Android Store in Zhuhai, China

Updates at end

An earlier post here provided an overview of the "fake" Apple stores, including iPhone stores, I saw in a number of cities in Southeast China. Another post shared photos of a variety of other mobile phone stores in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Although I have included photos of a variety of stores, at least one company may feel left out. If so, Google can now perk up. I saw this Android Store after I took a random bus to Nanping in Zhuhai, Guangdong province:

Android store in Nanping, Zhuhai

"名流智能手机体验店", which is under the word "Android" on the store's sign, can be literally translated as "Celebrities Smartphone Experience Store". In short, if you want to be like a celebrity (or you are celebrity) this is presumably the place for you. The idea of an Android "experience store" reminded me that several months ago in Melbourne, Australia Google opened its first "Androidland". Mike Isaac on Wired described the store:

Created in collaboration with Android device manufacturers, “Androidland” showcases the many different devices that run Google’s operating system in a fun, Android-themed environment. And rather than merely hawking the devices, special displays and gaming kiosks aim to inform potential buyers about how Android works, and what devices may be best for them.

Perhaps the owner of the store in Nanping was inspired by Androidland. As far as I know, Google has not opened any official stores in China, so this could also be another opportunity for a foreign company to be inspired by local design (in this case "store design") in China. It could also be another opportunity for a trademark dispute. Whatever the case, I doubt Google would be thrilled with all of the choices made by this Android store owner. For example, in addition to a variety of Android-based mobile phones the store also sold Apple products such as iPhones, iPads, and computers (no ifads for sale, though).

Sign for iPhones and an iPhone accessory display case at the Android store

Maybe some celebrities in Zhuhai demand Apple products. However, Apple lists only one authorized retailer in Zhuhai. Of no surprise to me, its address is nowhere near the above store and it does not have "Android" in its name.

After scratching an Android store off my list, I will now keep my eyes open for another brand. After all, Windows Phone 7 officially launched in China today. That could mean some additional interesting stores are on the way.


UPDATE 1: More on this store in the more recent post "Inside the Android Store in Zhuhai, China".

UPDATE 2: See in what ways this Android store is not unique in the more recent post "Nokia Stores Selling a Variety of Phones in Nanping, Zhuhai"

UPDATE 3: See what I discover when I visit the store several months later in the post "The Fate of the Android Store in Zhuhai, China"

UPDATE 4: About a year and half after my first visit, much more had changed—see "The Fate of the Android Store in Zhuhai, China: Part II".



Disclosure: I previously worked as a user experience researcher in Microsoft China's Mobile Services China group. This exploration was not conducted as paid work nor at the request of any company.

From Nail Shop to Factory Life in China

When I was last in Shenyang, Liaoning province, I visited a large underground shopping mall popular with many youth. While there I had the opportunity to speak with this young woman working at a nail shop:

Selling fake nails with a variety of designs

As we talked I got to learn about some of her life. And I tried to understand some of the decisions she had recently made, including the choice of her mobile phone:

However, it was another decision that I found most striking. When I asked about her hopes for the future she said without hesitation that she planned to the leave the nail shop and work at a factory in Yantai, Shandong province -- over 12 hours from Shenyang by road and ferry or longer without the ferry. She had already moved from her home in a village several hours away to work in Shenyang and was prepared to move even further to an unfamiliar city just based on the encouraging words of a friend who had done the same. In the young woman's eyes working in a factory would be an important step up in her life.

Her story in part resembled others I have heard when interviewing youth in China. It also seemed straight out of a book I had recently read - Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang. If you enjoyed reading my earlier posts about Xiaoxin's first payday or first vegetarian lunch in Shanghai, you may also enjoy Chang's book. The stories she shares help capture the realities for many in China as they strive to improve their own and their family's lives.

