembly-line worker sensed the risks of DMF; a painter learned to recognize the buildings that mattered; a nylon dyer could pick out Sellanyl Yellow. Even the misinformation was often useful—if Christ became more relevant as a Taoist sage, that was how He appeared. The workers knew what they needed to know.

After I moved back to the United States, I became curious about the small town that Chen Meizi and Hu Jianhui had spent so much time painting. At the Ancient Weir Art Village, I had photographed the artists in front of their work, and now I researched the misspelled signs. All of them seemed to come from Park City, Utah. I lived nearby, in southwestern Colorado, so I made the trip.

I was still in touch with many of the people I had known in Lishui. Occasionally, Chen sent an e-mail, and when I talked with her on the phone she said that she was still painting mostly the Water City. The economic downturn hadn’t affected her too much; apparently, the market for Chinese-produced paintings of Venice is nearly recession-proof. Others hadn’t been so lucky. During the second half of 2008, as demand for Chinese exports dropped, millions of factory workers lost their jobs. Little Long left his plant after the bosses slashed the technicians’ salaries and laid off half the assembly-line staff.

But most people I talked to in Lishui seemed to take these events in stride. They didn’t have mortgages or stock portfolios, and they had long ago learned to be resourceful. They were accustomed to switching jobs—many laid-off workers simply went back to their home villages, to wait for better times. In any case, they had never had any reason to believe that the international economy was rational and predictable. If people suddenly bought less pleather, that was no more strange than the fact that they had wanted the stuff in the first place. As 2009 progressed, the Chinese economy regained its strength, and workers made their way back onto the assembly lines.

In Park City, it was easy to find the places that the artists had painted. Most of the shops were situated on Main Street, and I talked with owners, showing them photos. Nobody had any idea where the commission had come from, and people responded in different ways when they saw that their shops were being painted by artists in an obscure Chinese city six thousand miles away. At Overland (“Fine Sheepskim Leather Sine 1773”), the manager appeared nervous. “You’ll have to contact our corporate headquarters,” she said. “I can’t comment on that.” Another shop owner asked me if I thought that Mormon missionaries might be involved. One woman told a story about a suspicious Arab man who had visited local art galleries not long ago, offering to sell cut-rate portraits. Some people worried about competition. “That’s just what we need,” one artist said sarcastically, when she learned the price of the Chinese paintings. Others felt pity when they saw Chen Meizi, who, like many rural Chinese, didn’t generally smile in photographs. One woman, gazing at a somber Chen next to her portrait of the Miners Hospital, said, “It’s kind of sad.”

Everybody had something to say about that particular picture. The building brought up countless memories; all at once, the painting lost its flatness. The hospital had been constructed to serve the silver miners who first settled Park City, and later it became the town library. In 1979, authorities moved the building across town to make way for a ski resort, and the community pitched in to transfer the books. “We formed a human chain and passed the books down,” an older woman remembered. When I showed the painting to a restaurant manager, he smiled and said that a critical scene from “Dumb and Dumber” had been filmed inside the Miners Hospital. “You know the part where they go to that benefit dinner for the owls, and they’re wearing those crazy suits, and the one guy has a cane and he whacks the other guy on the leg—you know what I’m talking about?”

I admitted that I did.

“They filmed that scene right inside that building!”

When I visited, the Park City mayor kept his office on the first floor of the Miners Hospital. His name was Dana Williams, and he was thrilled to see the photo of Chen Meizi with her work. “That’s so cool!” he said. “I can’t believe somebody in China painted our building! And she did such a great job!”

Like everybody else I talked to in Park City, Mayor Williams couldn’t tell me why the building had been commissioned for a portrait overseas. It was a kind of symmetry between the Chinese Barbizon and Park City: the people who painted the scenes, and the people who actually lived within the frames, were equally mystified as to the purpose of this art.

Mayor Williams poured me a cup of green tea, and we chatted. He had an easy smile and a youthful air; he played guitar in a local rock band. “It’s the yang to being mayor,” he explained. He was interested in China, and he sprinkled his conversation with Chinese terms. “You mei you pijiu?” he said. “Do you have any beer?” He remembered that phrase from a trip to Beijing in 2007, when he’d accompanied a local school group on an exchange. A scroll of calligraphy hung beside his desk; the characters read “Unity, Culture, Virtue.” He told me that he had first thought about China back in the nineteen-sixties, after hearing Angela Davis lecture on Communism at U.C.L.A. There was a copy of “The Little Red Book” in his office library. When the Park City newspaper found out, it ran a story implying that the Mayor’s decisions were influenced by Mao Zedong. Mayor Williams found that hilarious; he told me that he just picked out the useful parts of the book and ignored the bad stuff. “Serve the people,” he said, when I asked what he had learned from Mao. “You have an obligation to serve the people. One of the reasons I’m here is from reading ‘The Little Red Book’ as a teen-ager. And being in government is about being in balance. I guess that has to do with the Tao.” ♦

Peter Hessler is a staff writer living in Ridgway, Colorado. His book “The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution,” will be out next spring.

This article is dated, but someone forwarded to me recently and it's fascinating - worth archiving here.

[GeneChing]

Fake Supreme throws “fake” launch party for flagship store in Shanghai (https://shanghai.ist/2019/03/12/fake-supreme-throws-fake-launch-party-for-flagship-store-in-shanghai/?fbclid=IwAR0kf1MPIugEDvXziCVt1nApsUSzIR7uSvWoU9v2 X6bwUQsJ4AQYzlOAHAs)
The real Supreme has accused its counterfeit counterpart of paying people to stand in line at the store's grand opening
by Alex Linder March 12, 2019 in News

https://i0.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/supreme-store.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1

While fake Supreme’s partnership with Samsung China may have quickly fizzled out, it appears that setback has not stopped the knockoff brand’s grand ambitions in the Middle Kingdom.

Last week, a “launch party” was thrown for a Supreme location on Shanghai’s fashionable Huaihai Lu. Photos from the event show a long line of shoppers waiting outside the door and Supreme-branded products on the shelves.

However, the store is not managed by the Supreme that most of us know — the New York-based streetwear/high-fashion label — but instead a copycat brand from Italy known as Supreme Italia which has managed to exploit trademark rules in some countries to use the real Supreme’s name, logo, and branding.

https://i2.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/supreme-store2.jpg?w=800&ssl=1https://i2.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/supreme-store3.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

After images of the “launch party” were posted onto social media, Supreme has charged that Supreme Italia is not only a sham company, but that its “grand opening” was fraudulent as well, telling Hypebeast that the retail store had not officially opened, explaining instead that local bloggers had been invited to visit the location while people were paid to stand in line and look like customers.

Supreme added that Supreme Italia does not have trademark registration in China and therefore is not legally allowed to sell its products in the country.


Back in December, Samsung China was ridiculed online for announcing a partnership with the counterfeit brand at the launch event for the Galaxy A8s. At the event, a pair of “Supreme CEOs” got up on stage and spoke about their company’s big plans for 2019, including the opening of a “7-story” flagship store in Shanghai and the staging of a high-profile runway show at the city’s Mercedes-Benz Arena.

In February, Samsung China quietly announced that its cooperation agreement with Supreme Italia was no more.

Gotta hand it to them for sheer ballsiness.

[GeneChing]

Peppa Pig (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71200-Peppa-Pig) won't fall victim to Chinese knock-offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)? I suspect I could still find some in China...or maybe at the Dollar Store. ;)


Peppa Pig safe as Chinese courts crack down on counterfeits (https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/peppa-pig-safe-as-chinese-courts-crack-down-on-counterfeits-20190312-p513me.html)
By Kirsty Needham
March 12, 2019 — 5.28pm

Beijing: Chinese courts have seen a 42 per cent surge in intellectual property rights cases, as the Chinese government seeks to show it is heeding foreign business complaints about intellectual property theft.

The president of the Supreme People’s Court, Zhou Qiang, on Tuesday highlighted the success of a foreign company in defending the copyright of Peppa Pig through a new online court system.

https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1.104%2C$multiply_1%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$wid th_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/w_800/q_86%2Cf_auto/3bfce661396aa54e0392b7f4bf860a970e4c742e
Peppa Pig has become an unlikely symbol for rebelliousness in China. Here's a non-copyright Peppa Pig tatoo on social media, Weibo.CREDIT:WEIBO

The Hangzhou Internet Court last year found in favour of two British companies who complained about a Peppa Pig copyright infringement by a Chinese toy company. The company was ordered to pay 150,000 Chinese yuan ($31,000) in compensation and stop selling the fake toys online.

