Money

China World – A Bootlegger Speaks

Kοινοποίηση

am 21 years old and just graduated from university. I was born and raised in a small city in Hunan with around 40,000 people. Now I am living in Shenzhen, a modern city in southern China, not so far from Hong Kong. I am working in the city in an office, selling many kinds of not-original-brand clothing over the internet.



My boss has a factory in China for vegetables and fruits. His family has been doing that for ages. Every year the turnover is around $10 million US. They sell ginger, garlic, potatoes, bananas, lychee, carrots, cabbage, lotus roots, chestnuts, pears, and shallots. The fake-items business is just like an extra bonus. I asked my big boss about it and he said, “I started about three years ago, because I’m a fashionable man. I know all the famous-brand garments and like to wear them. So why not sell them? I can wear them too.” He has three people working for him selling clothing on the internet. That includes me.

The goods come mainly from Zhenjiang or Qingdao. I am not familiar with the life of the factory, but I was told that it is dull work because they do the same thing every day. My boss says, “The circumstances are very bad. Twelve hours of working non-stop, no breaks, and very low salary. They make less than $100 US a month normally. But I never think about it. It is as normal as the fact that the sun rises from the east. This is China, and the market rules.”

I sell brands like A Bathing Ape, Billionaire Boys Club, Red Monkey, 10 Deep, and LRG. I have been doing this for seven months now. I like it very much because I can communicate with various people from all over the world. At the same time I can make money. I earn more than $1,300 a month! Most of our customers like our clothing very much because the quality is great and the price is good. I like the style myself. But most of the clothing is too big for me.

In my future, I think I will keep on selling goods on the internet. Not only the clothing but also other things special to China such as vegetables, fruit, and so on. There are many, many great items with top quality and amazing prices in China. The internet is a great tool. We should take advantage of it to do as many things as possible.

AMEKO
 

Videos by VICE

o san

! Besides the fact that they will end up taking over the entire world in the 21st century, becoming a global superpower the likes of which we haven’t seen since the heydays of Rome or the British Empire, the Chinese also make a really nice fake Gucci bag. And the best part is, since they are everywhere, you can get counterfeit Chinese goods in almost any city in the world. In a way, fake Chinese goods are the great unifying factor in all of human culture right now. To prove this utterly obvious point, we traversed the globe talking to Chinese immigrants and people who sell bootleg Chinese goods. Prepare yourself for the future, pangyau!
 

Photo by Léo de Boisgisson




Vice: Where are you from?

Shopkeeper [on the right]:
From Liuzhou, a small town in Guangxi province, China.

How different is it from France?

It’s much cheaper in Guangxi, but there is more stuff to buy here. Liuzhou is really too small!

Do you like living here?

Yes. I like the climate here. It’s cooler than in China, especially in the summer.

What do you sell?

Mostly fantasy jewelry.

Sounds fancy. Are they real?

What do you mean? We are official wholesalers working for a Chinese exporter. Of course it’s real stuff!

OK, OK. Do you like the stuff you sell?

Yes, I do. I want to tell you, I am only an intern here. This won’t be my job forever. I am still in school.


Photo by Thilo Mischke



Berlin’s Chinatown is confined to massive indoor markets.

Vice: Where are you from?

Feng:
I am from a little town near Shanghai. I have been living in Germany for six years. I’m 32 now.

What were you doing in China?

I was a trained nurse. I would also like to work as a nurse here, but my German is too bad. So now I sell designer fashion and jewelry.

Do you enjoy it?

It’s kind of boring to be honest.

How do you feel as a seller next to hundreds of salesmen from Asia who basically sell exactly the same stuff?

Well, you can imagine that there’s a lot of competition. We fight a lot and we deal with hardcore stress on a daily basis.


Photo by Ale Formenti



Vice: Where do you come from in China?

Jin Ruihong: Zhejang, close to Shanghai.

How is it different there from here?

Everything is different. The culture, the people. We’ve been here for ten years now and there’s still a lot of difference, even within the Chinese community here. It’s a large community—people from all over China.

Do you like it here?

It’s so-so. Communication is the hardest thing. Many Chinese don’t speak Italian, and few Italians speak Chinese. And also there’s a bit of racism. Some Italians treat us nicely, but there’s still some racism.

What are you selling in this shop?

All things made in China. We import the goods and sell them. We have contacts with factories in China. We tell them what to make, they make it for us, then we import them and sell them in Italy. We mostly sell wool and silk scarves.

Do you like the items you’re selling?

Well, we use the products we sell. We wouldn’t sell them if we didn’t like them.