Recently, I came across a video excerpt capturing some similar issues regarding factory life in China (H/T to Tricia Wang) . In the excerpt workers' express their hopes and their impressions of life at Foxconn -- the company which is the focus of much Western media attention due to its important role manufacturing goods for Apple, Sony, and many other well-known companies. The video also includes scenes reminiscent of many others I have seen that are more a part of everyday life for many in China than modern architectural marvels or high speed trains. While what is shown in the video is just the surface of some very deep issues and I do not believe all is as clear as it may seem, it helps show a side of China that is often missed or glossed over in typical news reports.

One young man in the video mentions that he chose Foxconn because its conditions are much better than other factories in China. I would not be surprised to discover that Foxconn's conditions are also much better than the factory where the young woman above may now be working.

You can watch the video here:

        Dreamwork China from Cineresie.

Mobile Phones That See Things a Little Differently

As I've mentioned before using Oppo as an example, some Chinese companies are attempting to establish distinct brands of mobiles phones that can directly compete in China with well-known global brands. Regardless, there still remain a large number of mobile phones available made by manufacturers who seem content to leverage the brand power of other companies. Phones with names such as Nckla (Nokia), iPheon (iPhone), Mctcrcla (Motorola), etc. are not hard to find (see here and here for some examples). I'll share a favorite of mine that serves as a striking example and illustrates some important points -- including how such phones could be useful to the companies of the brands they imitate.

Here is the front side of the flip-phone when closed:

The use of Apple's old advertising slogan "Think Different" and a large section of what appears to be Apple's logo present some potential trademark-infringement issues. I've seen other mobile phones with what are at the very least Apple-ish logos, so this came as no great surprise (see here for a related challenge Apple faces in China). However, it sports an overall unique design, and the phrase "I SEE THINGS ALITTLE DIFFERENTLY" [sic] captures a common theme I've encountered while speaking with youth in China: the desire to be different, but not too different (this is not unique to China, but there are nuanced differences from other countries).

With the Apple-like branding on the front, the other side of the phone provides a bit of a surprise:

The logo on it could be described as the Oppo logo with a few modifications. For reference, Oppo's logo can be seen in the advertisement I shared in my earlier post about Oppo's "Find Me" marketing campaign:

The modified Oppo logo is important for two reasons. One, it's representative of the challenges in China that fakes and imitations pose for Chinese companies. It's not just a problem for foreign companies. Two, it suggests that Oppo has reached a perceived level of success, whether in its brand recognition or in the quality of its logo, that has motivated others to "borrow" from it. As they say, imitation is flattery.

The inside of the phone also makes use of the variation on the Oppo logo:

Additionally, it's worth noting the dedicated button for QQ -- a popular service in China for social networking ,instant messaging, games, etc . -- and the fake diamonds in the key pad. Whether such design choices reflect a keen understanding of a segment of mobile phone consumers is a question well worth answering. For example, there are other indications that a little (or a lot of) "bling" on a phone is desired by many in China (a topic for a later post).

Regardless of any imitations, it's valuable for those in the mobile phone industry to consider the ways in which a product such as this one differs from their own. The phones are openly available, sometimes produced in a very quick cycle, and can be innovative in their own ways. They won't necessarily provide all of the answers and serve as just one piece of the research that should be conducted, but some insights may be discovered that will assist in delivering products that better meet the needs or desires of consumers in China (and potentially elsewhere as well). While companies such as Apple and Oppo may be frustrated by fakes and imitations, simply taking a close look at such phones may suggest opportunities for them, in their own way, to return the flattery.

"Fake" Apple Stores in China

A "real" Apple Store in Shanghai

Last July, an American living in China wrote on her blog, BirdAbroad, about a store in Kunming, Yunnan province that in many ways looked liked a genuine Apple Store despite the fact that it was not. While some people found the story so incredible that they pondered if it was a hoax, for some in China it came as no great surprise. "Fake" can be rather common in China. In fact, just in Kunming alone police later found 22 stores "unlawfully using Apple's brand and logo". But as noted by Josh Chin on The Wall Street Journal's "China Real Time Report", the store highlighted on BirdAbroad was a jewel specimen showing the lengths some would go.