Intellectual property theft by Chinese companies has been a sore point in trade war negotiations with the United States. China is seeking to strike a deal with the Trump Administration to end punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.'

Zhou said in the Supreme Court’s work report to the National People’s Congress on Tuesday that 15,000 foreign-related civil and commercial cases had been resolved through Chinese courts in 2018.

A total of 288,000 intellectual property right trials were conducted in all courts.

https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.492%2C$multiply_1%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$wid th_1059%2C$x_838%2C$y_398/t_crop_custom/w_800/q_86%2Cf_auto/3430b2f7df70ab43afc039c517491cd9e9f06ffd
China's Chief Justice Zhou Qiang delivers a report on the country's legal system.CREDIT:AP

In a legal boost to intellectual property rights protection, a new Intellectual Property Rights court was established in the Supreme Court to deal with “technically strong intellectual property right appeals such as patents,” and to unify standards of judgement. Another 19 IPR courts were built.

The report said 8325 people were criminally prosecuted for infringing patent rights and trademark rights, an increase of 16.3 per cent, the report said.

The head of China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, Zhang Mao, said on Monday at the congress that counterfeiting would be “cracked down on severely”.

”We need to significantly increase the cost of such acts to make the violators go bankrupt, and to publicly reveal their identities so there is no place to hide,” Zhang said.

Chinese state media reported that historically penalties for intellectual property rights infringement had been low. Shen Changyu, head of the National Intellectual Property Administration said a new government measure would stipulate compensation that is five-times higher for intentional copyright infringement.

Chinese courts are regarded as having high conviction rates. The Supreme Court’s annual work report showed it had overturned 10 “major wrongful convictions” in 2018, and acquitted 517 defendants in public prosecution cases and 302 defendants in private prosecution cases.

Around 1000 court staff were investigated for abusing power.

Meanwhile, cases involving the violation of personal information grew by 68 per cent.


Kirsty Needham is China Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

[GeneChing]

Chinese toy company busted for being a massive Lego copycat (https://shanghai.ist/2019/04/30/chinese-toy-company-busted-for-being-a-massive-lego-copycat/?fbclid=IwAR1jqc-lLYtLOYBRS0aXU6JrV0zZnkPBYqnC75I687vczUF6wdnwROgf1 14)
Lepin will no longer be selling its "Lego compatible" block sets
by Alex Linder April 30, 2019

https://i1.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin11.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1

A Chinese toymaker has been forced to shut down production of its block sets after being revealed as a Lego copycat.

Though, perhaps “revealed” isn’t quite the right word. Make a quick visit to lepinland.com and it isn’t difficult to notice the similarities between the Chinese company’s branding/products and those of the world-renowned Danish toy giant.

https://i0.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin-land2.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

Shanghai police first picked up on these similarities back in October of last year, leading to a recent raid on Lepin’s warehouses and factory in Shenzhen which resulted in a whopping 630,000 finished products being seized worth an estimated 200 million yuan ($29.7 million). The products were described by police as being copied from Lego blueprints.

Four people were also arrested. Here are a few pics from the raid including themed packaging labeled “The Lepin Bricks 2” which was released to coincide with The Lego Movie 2.

https://i1.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin-raid.jpg?w=800&ssl=1https://i2.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin-raid2.jpg?w=800&ssl=1https://i1.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin-raid5.jpg?w=800&ssl=1https://i1.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin-raid8.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

On their website, Lepin offered a number of different block sets which were advertised as being “Lego compatible.” The sets are also considerably cheaper than genuine Legos. For instance, the Millennium Falcon set is priced at $313, compared to more than $800 on Lego’s official website.

https://i2.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/lepin4.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

The vast majority of Lepin’s products are now listed as being “out of stock.” On its website, the company has issued a statement saying that it will “temporary” stop production on all LEPIN Blocks Set from May 1st at the request of the Chinese government and Shanghai police.

Star Union. :p

[PalmStriker]

:) Screw Union. Will most definitely see some heads roll on this one!

[GeneChing]

Turns Out Buying a Chinese Knock-Off Predator Drone Is a Bad Idea (https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a27926078/predator-drone-chinese/)
The country of Jordan is experiencing some serious buyer's remorse.
By Kyle Mizokami
Jun 12, 2019

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/screen-shot-2019-06-11-at-3-06-55-pm-1560290864.png?resize=980:*
YOUTUBE

At least one buyer of China’s copy of the famous Predator is none too happy. Jordan is selling off its fleet of CH-4B “Rainbow” drones after owning them for just two years. The Middle Eastern kingdom was reportedly not happy with the drones’ performance and is seeking to unload them at auction.

The CH-4B drones first surfaced in public media in 2016. Built by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC), the CH-4B appears very similar to the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper armed unmanned aerial vehicle. The CH-4B also carried some impressive specs, with Popular Mechanics noting in July 2016 it could carry, “up to 770 pounds of munitions, including the Blue Arrow 7 laser-guided air-to-surface missile, TG-100 laser, inertial or GPS-guided bombs, and the HJ-10 anti-tank missile.” The Chinese drone could also fly for up to 14 hours, loitering over mission areas for the better part of the day.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6zYXr5JZ8Q

As late as last year pundits were already calling China a winner of the rush to sell armed drones abroad, as U.S. red tape can often hold up arms sales for years. China does not have that problem and has sold the CH-4B to numerous countries, including Algeria, Nigeria, Jordan, Zambia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Myanmar.

But there's one problem: CASTC has an inferior drone problem. According to FlightGlobal, Jordan has complained about its drone fleet since 2018. The Royal Jordanian Air Force declined to go into specifics as to why the CH-4B is let down, but simply said it was downsizing and removing several types of aircraft from its fleet. According to Shepard Media, as late as November 2018, Jordan admitted it was “not happy with the aircraft’s performance and was looking to retire them.”

If you’re interested in a Chinese drone fleet of your own, bidding for the CH-4Bs ends on July 1st.



This really amuses me.

[GeneChing]

Chinese fake goods seller caught after her mother used ‘Louis Vuitton’ bag to do her shopping (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3032856/chinese-fake-goods-seller-caught-after-her-mother-used-louis)
Officers said they became suspicious when they saw a woman putting pork and vegetables in a bag they did not think she could afford
Online trader was detained after police investigating sale of fake Chanel bag found 400 counterfeits in her house
Alice Yan
Published: 6:19pm, 14 Oct, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/10/14/47d60c40-ee61-11e9-9f3d-785f2d889e39_image_hires_181932.jpg?itok=1ord1YvW&v=1571048378
Police found hundreds of fake bags in the woman’s home in Chongqing. Photo: Weibo

An online trader from southwest China has been detained for selling fake luxury goods after her mother was spotted using a Louis Vuitton bag to carry pork and vegetables she bought at a local market.
Police in Chongqing said officers patrolling the market late last month became suspicious because the woman’s clothing suggested she would not have been able to afford the genuine article, Liaoshen Evening News reported on Monday.
Officers soon linked the case to a complaint they had received the previous day from a woman living in Gansu province, over 1,000km (600 miles) away, who said she had been duped by an online trader based in the city.
The woman had paid 7,000 yuan (US$990) for what she believed was a Chanel bag, and said the seller had assured her it was genuine.
But she was disappointed by the poor quality and took it to a local Chanel store, where staff told her it was counterfeit.
She said she had asked the seller for a refund, but was rejected.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/10/14/487153da-ee61-11e9-9f3d-785f2d889e39_1320x770_181932.jpgo
The trader was placed under criminal detention. Photo: Weibo

When police raided the daughter’s home, they found the four rooms contained over 400 bootlegged luxury bags as well as plenty of anti-fake labels.
Police said the 27-year-old, identified only by her surname Wang, had been placed under criminal detention.
This generally lasts for between 14 and 37 days but police did not say how long she would spend behind bars. It also emerged that last year she had been given a suspended jail sentence for fraud.
Officers did not disclose whether any action had been taken against her parents.
In a final twist to the story, it also emerged that the detained seller had been planning to take an exam that would allow her to become a luxury products appraiser.
That last line is the kicker. :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

Chinese 'panda' pet cafe raises eyebrows (https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-50141841)
By News from Elsewhere...
...as found by BBC Monitoring
8 hours ago

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/143AE/production/_109326828_panda.png
HONGXING NEWS
A pet cafe in China's Sichuan province lets people play with dogs dyed to look like pandas.

​Animal cafes have been springing up all over the world for the last two decades as a place for animal lovers to enjoy a meal alongside their furry friends.

But a new "panda" cafe in Chengdu in south-western China - internationally known as the home of the giant panda - is raising eyebrows and a lot of concern.

According to the Chengdu Economic Daily, a cafe recently opened in Chengdu, seems at first glance to be home to six giant panda cubs.