Photo by Shin Tamura




Yokohama has the largest Chinatown in Japan. It’s really touristy. Since they opened the new Chinatown train station in 2004, the place is busier than ever. The cops have also cracked down on illegal deals in order to make it a safer place for the thousands of Japanese pouring in on the train.

Chinese people living in Japan are probably the cagiest group of humans in the world. Can you blame them? Ever hear of the Rape of Nanking? We wouldn’t be getting over that too soon either.

But there is a yen or two to be made in selling fake Louis Vuitton wallets and belts in Yokohama, so the Chinese and their bootleg gear have come. That doesn’t mean that anyone of them would speak to Vice though. We approached 100 percent of the shops there and got a 100-percent rejection rate (usually with lots of flapping arms and angry glares).

Photo by Rocco Castoro



New York’s actually got a couple of Chinatowns, but the main one, the one you see in movies and Law & Order and whathaveyou, is in Lower Manhattan around Canal Street. This Chinatown isn’t only the biggest one in the country, but actually the largest enclave of Chinese anywhere in the Western Hemisphere (take that, Buenos Aires!). We figured its size would make it easy to track down a chatty vendor of bootleg goods, but after bouncing around from stall to stall for hours we discovered that while most shopkeepers have no qualms about ushering people who could very well be cops (they don’t know) through trick doors into secret rooms full of $45 Gucci knock-offs, they’re a little more wary of scooping out the dish ’bout their trade. We eventually c’mon’ed a brother and sister who run a purse shop into gabbing, but they were so shy they wouldn’t even tell us their names.

Vice: How do you decide which brands to carry?

Sister:
People come and ask us, “Do you want this? This is the new style.” They bring a magazine with all the different types. There might be one, two, or three different styles. We just pick the color we want.

Where are the wholesalers usually from?

Brother:
Most of them are Asians. They’re probably Japanese, maybe Korean. We never asked them though.

Do customers ask for specific brands?

Sister:
If they like it, they just pick it up. If they don’t like the price, we give them $5 less—a discount price.

What’s the difference between business here and China?

Brother:
We have a life here. Even if we go back to China, we can’t start anything.


Photo by Alex Sturrocki



In London if you want to buy bootleg Chinese Gucci purses for £20 you should go to Dalston market, East London. When we popped in recently, the mere sight of us with a camera made the stallholders shit their pants. But when you’re on the dole and carry more dodgy hand luggage than a transatlantic flight from Afghanistan, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t want a photographer snooping around. We eventually found one guy who was willing to speak to us, though.

Vice: Where are you from?

Vendor:
Guinea in West Africa.

Do you like it here?

Yeah, I’m OK with it. It was very hard to settle when I first arrived. The people are friendly, but the problem is the language. We normally speak French, so in the beginning it was hard.

What are you selling?

Handbags, hats, gloves, and belts.

Are they real?

I think so, but I don’t know. I just go to a wholesaler in Aldgate, and I buy it there from some Chinese people. They tell me it is real.



We ran around Chinatown in Barcelona and talked to a few people.

Photos by Boris Ripoll

       

 

 


Vice: Hi there. How old are you and where are you from?

Hong:
I’m 17. I’m from a small town near Shanghai.

How long have you been here?

About three years.

How is China different from Spain?

People here have more freedom, and there are lots of things to do and buy. In China, young people have responsibilities.

I really like your hair.

Thanks. I actually help my family at our salon. It’s fun.

Would you ever return to China?

I don’t think so.
   
Vice: Hi. Where are you from?

Alex:
Shanghai. I’ve been here many years now, so I’ve grown to like it.

What differences have you found?

Between Spain and China? Well, honestly they have a long way to go here. In big cities like Shanghai or Peking, things move faster and education is better. The Chinese people who come here have education, but the Spanish people don’t realize it.

What do you sell?

As you can see, almost everything from stationery to kitchenware and gifts  
Vice: Hola. How old are you and where are you from?

Jin:
I am 31 and I am from a town called Wangton.

What do you think of Spain?

I don’t know. I was a teacher in my country, and here I am a waitress.

Would you go back to China?

Yes, I miss my family. Wait, the owner of this place doesn’t want me to talk to people. He gets mad.

OK, thanks for your time. Good luck.

Photo by Richie Rizzo



Vice: Hi.

Zariche: Hi.

Where are you from in China?

Taiwan. But after 20 years living here I feel more Argentine than Chinese. I very much prefer to be here.

What’s so bad about China?

Everything is very fast there. Here everything is calmer. The times for food are even different there. In China, we have breakfast at 6 AM, and therefore dinner at 6 PM. At 10 PM everyone is sleeping. Imagine that!

So you sell food…

Yes, these are typical Chinese snacks… fast food.

Do you like what you sell?