I've come across a number of "Apple stores" in a variety of other cities in China. None of the stores were on the scale of the one in Kunming, but they help paint a broader picture of the environment in China for a brand such as Apple. In that spirit, I'll share some of what I've seen in 3 of the cities I've most recently visited. For a number of the examples I'll share, I discovered them purely by chance as I walked around exploring the cities. Others where found when I deliberately visited certain shopping districts, though not because I knew I'd find stores selling Apple products there. Especially given that I wasn't deliberately seeking out such stores, I suspect that what I'm sharing is just the tip of the iceberg for these cities. To be clear, for some of the examples I can't be absolutely sure anything improper is occurring. But based on what I know and the example of the store in Kunming, there is certainly much that should at least raise some eyebrows.

Before sharing any examples of questionable sales of Apple's products or uses of its trademarks, I want to clarify one issue that I've seen cause some confusion. In addition to its official Apple Stores in China, Apple also allows select businesses to be official Apple resellers. Some of these stores only sell Apple (and Apple-related) products. Even in Shanghai where three large Apple Stores currently operate there are also numerous authorized Apple resellers where one can purchase Apple products. Here is a photo of an authorized Apple Reseller at a large shopping mall in Guangzhou, Guangdong province that is similar to many others I have seen:

Sunion is a common Apple reseller in China. I'm sure this store is legitimate not only because of the "Premium Reseller" sign prominently displayed (which of course could be faked) but also because this specific store appears on Apple's list of authorized resellers in China. While official resellers often have some of the look and feel of an Apple Store, as referenced by Loretta Chao and Sue Feng (also on The Wall Street Journal's "China Real Time Report") there are guidelines they must follow. I'm not absolutely sure if this is part of the rules, but it's worth pointing out that the above store's name does not include "Apple" in it. Also, the employees wore shirts with "Sunion" written on them - not "Apple" or an Apple logo as was found in the now famous store in Kunming.

So, as far as I could tell all looked good there, as in many other authorized stores in China.

However, in the very same mall as the store above I saw a number of other stores also selling Apple products. None of them currently appear on Apple's list of authorized resellers. For example, there was this store with "iPhone 4" displayed where a store name is typically located:

An "iPhone 4" store

To provide some context, this section of the mall had numerous stores with their apparent "real" name posted in the same relative location above their main entrance. This store's business card did not indicate "iPhone 4" and instead provided a nondescript Chinese name for the business. The store sold a variety of Apple products such as iPhones and iPads. In addition to the Apple-like feel of the store, I also noticed PC monitors which did not appear to be Apple products with stickers of Apple's logo on them. You can see a hint of one in the photo.

Also of relevance is the logo in the red sign on the left side of the picture. It's China Unicom's logo for its WCDMA 3G Network. China Unicom has an agreement with Apple that allows it to sell iPhones. China Unicom also has an online list of dealers and currently this store is not listed there either. Even if the store should be on the list, its sales of non-iPhone products, the choice of the displayed store name, etc. remain issues.

There were other stores selling Apple products, many also with Apple-labeled PC monitors. And some stores weren't content with naming themselves "iPhone 4", but instead chose "iPhone 4S":

An "iPhone 4S" store

iPhone, iPhone 4S, and Android too

The use of "iPhone 4s" was particularly fascinating since the iPhone 4S hadn't been authorized for sale in China when I visited any of these stores. In fact, its launch date is this Friday, January 13. So, what's the source for these phones which shouldn't be available in Guangzhou?

I spoke to assistants at several stores and they all told me the same story: the phones are purchased from nearby Hong Kong and brought to Guangzhou. They were very open about the source of the phones and one shop even had a sign stating the Hong Kong origin of the iPhone 4S phones:

When I asked an assistant at the authorized Sunion store whether I could purchase an iPhone 4S she told me it would not be possible since they weren't available for sale in China. When I asked her why the other stores in the same mall already had them available she looked disgusted but refused to comment.