But the "panda" cafe is - in fact - all bark and no bite because on closer inspection, it turns out they are actually the Chow Chow breed of dogs, which have been dyed to look like China's national animal.

'Could damage their fur and skin'

The owner of the cafe, Mr Huang, says that as well as serving food and drink, the cafe provides a dyeing service.

He tells Hongxing News that he imports his dye from Japan and has hired special staff for dyeing the dogs.

"Every time we dye it costs 1,500 yuan [$211; £163]," he says. "The dye is really expensive." He says that this is to ensure the quality of the dye, and says that it in no way affects the animals.

Hongxing News says that a short video inside the cafe had raised awareness of it nationally and has boosted visitor figures.

But it has also raised a lot of concern. One vet, Li Daibing, told Hongxing News that he urged people not to dye their pets, saying: "This could damage their fur and skin."

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/F58E/production/_109326826_gettyimages-1180602673-594x594.jpg
VCG
Chengdu has become a popular tourist site for seeing the vulnerable species, and national Chinese treasure: the giant panda.

'Has become normal'

Dyeing pets became a full-blown craze in China in the early 2010s, first for competitions, but then amidst a domestic wave of "extreme dog pampering".

Since, however, there has been a growing consciousness in China about animal ethics and testing. Many of the thousands of social media users commenting on the popular Sina Weibo microblog have voiced their concern about such treatments being used on animals.

Many call the idea "crazy" and note that hair dye can "damage people's hair and scalp", so could similarly affect a dog.

But others argue that "it's really cute", and say that they perceive animal dyeing "has become normal".

It's not just China either - earlier this year, the Latitude Festival in Suffolk was criticised by the RSPCA after a flock of sheep were dyed pink.

Reporting by Kerry Allen

THREADS
Pandas! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?54939-Pandas!)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

One Million Fake Toys And Figures Seized In China (https://kotaku.com/one-million-fake-toys-and-figures-seized-in-china-1839464625)
Brian Ashcraft
Today 7:00AM
•

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/nbwqr4ycokn3prwfj5jo.jpg
Image: The Paper
Kotaku East

Shanghai police have seized one million fake toys after raiding a factory in the city of Dongguan. According to Chinese site The Paper, included among the fakes were Pokémon, Dragon Ball, One Piece and Gundam items.

The massive raid took place this past August and netted over 1,200 toy-making tools and equipment. China News reports that in total the goods are worth over $42 million dollars. Over twenty suspects were arrested.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/lw4p1rricr6ny0wljxx8.jpg
Image: The Paper

Chinese site The Paper and Sixth Tone report that Bandai Namco was so pleased with the Shanghai police that it sent a gold-plated Unicorn Gundam as a gesture of thanks.

China News added that Bandai Namco called the Shanghai police “pioneers in law enforcement, guardians of intellectual properties.”

The police recently appeared on Chinese television to show off the gift and discuss the raid.

A well-deserved thanks, indeed!

You'd think if they had the infrastructure to manufacture these many toys, they could just make their own toys. :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

The irony. Oh the irony... :rolleyes:

Six arrested for selling Chinese gear to military as “Made in America” (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/feds-arrest-couple-for-fraudulently-selling-chinese-gear-to-us-military/)
Cameras and other gear were sold to military marked "Made in America." They weren't.
TIMOTHY B. LEE - 11/8/2019, 1:00 PM

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/GettyImages-953152038-800x533.jpg
Jan-Stefan Knick / EyeEm / Getty

In August 2018, an Air Force service member noticed something strange about a body camera being used by security personnel at an Air Force base: Chinese characters on the screen. A subsequent investigation found numerous indications that the camera—and two dozen others in the same shipment—had been made in China.

Investigators found three telling logos in the camera's firmware: an Air Force Logo, the logo of the Chinese company that made the camera, and the logo of China's ministry of public security. Forensic analysis indicated that all three images had been loaded on the camera at the same time by someone in a Chinese time zone. This suggested that not only was the camera made in China, but the Chinese knew that the body camera would be shipped to an Air Force facility.

How did a Chinese-made digital camera wind up at a US Air Force base? In a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, federal prosecutors blamed Aventura, a New York-based company that has been fraudulently re-selling Chinese-made gear for more than a decade. On Thursday, six of the company's founders and senior officials were arrested and charged with fraud and other crimes.

Passing off Chinese goods as “Made in America”

A federal law called the Trade Agreements Act restricts federal agencies from purchasing goods made in certain countries—including China. Federal law also requires companies to accurately disclose where products have been manufactured—especially when they're sold to federal agencies.

But since 2006, the feds say, Aventura has been buying Chinese-made cameras, metal detectors, and other products, slapping "Made in America" logos on them, and re-selling them in the United States—to customers including US government agencies who are legally prohibited from buying such items.

The complaint argues that the Aventura's senior executives—particularly managing director and de facto owner Jack Cabasso, knew exactly what they were doing. In 2016, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, Cabasso sent an email to a government official arguing that 12 of his competitors were violating federal law by selling Chinese-made products to the federal government.

This, he wrote, was a "big problem" because the Chinese manufacturer was "actually the Communist Chinese government and had significant cybersecurity issues aside from TAA compliance." Thursday's complaint charges that Aventura had been re-selling gear made by the same Chinese company.

When a Qatari distributor emailed Aventura in 2018 to get confirmation that the company's gear was US-made, Cabasso replied with a purported photo of Aventura's manufacturing facility on Long Island, New York. He wrote that representatives of the Qatari distributor could visit the factory at any time.

In reality, the photo showed an image taken from a 2014 article published in a trade publication showing the Chinese facility where the camera had actually been manufactured.

Aventura allegedly went to significant effort to conceal the Chinese origins of its products. Email records show the company worked with its Chinese suppliers to scrub any reference to the original manufacturer from circuit boards and onboard software.

Still, Aventura's efforts to conceal its gear's origins was far from foolproof. One sample product was shipped to a prospective customer with a Chinese user manual included. In another case, a customer figured out that the camera was a modified version of a Chinese product and "asked Jack Cabasso to supply the original, unaltered firmware" created by the Chinese company "in the hopes that it would be superior to Aventura's 'buggy' altered version."

Company founders allegedly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle
The feds say Aventura has earned $88 million in revenue over the last decade, including $20 million in federal contracts. "Aventura's largest customers are US government agencies, including the US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force," prosecutors report.

The Air Force body cameras weren't the only case where sensitive Chinese-made gear ended up in military facilities. In another case, the Navy ordered a $13,500 night vision camera from Aventura. Federal investigators intercepted the camera as it arrived at JFK airport from China and discreetly marked it. The same camera was delivered at a naval base in Connecticut two weeks later.

The government charges that Aventura's fraud allowed Jack Cabasso and his wife to live a lavish lifestyle. In 2016, the company wired $450,000 to help buy a house for one of the couple's children. The couple has allegedly spent around a million dollars to maintain a 70-foot yacht.

The company even allegedly committed fraud to qualify as a woman-owned business. Federal law gives special contracting opportunities to companies that are owned and controlled by women. Jack's wife Frances was listed as the majority shareholder and CEO of Aventura, but prosecutors say that she played virtually no operational role at the company. Instead, she had a full-time job at an unrelated accounting firm, according to federal prosecutors.

[GeneChing]

Not really. I just didn't know where to post this. I guess the China Syndrome was presumptuous. It might go the other way ... actually the United States Syndrome.