Look, I don’t know if I like it, but it reminds me of Taiwan.


Photo by Hart Snider



Vancouver’s Chinatown is in the process of getting gentrified from a tragic, apocalyptic dump replete with junkies, hookers, homeless lunatics, and AIDS into a trendy yuppie land of expensive condos. So Chinese people have kind of moved on. In nearby Burnaby, there’s a new all-Chinese complex called the Crystal Mall. It’s like a tiny futuristic city full of designer knockoffs.

Grace is from Beijing. She sells “fashion for young people” part-time at a store called Designers Collection.

Vice: Where does your “designer” stuff come from?

Grace:
Everything is made in China. And everyone is someone’s uncle or cousin or sister, so everything is connected.

How do they get here?

A luxury brand will approach a factory to make a certain number of bags—say 100,000—that will retail for $2,000 or more. The guy running the factory talks to his cousin, who works at an exporting company, and they decide to make an extra 50,000 bags. Someone calls their cousin who then calls another cousin and the next thing you know the bags are on the streets.

That’s a lot of cousins.

The product passes through many hands. Hey, do you want to buy a Chloe bag? Very nice, only $250.

Um, no thanks.

Photo by Nick Chen-Yin



Even after frequent raids by the police, many Chinese vendors here have little concern for the law. The odds of getting busted are far lower than the amount of money they could be making selling burnt copies of Pan’s Labyrinth. Some shops are “managed” by local triad members.

Vice: So how long have you been in Canada?

Jane:
Four years. I lived in Shanghai till I was 14 and then moved here because life’s better here than in China. I came by myself. My parents and grandparents are still in China. Sometimes I go back to Shanghai and visit my family and then go to the factories to look for things to sell in our store. In Shanghai they manufacture many imitations. You can get anything there. Any name brands, they got it.

And the Chinese government doesn’t do anything?

No. They can’t do anything because the factories will sell to street vendors who sell to other vendors then they sell to you. Get it? They don’t know who to look for. There are too many people there to do anything—too many people making imitations. Besides, the Chinese government doesn’t really care.


Photo by Dennis Duijnhouwer



Most Chinese immigrants in Amsterdam are involved in the restaurant business. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find Shanghai-manufactured bootleg clothes here. Enterprising Dutch kids buy stuff straight from China over the internet and then sell the counterfeits to their friends.

Filip [not his real name] is a 23-year-old student in Amsterdam. He makes about 1,200 euros a month selling fake stuff from China.

Vice: So what do you sell?

Filip:
Sweaters, jeans, jackets, and caps by Bathing Ape, Billionaire Boys Club, Red Monkey, LRG, D-Squared, 10 Deep, and Artful Dodger.

And they’re all fake?

No, they’re replicas. I don’t like to use the word “fake,” because they’re made really well. The other day I heard that even satellites have “fake” Chinese parts in them. Nobody can tell the difference anymore. Same with my stuff.

Do you like the items you’re selling?

I like some stuff. It depends. I don’t like the unsubtle hip-hop gear. I like Bathing Ape. It’s really original.

Where in China does your stuff come from?

I’d rather not say, as that might increase my competition. Once you know where the factory is, you can easily find my contacts.

Do you know what the people in the factory make?

Less than $100 a month normally. Every factory in China is like that. That’s where all the noneducated people end up. These factories produce textiles for the original brands, but then they make extra. They add things like zippers and buttons themselves. Then, sooner or later, other factories can make them too. The fake business is a sideline to the factories’ legitimate work.

How much profit do you make?

I make 100-percent profit and I’m still 400-percent cheaper than the originals.

Who are your customers?

All kinds of people. I’ve got white high school hip-hop kids, young criminals on probation who take anger-management courses, a professional basketball player, kids who come with their moms… Basically anyone between 14 and 20.

How long will you keep doing this?

As long as new brands are getting designed and cool stuff is coming in, I don’t see a problem. People here don’t want to deal with Chinese people in English, which is what you have to speak to them if you don’t know Chinese. So as long as people are lazy, I’ll keep doing it.



A group of workers punch the clock at a resin factory in Guangdon, China. They have only just shuffled over from the factory dorms that they live in, which are right next door. Convenient, huh? Some of the bigger factories even have their own banking systems and supermarkets, as well as four-star hotels for visiting businessmen. Nobody ever has to leave the compound. It’s kind of like Depression-era sharecropping, except it’s NOW. Photo by Stacy Kranitz.



The factory that these girls work in employs people to apply waterproofing resin to fabrics and other materials for several major US chain stores. In plain English, that means a highly toxic place to spend your really, really long shifts earning pennies a day. Photo by Stacy Kranitz.