So, these examples are from just one mall and more exist there than what I've shared here. If you think that's a lot of iPhone stores to peruse in a single mall I can recommend you also visit the Starbucks a few levels below them (which I assume is genuine). Anyways, this is just a small taste of what you could likely find in Guangzhou. In other parts of the city I also noticed several stores with signs indicating they were authorized Apple resellers despite these stores not appearing on Apple's online list.

Is this store really authorized by Apple?

Maybe Apple's online list is not up to date. I did not contact Apple to check.

The examples from Guangzhou are striking, but it is one of China's more developed cities and may not be representative. What can be found in less prominent cities? Hengyang, Hunan province was another city I recently visited, and it provided a number of intriguing examples as well. Here's one store with an Apple logo prominently displayed:

It actually sold a broad variety of phones, but there was also a store nearby that focused on Apple products:

This store sold iPhone and HTC products:

Inside of the store

And this store claimed to be an authorized reseller:

Now here's the kicker. Apple doesn't list one single authorized retailer in all of Hengyang. China Unicom does list one authorized reseller in the area I visited, though the address doesn't appear to be for the store above.

After Hengyang I visited Chenzhou, also in Hunan province. I should note that like Hengyang when I visited Chenzhou I hadn't expected to be taking photographs of stores selling Apple products. However, one day I was walking down a street and saw these stores all in close proximity to each other:

Get the point? And like Hengyang, Apple lists no authorized stores in Chenzhou and none of these locations are currently listed on China Unicom's site. Again, some of the stores might simply be missing from the lists.

All of the stores above from Guangzhou, Hengyang, and Chenzhou were very much out in the open and in highly-trafficked areas. Never did anyone ask me to not take photographs. In fact, in several of the "iPhone" stores employees were happy when I asked if I could take their photos. While they might not have thought they were really working for Apple as in the case in Kunming, I didn't get the sense that they had a feeling there was anything they might not want to be fully public.

So, it doesn't appear that Kunming is the only city with "creative" uses of the Apple brand, and I feel pretty safe in saying that Guangzhou, Hengyang, and Chenzhou are not unique in joining Kunming in this respect. Again, I'm not saying I'm sure that everything I've shared here is "bad", but there is certainly much that seems amiss. Perhaps most clear is that the sales of the iPhone 4S should not have been occurring.

All of this presents a mixed case of good and bad news for Apple. At least if the stores are selling genuine Apple products (which is another issue to explore) then presumably Apple is at least profiting from the sales, even if not in the manner they would like. It's a very different problem than what Microsoft faces with many people in China using pirated versions of Windows.

So while there are numerous locations in China where one can legitimately purchase Apple's products, it appears there may be many more locations where sales are less than proper. Whatever benefits there may be for Apple in reducing the number of "fake" Apple stores in China, there would mostly likely exist direct benefits for the properly authorized (and presumably Chinese-owned) reseller stores.

And by the way, I've noticed some other retailers who are indeed very careful not to improperly use Apple's logo or its products' names:

On a sidewalk in Chenzhou

They just sell products that look remarkably like Apple's -- but for much cheaper of course.

"Find Me": Oppo's Bold Media Campaign for a Smartphone

As I've mentioned before, while China's mobile phone industry continues to include explicit copying of global brands, a number of Chinese brands, such as K-Touch and BBK, are trying to grow their own identities. One of the brands that I think is particularly worth following closely is Oppo. It can often be found next to popular global brands such as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, etc. at mobile phone stores across China.