China’s completed ‘artificial sun’ to start operation in 2020 (https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3039493/chinas-completed-artificial-sun-start-operation-2020?li_source=LI&li_medium=homepage_us_edition_top_picks_for_you)
China’s HL-2M nuclear fusion device burns with the power of 13 suns
Abacus
Published: 10:01am, 27 Nov, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/2019/11/26/6da892d4-882d-11e9-a9bc-e8ed9093c066_1320x770_001429.jpg?itok=GinZqjZ-
The HL-2M is hotter than the real sun but definitely uglier. (Photo: Xinhua)

This article originally appeared on ABACUS
Chinese scientists are working on harvesting the energy of the Sun, but it's not solar energy. The country has developed its very own “artificial sun,” a nuclear fusion research device that is supposed to pave the way for clean energy -- similar to the real Sun.
The completion of the reactor was announced on Tuesday, and it’s expected to start operation in 2020, Xinhua News reported.
The actual name of China’s artificial sun isn’t that poetic. It's called the HL-2M, and it was built by the China National Nuclear Corporation and the Southwestern Institute of Physics. The reactor is located in Leshan, Sichuan province, where it was built to research fusion technology.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1320w/public/d8/images/2019/11/26/6da892d4-882d-11e9-a9bc-e8ed9093c066_1320x770_001429.jpg?itok=D0pvOEVu
The HL-2M is hotter than the real sun, but also uglier. (Photo: Xinhua)

Although it's being referred to as a sun, the device can actually reach temperatures 13 times hotter than our star. The HL-2M will be able to reach 200 million degrees Celsius (360 million degrees Fahrenheit). By comparison, the Sun “only” gets as hot as 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) in its core.
Why so hot? The fusion process in the Sun relies on forcing atoms to merge, which releases heat that can be transformed into energy. This is the opposite of what happens in current nuclear fission plants, which rely on splitting atoms -- typically those from Uranium.
The result is energy that is cleaner and cheaper than current nuclear options, resulting in less toxic waste, according to scientists. But there's a problem -- it's hard to achieve.
Physics professor Gao Zhe from Beijing's Tsinghua University told the South China Morning Post in July that scientists around the world still had many problems to overcome in the field of nuclear fusion.
“There is no guarantee that all these problems will be solved. But if we don’t do it, the problems will definitely not be solved,” he said.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1320w/public/d8/images/2019/11/26/china-nuclear-fusion-science-energy_zq8815.jpg?itok=5NkDF2Qv
Another Chinese nuclear fusion project is EAST, operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics. (Picture: AFP/Chinese Academy Of Sciences )

The way reactors reproduce what the Sun does at its core is by using a doughnut-shaped chamber known as a tokamak. The HL-2M uses hydrogen and deuterium gas as fuel to simulate a nuclear fusion reaction by injecting them into the device and producing plasma. Its installation started in June this year.
The project is a part of China’s involvement with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), based in France. The ITER is the world’s largest nuclear fusion project with a price tag of about €20 billion (US$22 billion). It involves 35 countries and is expected to be completed in 2025.
It's also important for China's nuclear fusion reactor research. China's first fusion device, the HL-1, was completed in 1984. The Southwestern Institute of Physics is the oldest and largest research and development base for controlled nuclear fusion energy in China.
Another research hotspot for nuclear fusion in China is Hefei, Anhui province, where the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is based. That device has managed to reach the 100 million degrees mark.

[GeneChing]

So obvious...even the dot on the 'i'. :rolleyes:


China designers see Disney double in Dalian tourism logo competition winner (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3042647/china-designers-see-disney-double-dalian-tourism-logo)
Days after publishing winning design, city’s tourism bureau launches investigation into possible plagiarism
One graphic design news site said the winning design appeared to have copied the letters straight from the Disney logo
Zhuang Pinghui in Beijing
Published: 8:00am, 19 Dec, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/12/19/3dd15544-2177-11ea-acfb-1fd6c5cf20a4_image_hires_102205.JPG?itok=Bm53N9Dq&v=1576722133
The competition for a new logo for China’s popular tourism destination of Dalian has led to accusations of plagiarism for the winning design. Photo: Simon Song

The winner of a logo competition aimed at promoting tourism in the northern Chinese city of Dalian, Liaoning province, has been accused of ripping off Disney’s distinctive font.
The city’s Bureau of Culture and Tourism published the winning design of its “Dalian has quality gifts” competition on December 11 but specialists were soon picking it apart, accusing the winner of using a combination of other designs, including the lettering – loosely based on founder Walt Disney’s signature – of the global entertainment company’s logo.
The bureau said on Tuesday it was aware of the plagiarism accusation and was conducting an investigation.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/12/19/5ce6153e-2175-11ea-acfb-1fd6c5cf20a4_1320x770_102205.jpg
A design website in China has questioned similarities between the winning Dalian logo (left) and the Disney brand. Photo: Handout

“The investigation is currently under way and the results will be announced as soon as possible,” the statement said, adding that competition entrants were required to guarantee the intellectual property rights of their works.
“Works violating others’ intellectual property rights, once verified, will be disqualified from the competition and their rewards will be recovered,” the statement said, referring to the 30,000 yuan (US$4,300) prize money.
The winning design, by Su Zhanying from Dalian Yinji Tourism Culture Development Company, features a lighthouse above stylised blue water, accompanied by the word “Dalian” in Pinyin and Chinese characters.
In its announcement of the winner, Dalian city government said the design, called City Logo of Dalian, combined “the Chinese and English fonts with the city’s visual symbols and names into one” and reflected “the characteristics of the city … in a few simple strokes”.
Logonews.cn, a Chinese website dedicated to logo designs, questioned the originality of the winning work on Monday in a posting on microblogging platform Weibo.
“At first glance I felt the logo was all right, except the image was too complicated with too many colours, but then I found something very similar when I checked the font … Isn’t it the same font of the Disney logo?”
The Logonews.cn post went on to say that a comparison with the Disney logo found the winning design appeared to have copied the letters from the Disney logo and “even the graphic part is suspected of taking other references” – pointing to the similarity of the circle around the lighthouse to the line traced by a star in the animated version of the Disney logo.
“With so much copying, how dare the designer sign his name?” the posting ended.
The controversy deepened on Tuesday when calligrapher Ye Genyou took to Weibo to say that the Chinese characters used in the Dalian city logo were from his own Xing style and the designer was not authorised to use them.
Other internet users soon found similarities with other existing designs, claiming the lighthouse image looked only slightly different from one designed by a Philippines online artist known as “blueii” called The Brisbane Pathway. The stylised blue water was also said to be very similar to the city logo of Lianshui county in Jiangsu province.

THREADS
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
Disney (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71104-Disney)

[GeneChing]

Fake NYE drone celebration?


Shanghai’s New Year’s Eve drone show spectacular didn’t actually happen (https://shanghai.ist/2020/01/02/shanghais-new-years-eve-drone-show-spectacular-didnt-actually-happen/?fbclid=IwAR3kruiBWuy7lmaDYhfb44yhlnSRJYbtxSZRtvDI aaNjH0afCkfFigx28JE)
What a way to kick off 2020!
by Alex Linder January 2, 2020 in News

https://i1.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/nye-fake3.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1

Ever since 36 people were killed on the Bund as 2014 became 2015, New Year’s Eve festivities in Shanghai have been rather subdued.

Which is why we were rather surprised to see videos circulating around on Twitter of an apparent NYE light show spectacular on the Bund featuring nearly 2,000 drones. Those drones “took over the night sky” forming various shapes and patterns including a “running man” and a countdown clock right beside the Oriental Pearl Tower.

Video of the show has been shared by Chinese media outlets as well as international ones, including even the New York Times, impressing people around the globe with the innovative replacement to air pollution-causing fireworks.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh3-Mvrp1Lc


The New York Times
✔
@nytimes
In Shanghai, revelers welcomed in the new year with a drone display forming various shapes and patterns against the night sky over the Huangpu River https://nyti.ms/2QAiW8R

Embedded video
34K
3:40 PM - Dec 31, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
12.1K people are talking about this
However, there’s just one problem. People who were on the Bund on the night of New Year’s Eve say they didn’t see anything in the night sky. No drones. No nothing.


Patrick Cox
@PatrickCoxII
This blows my mind because it’s 100% Chinese fake news. We stood outside last night for a show that never happened lol

Shanghai Welcomes 2020 With Spectacular Drone Light Show https://youtu.be/UKnt_6I0m3s via @YouTube

YouTube ‎@YouTube

7
8:11 PM - Dec 31, 2019
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See Patrick Cox's other Tweets


Abraham Pérez🇪🇸
@AbrahamPrez25
Replying to @pajolicoe and 2 others
I was in the Bund on New Years Eve right in that time and nothing happened. All the drones display is fake.

1
6:27 AM - Jan 1, 2020
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See Abraham Pérez🇪🇸's other Tweets
A Reddit thread has been opened on the Shanghai subforum discussing this mysterious issue. One commenter points to a YouTube video that purportedly captured the New Year’s Eve festivities on the Bund.

In the video, a large crowd gathers on the Bund to watch with their cell phone cameras at ready as the clock strikes midnight. Observers get a bit excited as the lights go out in the Pudong skyscrapers… but are disappointed when those lights simply go back on a few seconds later with nothing actually happening.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

You can watch the video below. The countdown starts at around 02:50:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9j1cMEHfxM

When asked about the purported “drone show,” the person who shot the video responds: “No drones last night. Shame as it would have been cool to see. Not sure where the video came from but it appears to be the only video showing drones and has been reposted many times.”

On Weibo, video of the drones flying over the Huangpu River have caused similar confused comments. “Did I go to the wrong place? I was on the Bund!” writes one netizen. “There was really no celebration. This year’s NYE was cold and cheerless,” writes another.