Oppo section at Mobile World (通信天地) in Shanghai

Oppo store in Guangzhou, Guangdong province

Oppo offers a variety of phones, some of which can be seen here:

Maybe even more than its broad availability and wide variety of phones, something that highlights Oppo's ambitions has been its recent marketing campaign for its Android-based Find X903 mobile phone. It's not hard to notice the advertisements which can be found in many places in China, whether in the larger cities:

Oppo Find advertisement in a Shanghai subway station

or those much smaller:

Oppo Find advertisement in a shopping district in Heyuan, Guangdong

And yes, that is Leonardo DiCaprio appearing in most of the photos above. He was reportedly paid 5 million dollars (US) for his role in the Oppo campaign. A brief (in English) describing the media campaign can be found here. The brief provides a useful (although presumably biased) overview and is worth checking out. One note though: while there are repeated mentions of "Twitter", Twitter was of course not part of the campaign as it is currently blocked in China. Replace "Twitter" with "Sina's and Tencent's micro-blogging services" (roughly similar in concept to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook) to clarify that issue.

The video included in the brief poses the problem of how Oppo can stand out in a market that is dominated by global brands. It says research indicated:

...male consumers enjoy exploring the unknown, they don't like to be simply told the facts but instead they like to find out the truth by themselves. Therefore, we should challenge their knowledge to search for our product rather than just present our product in front of them.

The rest of the video and other information on the page explains how this intriguing claim guided the design of an interactive media campaign. Oppo's targeting of male consumers for this campaign is notable since in the past it has often targeted female consumers.

Oppo's "Find Me" website is here (Chinese) and as described in the brief includes many interactive experiences and also several trailers & TV commercials which were directed by Jeremy Haccoun. The movie-like style of the videos is obvious and many have commented on their similarity in style with a film in which DiCaprio starred -- Inception. There is a video on several Internet sites that combines the videos but some sections aren't exactly the same as what's found on Oppo's websites. Since it's simpler to present, here's a version on YouTube:

On the "Find Me" website you can find videos of the 3 trailers here and the 2 TV commercials here (note: in addition to the audio for the videos there is music playing in the background of the webpage which can be turned off by clicking on the gramophone icon). Oppo's website for the Find X903 phone (here) seems to only have 2 of the trailers and neither of the commercials.

The campaign, which was created by NIM Advertising, has won several awards such as the Digital Media Awards Asia's award for Technology and Telecoms and earlier received some buzz on advertising news websites such as chinaSmack, Adweek, and brandchannel. Peter Fuhrman, Chairman of China First Capital, Ltd., commented on Oppo and this media campaign last August:

It’s a bold move by a little-known Chinese mobile phone company to storm into the big time, and grab market share from Nokia, Samsung, LG and Apple. None of these global brands uses a big name to front its ads in China. Oppo is determined to compete as equals with these larger companies. It’s still learning the rules of building a successful brand. Its tactics and ad strategy are a little off-beat. But, Oppo has the resources and distribution in China to challenge the large global mobile phone brands, and so cause them headaches in the world’s largest mobile phone market...

Oppo is trying to pull off a challenging feat: to catapult above the hundreds of no-name mobile phone manufacturers and brands, and establish itself as a premium brand in China. The other Chinese mobile phone brands do little to no advertising, and instead compete mainly on price.

There are a number of curious or problematic issues I could address regarding the campaign, ranging from strategy to website usability, but I'll put them aside for now. What is most significant is that Oppo attempted a campaign of this scope and nature. Its competitors, both Chinese and those abroad, would be wise to pay close attention to Oppo as it attempts to grow.

There are reports that Oppo will soon release the next version of the Find phone (so far being given the name Find 2). It appears that not all of the videos for "Find Me" have yet been released so it will be interesting to see if they're used for the advertising campaign of the next Find phone. For now, we'll just have to wait to see if the "Find Me" theme continues. However, if Oppo decides it wants to make the phone more easily discovered, an advertisement for a large upscale mall in Guangzhou may have already beaten Oppo to a potentially appropriate follow-up theme:

Inspired by Oppo?

The Curious Promotion for the K-Touch W700 Mobile Phone in China

As I mentioned in the previous post, this past weekend I was in Shanghai's Qibao Town, best known for its "Ancient Town".  As part of another experience I had in a non-ancient section of Qibao, I became familiar with the promotion for a new mobile phone including a new mobile operating system, both developed by Chinese companies.

This building in Qibao includes the electronics store Yolo (永乐 - Yongle):

As part of of a promotion outside the store, a video of scenes from Gameloft's game Asphalt 6: Adrenaline was displayed on a TV:

The promotion wasn't primarily for the game, but for K-Touch's recently released W700 phone on which the game could be played.  K-Touch is a Chinese mobile phone brand that I've seen for sale in many cities across China, and I mentioned it in an earlier post about the mobile phone selection at stores in Zhaotong, Yunnan.

K-Touch's W700 is particularly notable for running Alibaba's new Aliyun (阿里云) mobile operating system.  Alibaba is a significant force in China, particularly in the e-commerce domain and the Alibaba Group includes web sites such as Taobao (the "eBay of China") and China Yahoo!.

Alibaba intends for Aliyun OS to compete with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS in China.  As noted by Mark Hachman in PC Mag:

Alibaba's operating system makes use of "cloud-based" services, including e-mail, Internet search, weather updates and GPS and mapping applications, the company said. The OS will apparently require users to be constantly connected to take advantage of its Web-based apps, instead of designing applications that can run natively on the phone's hardware...

"Mobile users want a more open and convenient mobile OS, one that allows them to truly enjoy all that the Internet has to offer right in the palm of their hand, and the cloud OS, with its use of cloud-based applications, will provide that," said Wang Jian, president of Alibaba Cloud Computing, in a statement. "Introducing cloud apps to mobile devices not only brings a whole new user experience, but also greater ease for third-party mobile software developers who will be able to use Internet technology such as HTML5 and JavaScript to reduce the complexity in the app development process."

Alibaba said that each user would be given a free 100 Gbytes of storage to back up data to AliCloud's remote data center, which could be replicated to the PC and mobile devices.

I went inside Yolo to try out the phone.  I wasn't able to spend much time with it and mostly focused on the Asphalt 6 game given the staff's eagerness to show it off.  The short story is that I could only steer the car by pressing on the sides of the screen screen.  Tilting the phone to drive the car did not work.  The staff insisted that the phone's settings must have been changed because tilting the phone worked fine when they had played the game earlier in the day.  They didn't offer to try to change the settings, though.

That Asphalt 6 could be played at all on the K-Touch W700 is interesting since Gameloft does not list the W700 or Aliyun OS as compatible for the game (nor does Gameloft have a Chinese web site).  However, there is a key feature of Aliyun OS that may explain how the game can be played.

One line of the flyer seen above advertises "兼容多种Android应用".  That translates as "Compatible with a variety of Android applications".  I'm not familiar with how Aliyun OS is able to run Android applications without itself being or including a version of Android in some manner.  But this relationship of operating systems isn't entirely unique in at least some regards.  For example, it's possible to run Windows on Apple's Mac OS X.

The promotion highlighted the Android connection elsewhere as well.  For example, you may have already noticed than in the photo of the TV above the words "Available Now On Android" appear on the screen.

The Android logo also appeared in the display case as seen here:

There are pictures of cubes representing Youku (the "YouTube of China"), Windows Live Messenger, Kaixin (a social networking service), Taobao, QQ (instant messaging & more), and... Android amongst others.

While I could appreciate the desire to highlight that the W700 could run Android applications, I found it curious that K-Touch would build a whole promotion around an application that was built for Android versus focusing on the uniqueness of the Aliyun OS offerings.  I also noticed that "Asphalt 6" or a Chinese equivalent was not written on any of the promotional material I saw that day other than in the video and the game itself -- even though there is ample reference to the racing theme.

At the time I wasn't sure whether to read anything into this.  However, I now see that the game appears to be be specifically referenced in connection with the W700 on the K-Touch web site as seen in the mention of "狂野飙车6" in an announcement of a game competition which is being held by K-Touch in 20 cities across China including Shanghai (screen capture of part of the page below).