Another video shows a large crowd of people counting down on the Bund with nothing happening as they reach zero. “New Year’s Eve is a Western holiday,” justifies one Weibo user.

https://i0.wp.com/shanghai.ist/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/fake-nye.jpg?resize=1320%2C736&ssl=1

However, a video posted onto Weibo does show the drone show over the Huangpu with the running man and 2020 spelled out. The video is dated December 29.

Our best, most charitable, explanation for this whole head-scratcher is that this was a practice run for a planned New Year’s Eve show that didn’t end up happening for some reason. Packaged footage of the show was always going to be from this practice run, in case something should go wrong on the big night.

And not even the show failing to take place ended up changing these plans.

THREADS
Happy New Year! (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?27472-Happy-New-Year!)
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZpOZ2j1cnA

Not to be confused with Ip Man 4 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69747-Ip-Man-4)

THREADS
Ip Man: Kung Fu Master (宗师叶问) (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71646-Ip-Man-Kung-Fu-Master-(%26%2323447%3B%26%2324072%3B%26%2321494%3B%26%233 8382%3B))
Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

120,000 fakes seized in largest golf counterfeit raid ever (https://www.golfdigest.com/story/120-00-fakes-seized-in-largest-golf-counterfeit-raid-ever)
By Mike Stachura

https://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2020/03/13/5e6bafa6b7d244b1a275c2a7_DSG_Show109_NG_V3.00_03_4 2_20.Still003.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.1280.720.suffix/1587133843610.jpeg

For those who think the counterfeit business in golf clubs has dried up and gone dark, guess again. A raid in China just turned up 120,000 phony golf products, the largest counterfeit golf equipment seizure in history.

The raid was the result of the joint efforts of the U.S. Golf Manufacturers Anti-Counterfeiting Working Group and 100 local Shanghai police officers, who raided 10 facilities at the same time operating in the online equipment business. Products included clubs and clubheads, shafts, grips and bags.

“We are thrilled that Chinese police were willing to take serious action against online counterfeits even during the pandemic,” said Kristin Strojan, legal counsel, trademark and brand protection at TaylorMade. “Counterfeiters have been taking advantage of the current situation, and counterfeit listings have become more rampant on the internet. We never stopped watching them even during these challenging times and continue to work with authorities worldwide to target online counterfeit sellers aggressively. This raid action sends a very strong message to the market that the Golf Group has zero tolerance for counterfeit products and will continue to monitor the marketplace, both online and offline, to maintain the integrity of the game.”

The Shanghai raid involved operators that primarily distribute products to online retailers, all of whom do the majority of their business outside the U.S. During the raid 15 people were detained and later arrested. According to a press release, “The entire network, from the manufacturer of the club heads, shaft and grip suppliers, to owners of assembling workshops, shipping center and online chatting rooms, was rooted out completely.”

According to officials with the Working Group, the counterfeit sales were coming from the Chinese online site Taobao, the world’s largest e-commerce site that is a consumer-to-consumer site much like ebay. The sellers were named “prettyspor” and “buddygolf.” The products, representing the brands Titleist, TaylorMade, PXG, Ping, Callaway, and XXIO, would have shipped directly from China.

According to the Working Group, more than two million golf counterfeits are produced each year. Across all industries it’s estimated the total value of counterfeit products globally is expected to reach $1.8 trillion by the end of this year.

A general rule of thumb for consumers wary of purchasing a counterfeit piece of golf equipment is to make sure the purchase is from an authorized retailer. The Working Group also cautions against consumers making purchases from online vendors based in China that they are unfamiliar with.

The Working Group is made up of six of the largest golf manufacturers in the world, including Acushnet (the parent of Titleist and FootJoy), Callaway (including Odyssey), SRI (Cleveland, Srixon and XXIO), Ping, PXG and TaylorMade.

Some things never change...

[GeneChing]

Bragging is never good.



U.S. Customs brags about seizing 'counterfeit Apple AirPods.' Uh, those are OnePlus Buds. (https://mashable.com/article/seized-apple-airpods-oneplus-buds/)

https://mondrian.mashable.com/uploads%252Fcard%252Fimage%252F1495207%252Fd3969ea 9-8897-4997-be0d-4578ed4557b6.webp%252F950x534__filters%253Aquality %252880%2529.webp?signature=9MVMy5OVd9-4ftxbenM8DwXPlYE=&source=https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com
IMAGE: ONEPLUS
BY STAN SCHROEDER
11 HOURS AGO

Well, this is embarrassing: the Customs and Border Protection seems to have seized 2,000 OnePlus Buds, thinking they're counterfeit Apple AirPods.

It sounds hard to believe, but a CBP press release (via The Verge) lays out the facts quite clearly.

"On August 31, CBP officers seized 2,000 counterfeit Apple Airpod Earbuds from Hong Kong destined for Nevada at an air cargo facility located at John F. Kennedy International Airport. If the merchandise were genuine, the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) would have been $398,000," the press release says.

The problem is that the release contains two photos of what appear to be perfectly genuine OnePlus Buds.

If anything, these are counterfeit OnePlus Buds, not Apple AirPods.

https://mondrian.mashable.com/uploads%252Fcard%252Fimage%252F1495203%252Fa089ed6 b-3b09-4db4-b27e-68fecb5b7e60.webp%252Ffull-fit-in__950x534.webp?signature=l13Votx7a6cG-HjZNXJ-u7dFoAg=&source=https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com
IMAGE: CBP

CBP's caption under one of the images clearly states that these are "counterfeit Apple Airpod Earbuds seized."

CBP also proudly tweeted the accomplishment with the caption: "That's not an (Apple emoji)." Erm, no, it clearly isn't.

“The interception of these counterfeit earbuds is a direct reflection of the vigilance and commitment to mission success by our CBP Officers daily," Troy Miller, Director of CBP’s New York Field Operations, said in a statement.

An error of some sort has clearly been made here. Yes, the OnePlus Buds do look a lot like Apple's AirPods, but they're not counterfeit goods. If anything, the buds shown in CBP's photo could be counterfeit OnePlus Buds, and not AirPods. Or perhaps an entirely wrong photo has been used? It's a mystery.

OnePlus, meanwhile, is having a bit of fun with the situation.

Mashable has contacted CBP to find more; we'll update the post when we hear back.

[GeneChing]

China arrests leader of fake vaccine scam (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56080092)
Published20 hours ago
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/137D5/production/_116992897_chinavaccine.jpgChina has vaccinated about 40 million people to date.
China has arrested the leader of a multi-million dollar scam that passed off saline solution and mineral water as Covid-19 vaccines.

The man, identified as Kong, had researched the packaging designs of real vaccines before making more than 58,000 of his own concoctions.

A batch of the vaccines were smuggled overseas, but it is not known where they were sent to.

Kong is among 70 people who have been arrested for similar crimes.

The arrests, involving more than 20 cases, came as Beijing vowed to crack down on fraudulent vaccines.

Even though most of the cases surfaced late last year, new details were released this week.

According to a court ruling, Kong and his team made a profit of 18m yuan ($2.78m; £2m) by putting saline solution or mineral water in syringes and hawking them as Covid vaccines since August last year.

A batch of 600 of these vaccines were sent to Hong Kong last November, before they were shipped abroad. The sales were made on the basis the vaccines were acquired via "internal channels" of genuine manufacturers.

In other cases, counterfeit vaccines were sold at inflated prices in hospitals. Other criminals also conducted inoculation programmes of their own and had "village doctors" vaccinate people with fake jabs in their homes and cars.

China's highest prosecuting body, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has urged regional agencies to cooperate with the police to curb such activities.

Officials had hoped to administer 100 million Covid doses before the Lunar New Year last week, but have only vaccinated 40 million people so far. However, the country has largely managed to bring the pandemic under control with strict lockdown, testing and tracing measures.


threads
Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)
Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

Chinese movie China Captain slammed as rip-off of Marvel films (https://www.straitstimes.com/life/entertainment/chinese-movie-china-captain-slammed-as-rip-off-of-marvel-films)
https://static.straitstimes.com.sg/s3fs-public/styles/article_pictrure_780x520_/public/articles/2021/05/26/ak_chmv_260521.jpg?itok=yJjA-6eI&timestamp=1622020411
China Captain was released on Tencent Video streaming website on May 18.PHOTO: MAOYAN/WEIBO
Lim Ruey Yan
PUBLISHEDMAY 26, 2021, 5:06 PM SGT

SINGAPORE - A Chinese web movie featuring an assortment of characters from Chinese folklore and novels has been slammed for ripping off Marvel's superhero movies.