And a sales page on Taobao linked to from the home page of the K-Touch web site specifically says that the game is included on the phone and that K-Touch has an agreement with Gameloft to do so.

No problem here.  K-touch has an agreement with Gameloft.

Whatever agreements K-Touch may have with Gameloft, it isn't the only mobile phone brand tying Asphalt 6: Adrenaline to its product in China.  In Qibao and elsewhere in Shanghai I've seen the following advertisement in metro stations:

Since this Sony Ericsson mobile phone runs the Android operating system, I suspect their marketing challenges are a bit more straight forward.

Regardless, what most captured my attention about the K-Touch promotion was the final scene for the video on display:

Yes, the video included directions for where to find Gameloft on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. 
Maybe it's just me, but it seems a bit peculiar for K-Touch to be promoting web sites that are blocked by China's Great Firewall.  I asked the salespeople about why these web sites were included in the video.  After some discussion they decided they had no idea and looked hopeful I would stop asking about it.

Later, I discovered one possible source for the video: YouTube.

As far as I recall, the YouTube video above is the same video I saw outside the Yolo.  And for what it's worth I couldn't find it on Youku.  The video was posted by Gameloft and is specific for its Android release (there is another video for its iPhone release).

Anyways, it will be interesting to see how the W700 does in China.  But even if it performs poorly, K-Touch can perhaps still tie in Asphalt 6 to its products.  After all, some of K-Touch's other phones, such as the U2 and W606, don't use the Aliyun OS, but they do use Android.

They may want to drop references to blocked web sites, though.

Mobile Bookstores in Shanghai

In recent years, e-books have had a large impact in the mobile domain.  Not only can e-books be read on many mobile devices but they can be purchased as well.  While e-books are probably already familiar to most readers of this blog, these mobile books may not be:

At the Wujiang Road pedestrian street in Shanghai

On the right is a "mobile bookstore".  I've seen similar elsewhere in Shanghai.  It's not uncommon to find such vendors with an ample supply of English books.  The books are typically (always?) copies.  The quality can vary -- the binding won't be as strong, the ink may smear more easily, the print quality may be slightly blurry or offset, etc.

Why are English books common at these mobile bookstores?  I suspect these two issues are important:

• Especially in comparison to Chinese books, English books can be rather pricey in Shanghai.  So, it's easier for a copy to be cheaper and be more attractive to consumers.

• Overall, the selection of English books at "proper" stores in Shanghai is not, shall we say, stellar.  While mobile bookstores may not have a large number of books, sometimes the selection can be more interesting (for my tastes at least) and/or include books not found elsewhere.

To varying degrees similar issues hold for DVDs and software as well.  In a later post, I'll share some stories about my own experiences trying to buy genuine DVDs and software in China.  Sometimes, even if you want to buy genuine you can't.

Faces of China: Chengdu Youth

I think it's useful to put a face to the many stories you may hear about "youth" in China.  Here are just a few from Chengdu, Sichuan that I saw at the large and central Tianfu Square and at a nearby popular shopping street.

I can't resist pointing out that in several of the photos you'll see people holding their mobile phones.  As I've mentioned before (such as here), it is not uncommon for Chinese to have their mobile "out", even when they're not using them.

However, I think the photos express something much deeper.  In conducting my research and explorations across China, I am continually amazed by both the commonalities and uniqueness of the various youth I meet  -- whether it is in how they use the Internet, what they think about their government, or how they express themselves.  I think these photos help capture some of that.

Look at the fashion.  Look at the body language.  Look at the expressions.

In some cases you may immediately think of "stories" for the photos below.  Some of what you're thinking may be accurate.  Some of what you're thinking likely more reflects your own biases and assumptions.

Regardless, looking can help inspire questions you may not have thought to ask otherwise.

The answers to those questions won't just tell you more about other people, but yourself as well.

Friend visiting another from afar

College student with her photography tutor

Irresistible photo opportunity 

Snack time

Matching

Taking a break to chat