China Captain - the title of the movie echoes Marvel's Captain America - was released on Tencent Video streaming website on May 18.

The story tells of a group of Chinese heroes who declare war on a bunch of foreign superheroes who have encroached on their turf in China.

The movie, directed by He Yizheng, stars relatively unknown actors such as Zheng Xiaofu, Li Taiyan and Du Qiao.

It features characters such as the Monkey King from the classic novel Journey To The West, eccentric monk Ji Gong and late gongfu star Bruce Lee.

There are also characters from late author Louis Cha's martial arts novels such as Yang Guo, Wei Xiaobao and Dongfang Bubai.

Some characters seem to have superpowers, such as Justice Bao from the Song Dynasty firing laser beams from his crescent-moon shaped birthmark on his forehead; and Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms period having laser-like eyes.

Some Chinese netizens said it was so bad that they had to stop watching after a while and lambasted the weak story and poor special effects.

Others said there were several similarities to the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, such as the film opening with the flipping of comic book pages and the assembling of the Chinese heroes towards the end.

Despite the bad reviews, the movie has a rating of 7.7 on Tencent Video, which left some wondering if the score was a true reflection.

threads
China Captain (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72074-China-Captain-(Gu-Dan-Xing-Dong-%26%2330005%3B%26%2324433%3B%26%2339044%3B%26%2321 578%3B))
Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
Jin-Yong-aka-Louis-Cha (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?52605-Jin-Yong-aka-Louis-Cha)
Monkey-King (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50181-Monkey-King)

[GeneChing]

Researchers show that alkaline water provides other extra great benefits that regular tap or bottled water lack. And what do researchers show about NASA-certified water? :p



Scammers in China Sold Bottles of ‘NASA-Certified’ Water for $160 Each (https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbapn/china-pyramid-scam-nasa-certified-water)
The pyramid scheme saw people touting a miracle liquid that supposedly helps with weight loss, diabetes, and even cancer.
By Koh Ewe
June 1, 2021, 12:50am

https://video-images.vice.com/articles/60b5db3c1606dd009b864e3f/lede/1622530902992-jonathan-chng-otdydgpoj0-unsplash.jpeg
PHOTO: JONATHAN CHNG, UNSPLASH
Among the most expensive liquids in the world, many have good reason to boast hefty price tags. But in a recent case in China, bottles of ridiculously priced “NASA-certified” water turned out to be just regular water, and part of a massive multi-level marketing scheme.

Chinese authorities recently indicted a company named Zhongzichuanglian for operating the pyramid scheme, state-run legal news outlet Procuratorial Daily reported in May.

The company, which operated from 2016 to 2018 and had over 49,000 members, made nearly 900 million Chinese yuan ($141 million) in revenue, most notably through a water product known as “SSG Life Mineral Liquid” that was supposedly certified by the United States’ aeronautics and space agency. Sold in boxes of 15, each 35 milliliter bottle of water cost 1,000 yuan ($160) and claimed to cure various ailments and help people retain youthful vigor. A police investigation later found that it was merely regular groundwater, state-run publication National Business Daily reported.

The case came to light in 2019, when a series of police reports were lodged against the company, after victims of the pyramid scheme realized that they had been scammed. According to Chinese news outlet Legal Daily, members were told that they could enjoy a rebate of 100,000 yuan ($15,700) after spending 150,000 yuan ($23,600) worth of products.

But the cashback reportedly never came, and the water proved useless against its incredible health promises—backed by Nobel Prize winners, or so the company claimed—that included weight loss, a diabetes cure, and cancer treatment.

Despite the supposed all-healing properties of the SSG Life Mineral Liquid, the company claimed that consuming the water by itself can only achieve 70 percent of its effectiveness. To reap its full benefits, customers were encouraged to undergo floating therapy, a service offered by a subsidiary company that runs float centers and sells other wellness products like face masks and pain relief patches. One floating therapy session would cost members 298 yuan ($47).

Members were classified into levels differentiated by the amount of their profits. To boost membership, the company implemented a variety of rewards policies, incentivizing existing members to rake in new ones. The company reportedly also promoted itself by claiming that it used blockchain technology.

According to Procuratorial Daily, 17 people have been indicted in relation to the pyramid scheme. The leaders of the scheme, identified only by their last names Yan and Wang, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison with a 1 million yuan ($157,000) fine, and eight years and six months in prison with a fine of 900,000 yuan ($141,000), respectively.

Follow Koh Ewe on Instagram.

threads
Water (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?6265-Water)
Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)

[GeneChing]

This is such a weird story and this seems the best place to post it.


China’s ‘fake socialite’: student who lived for free for art school project caught up in wealth inequality controversy (https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/social-welfare/article/3151114/chinas-fake-socialite-student-who-lived-high)
Zou Yaqi spent 21 days in Beijing sleeping in the halls of extravagant hotels, trying on expensive jewellery and eating for free
The student has been surprised by the criticism of the project but says it was not about wealth inequality, but about living off society’s excess
Topic |
China Society
Phoebe Zhang
Published: 6:00pm, 6 Oct, 2021

https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1098,format=auto/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2021/10/06/c3d034dc-24d9-11ec-8f06-8f17bcf6e46a_image_hires_183228.jpg?itok=Dmp_GBsR&v=1633516355
When Zou Yaqi published a few short clips from her art project on Weibo she was not prepared for the controversy that followed. Photo: Weibo
For 21 days in May, Beijing student Zou Yaqi lived for free; sleeping in the halls of extravagant hotels, trying on jade bracelets at auctions and working at an office in Ikea.
This exercise was no scam, however, it was a project for the student who was graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She recorded her experience on video, which was placed on display in June at the academy. In September, she published a few short clips from the project on Weibo. But she was not prepared for the controversy that followed.
In the Weibo clips, Zou showed herself eating free sample snacks at malls, sleeping on fancy couches and trying on expensive clothes.
She had chosen places she felt were relatively safe, such as hotel lobbies and the Haidilao restaurant chain, and to look the part she wore fancy clothes, a fake ring and a fake Hermes bag.
She wrote on Weibo that the project had stemmed from her long-standing interest in whether a person could live on the “excessive material” produced by society.https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2021/10/06/c376c866-24d9-11ec-8f06-8f17bcf6e46a_972x_183228.jpg
Zou spent 21 days in Beijing eating and sleeping for free. Photo: Weibo
“In my experience, it’s interesting how these materials are distributed, they are usually assigned to people who look like they already have sufficient wealth in life — they can sleep in extravagant hotel lobbies for free, shower in the airport and use hotel beaches for free, eat at weddings or buffets ... or enjoy snacks and wine at auctions,” she wrote.
“So I pretended to be one such person ... and lived off these ‘excessive materials’.”
The project has received mixed reactions in China. Some said such discussion is meaningful, while some called her experiment: “a prank to get free food and drinks”. Another left a comment under her description of sneaking into a first-class airport lounge as: “using a policy loophole.”
Many said that she was “pretending to be a socialite” and “took advantage of a highly extravagant lifestyle”, with the word “fake socialite” appearing in the headlines of several viral blog pieces about her project.
The art student has found herself caught up in an ongoing backlash against materialism and wealth inequality in China. The gap between rich and poor has become an increasingly divisive social issue following China’s rapid rise in prosperity in recent decades.
Wealth inequality has surfaced as a major concern again recently following a government crackdown on celebrity pay, with the earnings of top stars like Zheng Shuang under scrutiny when it was revealed she earned more in a day than most people would in a year.
https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2021/10/06/c3243efc-24d9-11ec-8f06-8f17bcf6e46a_972x_183228.jpg
To look the part, she carried a fake designer handbag and clothes and jewellery to give the appearance of wealth and success. Photo: Weibo
In August, President Xi Jinping said China must now move towards a fairer system that looks after those who are not yet wealthy now that the country had been lifted out of poverty, with what he termed “common prosperity”.
Zou has responded on Weibo to her critics, saying she is not a socialite and only looked like one due to her long preparation for the project, and that her intention was not to examine wealth inequality or define what a socialite is.
“Prosperity gap and class stratification are only temporary, the public will reach common prosperity sooner or later,” she wrote.https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2021/10/06/c376c866-24d9-11ec-8f06-8f17bcf6e46a_972x_183228.jpg
Many have criticised Zou’s project, labelling her the ‘fake socialite’. Photo: Weibo
Some people adopted a more positive take on Zou’s experiment, pointing out that Zou’s experience differed from that of Sanmao, a famous child vagabond cartoon character created in the 1930s, with whom she was compared by some.
“We can say with confidence that she lived 21 days in the metropolis freely, relying on the tolerance and kindness of our commercial society,” said the Guangzhou-based Nanfengchuang magazine.

Phoebe Zhang
Phoebe Zhang is a society reporter with the Post. She has a master's degree in journalism.

[GeneChing]

Hk$55m = $7,073,880 usd



fake viagra, cialis tablets among hong kong’s record hk$55 million seizure of controlled pharmaceuticals (https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3153528/fake-viagra-cialis-tablets-among-hong-kongs-record)
customs confiscates 1.6 million pills, most for treating erectile dysfunction, and arrests five in series of raids
hung hom industrial site served as distribution centre for sending generic and fake pills to customers all over the world

clifford lo

published: 11:15am, 25 oct, 2021

https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1098,format=auto/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2021/10/25/4764b388-3559-11ec-bf9d-b73b258185bb_image_hires_171635.jpeg?itok=35jhahfv&v=1635153404
counterfeit viagra was among the record seizure. Photo: Afp
anti-impotence drugs formed the bulk of a record hk$55 million (us$7 million) haul of controlled pharmaceutical products seized in a customs crackdown on a transnational syndicate, which allegedly mailed the tablets to customers around the world from its operations centre in hong kong.
Customs officers arrested three women and two men during a series of citywide raids over the past month in which they confiscated 1.6 million pills disguised as general goods that had been flown in from india.
More than 70 per cent of the prescription or controlled drugs, valued at hk$41 million, were for treating erectile dysfunction and contained either sildenafil or tadalafil. Tablets for countering depression and prostate-related illnesses were also seized.
Senior superintendent rita li yim-ping, head of the customs and excise department’s syndicate crimes investigation bureau, said on monday that most of the drugs were generic, but about 60,000 were counterfeit viagra or cialis.
“the haul has an estimated market value of hk$55 million. It is the biggest-ever seizure of controlled pharmaceutical drugs in terms of value that hong kong customs has detected,” she said.
The suspects included a 27-year-old female tattoo artist accused of running the operations centre in hung hom, and two directors of a shell company with no record of running the business as stated. One of the directors was a 39-year-old woman from uzbekistan and the other was a russian man, 41.

the syndicate’s ringleader collected orders via overseas websites or apps and then instructed his hong kong members to send the pharmaceutical drugs to buyers worldwide
senior superintendent rita li
financial investigation revealed that about hk$11 million had been transferred into the bank account of the tattoo artist and hk$9 million was deposited into another account belonging to the shell company between january 2019 and september 2021, according to li.
The senior superintendent said she believed the accounts were used to collect and launder the money received from overseas customers of the drugs, with funds arriving from countries including bulgaria, montenegro and switzerland.
“but we don’t rule out the possibility that the two accounts were also used to launder other crime proceeds,” li said.
She suggested the syndicate was in line to pocket at least half of the proceeds had it managed to sell all of the drugs that were seized.
“the samples have been taken to a government laboratory to see whether the ingredients used in the seized tablets are harmful,” she said. “we are still waiting for the results of the test.”
https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2021/10/25/69d912a2-34d1-11ec-8bc1-f82f86ab0ffa_972x_171635.jpeg
the customs and excise department’s headquarters in north point. Photo: Xiaomei chen
li said the investigation revealed the imported drugs were delivered to a hung hom industrial unit which was used as a storage, packaging and distribution centre.
“the syndicate’s ringleader [who was not in hong kong] collected orders via overseas websites or apps and then instructed his hong kong members to send the pharmaceutical drugs to buyers worldwide,” the senior superintendent said.
Li said intelligence showed the drugs were destined for more than 20 countries around the world, such as australia, belgium, canada, denmark, france, germany, the united states and the united kingdom.
Hong kong customs began investigating the syndicate after officers at the airport’s cargo terminal intercepted parcels containing about 40,000 tablets on september 28. Some of the parcels were destined for spain.
The female director of the shell company was detained on september 30 when she allegedly tried to mail some parcels containing the drugs from a post office in hung hom.
In a raid on the operations centre that day, customs officers arrested a 41-year-old woman from hong kong and confiscated about 1.4 million tablets.
Officers later raided the office of a logistics company in sheung wan and seized more than 100,000 tablets of the controlled drugs.
On october 5, a 34-year-old man was picked up in tsing yi, while the tattoo artist was arrested in north point the following day.
Last friday, customs officers detained the male director of the shell company at his sai kung home.
The five suspects, arrested for offences such as money laundering and attempting to export controlled drugs without a licence, have been released on bail pending further investigation.
Senior investigator martin ma wing-hong, of customs’ financial investigation division, said the tattoo artist had a monthly income of between hk$30,000 and hk$40,000, lived in a rented flat and did not own any property.
“the amount of money [hk$11 million] she received is not commensurate with her income and background,” he said. “we don’t rule out the possibility that the funds were the proceeds of crime.”
he said the shell company did not have any record of running the business and that its bank account handled large sums of money, with some of those funds coming from european countries such as switzerland and france.
“we suspect the [two directors] handled hk$9 million in crime proceeds through the account,” ma said.
Officers from the syndicate crimes bureau are still investigating the length of time the gang was operating in hong kong.

This article appeared in the south china morning post print edition as: Fake viagra tablets among hk$55m customs haul



clifford lo
clifford lo covers the city’s breaking news including major accidents and crime, with a particular interest in reporting local crime trends and statistics.

[GeneChing]

Customs seized over $10 million worth of counterfeit Rolex watches (https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/07/us/counterfeit-rolexes-seized-customs-trnd/index.html)
By Zoe Sottile, CNN
Updated 1:00 AM ET, Sat May 7, 2022
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220506102814-counterfeit-rolexes-seized-customs-exlarge-169.jpg
Customs officers in Indianapolis seized over $10 million in counterfeit Rolex watches at the end of April.
(CNN)It might be time to check the authenticity of your new luxury watch.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in Indianapolis seized two shipments of counterfeit Rolex watches on April 27 and 29. The fake luxury watches would have had a total value of $10.1 million if real, according to a news release from CBP.
Both shipments had originated in Hong Kong and were destined for Brooklyn, New York, the CBP said. The agency was tipped off by intelligence gathering and a history of fraudulent shipments from the same vendor -- which triggered them to detain and inspect the two April shipments, the CBP said.
The April 27 shipment contained 300 counterfeit Rolex watches and the April 29 shipment had 160 counterfeit Rolex watches, according to the news release.
"No one buys a luxury brand watch expecting it to fail or fall apart," LaFonda Sutton-Burke, CBP's Chicago director of field operations, said in the news release.
"As consumers increasingly purchase from online or third party vendors, our officers are at the frontline to guard against defrauders expecting to make money selling fake merchandise."

That's $10 M if they were real. 460 fake Rolexs are only worth what? $460?

[GeneChing]

Chinese zoo denies its bears are ‘humans in disguise’ after ‘suspicious’ photos and videos (https://nextshark.com/chinese-zoo-bears-humans-in-disguise)
Chinese zoo denies its bears are ‘humans in disguise’ after ‘suspicious’ photos and videosvia Weibo
The zoo said wearing a costume would be intolerable due to hot weather
Carl Samson

AUGUST 1, 2023

https://nextshark.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/CHINESE-ZOO-BEAR.jpg?width=768&auto_optimize=medium

A ZOO IN China’s Zhejiang province is in hot water after being accused of hiring humans to play bears for one of its most popular exhibits.

What critics are saying: The allegations reportedly erupted earlier this month after photos and videos of a sun bear at the Hangzhou Zoo made rounds on Chinese social media.
In the accusatory posts, at least one black-furred bear can be seen standing like a person with pants-like folds under its rear — raising suspicions that the whole exhibit was just a giant cosplay.

What the zoo is saying: An employee at the zoo reportedly rejected the allegations last week and insisted that the zoo’s sun bears are real. They explained that sun bears typically have a mild temperament that allows them to interact with visitors. Additionally, they said that the high temperature on the day the photos and videos were taken — 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) — would make a costume intolerable for a person to wear, according to Phoenix New Media.
They also mentioned that arrangements were made for reporters to see the bears for themselves.
The big picture: This is not the first time a Chinese zoo has been accused of having people wear animal costumes.
In 2013, a zoo in Louhe, Henan province, tried to pass off a large and hairy Tibetan mastiff dog as a lion. In 2019, a zoo in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, dressed staff workers as gorillas, later defending the stunt as an April Fool’s prank.

Wow. This is awesome. :p

[GeneChing]

Chinese Discount Retailer Miniso Is Sorry for Pretending to Be Japanese (https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8kpa/miniso-apologized-pretending-japanese-nationalism)
The company said it would “de-Japanize” by March next year.

By Rachel Cheung
August 22, 2022, 3:50am

https://video-images.vice.com/articles/630352610d06de009475ca0d/lede/1661162083047-miniso-and-uni-qlo-min.jpeg
MINISO'S STOREFRONT IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF JAPANESE BRAND UNIQLO. PHOTOS: MINISO (LEFT) AND GOTOVAN FROM VANCOUVER, CANADA, CC BY 2.0

People could hardly be blamed for mistaking Miniso as a Japanese brand.

The discount retailer has taken over the world by presenting itself as a Japanese brand, with more than 5,100 shops from the capital of North Korea to Broadway Avenue in New York. It has brazenly copied the aesthetic and storefront of casual-wear chain Uniqlo. Their products are cheaper, knockoff versions of designer goods from homeware brand Muji. And their logo even features Japanese Katakana characters, which are pronounced as Meisou.

But Miniso is a “proud Chinese brand through and through,” the company said last week, as it apologized for pretending to be a Japanese brand and thus hurting the feelings of Chinese consumers.

The marketing strategy of the New York-listed company has come under scrutiny and sparked outcry as political tensions with Tokyo stirred anti-Japanese sentiment in China.

In a statement on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Miniso said it was deeply ashamed for having promoted itself as “a Japanese designer brand” in the early stage of its development, which it described as “a wrong direction.”

The company, which is based in the southern Chinese city of Guangdong, said it has begun “de-Japanizing” since 2019 and will remove any element that makes references to Japan from its marketing materials and storefronts by March next year.

Its management pledged to hold senior staff responsible for the “severe mistake.” Miniso also vowed to “export the correct Chinese culture and values.”

The statement came after the company caused a domestic backlash earlier this month, as Miniso Spain has mistakenly described Disney Princesses wearing Chinese cheongsam in a recent toy collection as Japanese geisha. The Chinese company subsequently issued an apology and demanded its agent in Spain to terminate the agency that ran its social media accounts. “We admire the long historical civilization and splendid cultural achievements of China,” Miniso Spain later wrote in an Instagram post.

Though Miniso opened its first store in Guangzhou in 2013 and most of its products are manufactured in China, the company repeatedly insisted it was a Japanese brand in the first few years, citing the presence of Japanese designer Miyake Junya as a co-founder.

“It is funny how the strategic partnership and high performance of Miniso in China has overshadowed the business in Japan,” Junya said in 2016, when the company operated more than 1,000 outlets in China, but only four in Japan. He hoped to share Japan’s design philosophy with people around the world.

By 2019, when the company was preparing for its public listing in the U.S., all mentions of Junya and its Japanese origins had disappeared from its site and documents, including its IPO prospectus, which listed Chinese entrepreneur Ye Guofu as its only founder.

Miniso was embroiled in 68 lawsuits in the same year, with more than 40 cases involving copyright infringement. In 2016, a Hong Kong outlet reported that several well-known Nordic designers’ names were featured on Miniso’s website without their agreement. At least two Hong Kong artists have also accused the company of ripping off their design.

Follow Rachel Cheung on Twitter and Instagram. I've noticed the similarity but didn't realize it went so deep.

[GeneChing]

In-N-Out knockoff, complete with red trays and burgers, draws crowds (https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/knockoff-in-n-out-in-mexico-18275656.php)
By Timothy Karoff
Aug 2, 2023

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/33/74/20/24101907/3/960x0.webp
In-I-Nout's light-up sign beckons.
Screenshot via Google
Picture this: You’re cruising down the highway out of Culiacán, the capital of the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa. It’s 9 p.m., and the last hints of blue have faded from the night sky. After a long, hot day, you’re tired and a little hungry. You miss California.
That’s when you see it. You pull over and rub your eyes, but they’re not deceiving you. “IN-I-NOUT,” the brightly lit sign reads.
Not “In-N-Out” — “In-I-Nout.”
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the copycat burger restaurant opened. Older Google Street View footage just shows a shuttered, unmarked blue building where the establishment now stands. The restaurant’s first Instagram post dates back to June, and the Google ratings started trickling in about a month ago (one reviewer gave it a 100% recommendation, while another complained of long waits and lack of air conditioning). Patrons’ photos show uncannily accurate Double-Doubles and animal fries, complete with grilled onions and spread, all served on familiar red trays. Inside, the restaurant looks, well, like a knockoff In-N-Out, complete with red booths.
The restaurant draws on In-N-Out’s nostalgia for 1950s Americana: Walls are adorned with old-school Coca-Cola and diner posters, and there’s even a diner counter. At least some customers seem to be in on the bit, too. In a viral TikTok documenting In-I-Nout, American country music plays over footage of the restaurant’s burgers. To Californians, In-N-Out is a fast food chain. But Culiacán's In-I-Nout is a symbol of a bygone time in a faraway place.
Maybe In-N-Out could learn a thing or two from its imitator. A photo posted on In-I-Nout’s Instagram account depicts what appear to be buffalo chicken tenders — which the real In-N-Out, with its rigidly standardized menu, has never offered. And to be honest, the fries look better than the California In-N-Out’s limp, starchy offerings.


By Timothy Karoff
Timothy Karoff is SFGATE's culture reporter. He lives in San Francisco's Mission District. You can email him at timothy.karoff@sfgate.com
It's Mexican, not Chinese, and it's a year old article, but it was just too funny to me not to share...:p

[GeneChing]

China man uses deepfake technology to disguise himself as late father in videos to save frail grandmother from heartbreak (https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/article/3254937/china-man-uses-deepfake-technology-disguise-himself-late-father-videos-save-frail-grandmother#:~:text=A%20caring%20grandson%20in%20C hina,unaware%20her%20son%20was%20dead.)
Family hides death of son from 91-year-old, tells her he is in hospital
Grandson creates AI videos, imitates father’s voice, eases own grief
Fran Lu
in Beijing
Published: 2:00pm, 20 Mar 2024
https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/canvas/2024/03/20/84679631-fc77-4e91-9cdf-c978dc1f1584_f1f75fcb.jpg?itok=XcETzvll&v=1710912077
A caring grandson in China used artificial intelligence, or AI, deepfake technology in videos to disguise himself as his deceased father so he could comfort his frail grandmother who was unaware her son was dead.

The man, surnamed Sun, from the northeastern province of Liaoning, said his family had been hiding the truth from his grandmother after his father died from a rare cancer six months ago.

The 91-year-old woman has a serious heart problem and they were afraid the news might be too distressing for her.

So they told her that her son was receiving treatment at a prestigious hospital in Beijing, and must stay there because of his condition.

Sun said he had to use AI technology to “resurrect” his father after his grandmother kept asking to see him.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/03/11/613b09a8-e3b4-48ff-8c5e-4dfc297fcae2_52b0be3e.jpg
The dead man had been suffering from a rare form of cancer before he passed away. Photo: Douyin
He told her his father was not allowed to bring his mobile phone into the hospital, and pretended he had travelled to Beijing to record a video of him for her.

Using old photographs and face-swap software, the grandson placed his father’s face onto his own, and imitated his voice.

“Mum, I’m fine in Beijing. They cannot cure this annoying disease, but it is under control,” he says in the video.

He sent the video to his aunt first to test its quality before showing it to his grandmother.

Sun said the old woman, who has bad eyesight but an optimistic approach to life, believed it was her son in the video.

Sun said making the video meant sorting through his father’s photos, which he had been avoiding since his death.

When he got ill, Sun took him to dozens of hospitals across China and abroad, and even went to temples to pray to deities.

He found it very difficult to accept his father’s death. So the disguise also became his way of saying goodbye.

A video of him telling the face-swap story, posted on his Douyin account @Zaixiasancai, received 5 million views.

“This is the best way to use deepfake technology,” one online observer said.

“The grandma might know what happened better than anyone, but she just needed some comfort,” said another.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/03/11/0e9b6191-eb4c-4289-93a2-b111f8af8403_a57dc0a9.jpg
It is not uncommon for people in China to use AI technology to keep the death of a loved one from relatives. Photo: Shutterstock
“He was being the son of his grandma,” said a third.

It is not the first time people have lied about the death of a family member to protect the feelings of their loved ones.

Usually, it is children who hide it from their elderly parents who are not in good health.

In other cases, parents hide the death of important family members from children ahead of their university entrance exams, so it does not affect their performance.



Fran Lu
Fran has been a reporter since 2014, mainly covering social and cultural stories about China. She writes about lifestyle, social trends and youth culture.

Chinese Counterfeits, Fakes & Knock-Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs)
AI-Responses-to-Common-Kung-Fu-questions (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?72458-AI-Responses-to-Common-Kung-Fu-questions)