Fortunes and Accessories on a Shaoguan Stairway

Early this afternoon in Shaoguan, Guangdong, I saw a person offering fortune telling and related services.

Another notable hat in Shaoguan

This evening almost exactly seven hours later, I saw a person selling mobile phone covers and other assorted accessories for electronics.

One of many "mobile moments" I captured today

Both of them made use of the same corner on a landing of a pedestrian bridge staircase — just at different times. In addition to raising a number of intriguing issues, the variety of offerings available at this single location today captures some of the spirit of what I have observed elsewhere in Shaoguan this weekend.

So my own prediction for the future: I will just say don't be surprised if things as different as bamboo rats, xiangqi, marketing for pole dancing lessons, and Little Red Books all appear here soon.

Severed Fingers and Haunting Chocolates at Pizza Hut in Shaoguan, China

It's that special time of the year in China. You can feel it in the air, even in Shaoguan, Guangdong. Which means, of course, Pizza Hut has pulled out its special Halloween menu.

And Pizza Hut's excitement over Halloween in China doesn't end there. Halloween-themed M&M's characters are available as well.

Curiously, a Halloween M&M's pizza wasn't available.

But more Halloween fun is available elsewhere. An RT-Mart, a Taiwan-based hypermarket chain similar to Walmart or Carrefour, I visited in Shaoguan now has a Halloween section.

A bit of Halloween spirit is nothing new in parts of China, and these signs of the holiday in Shaoguan may reflect the holiday's growing popularity. I won't still be in Shaoguan during Halloween, so I won't have the opportunity to see if related festivities arise like those I have come across elsewhere in China, including Changsha a few years ago. I haven't noticed any indications trick or treating will be a big thing though. The RT-Mart didn't even have a Halloween candy section.

More National Day in Zhongshan: War Ground, Budweiser, and Fake Sprouts

On this last day of the long holiday, light mention of three more things (other things here, here, and here) which caught my attention in Zhongshan, Guangdong, on National Day:

1. Earlier this year in Zhongshan I saw a Women's Day sale at the military-themed clothing store War Ground. So it wasn't surprising they also had a National Day sale.



I wonder whether they will have a Christmas sale.

2. I didn't see anything specifically mentioning National Day, but along with some other nearby temporary tents a Budweiser promotional tent appeared to be targeting the holiday crowds. Although it declared "Made for Music", any time I passed by I only saw Western movies offered as entertainment.



Budweiser products were available as well. Some of the people who watched the movies even drank them.

3. As seen in one of the photos in an earlier post, a new fad in China has made its way to Zhongshan. Sometimes referred to as fake sprouts, a wide range of plantlike hair pins are now available. On National Day they appeared to be selling well, as they were elsewhere in China, and I saw many younger people with fake plants sticking out of their head.



I gave it pass. I did have visions of wearing an entire bonsai tree on my head though.

The Love Kids Boutique in Macau

A scene from yesterday evening in Macau:

That is all for today, but tomorrow I will share many more scenes from a part of Macau which receives far less attention than Macau's casino resorts and colonial era historic sites.

Mobile Fruit Sales in Zhuhai

Near the Walmart in Gongbei, Zhuhai

Beer and Patriotic Shorts on the 2nd Day of the Victory Over Japan Holiday in China

Yesterday after the “Commemoration of 70th Anniversary of Victory of Chinese People's Resistance against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War” military parade had finished, I saw people eating Japanese food during the Victory Over Japan holiday. Today is also a day off for many due to the holiday. But again I didn't see anything which specifically mentioned the holiday. But also again, I saw something which may be a sign of people celebrating.

Tonight in the new Walmart in Zhuhai's Gongbei subdristrict, two young women discussed which beer to purchase. One of them even wore shorts with a patriotic design. I am not sure if they were looking for a Japanese brand, but I didn't see any. Interestingly, their final choice was a beer from Germany, another country which came out on the losing end of World War II.

Or maybe, like with the Japanese food, it had nothing to do with the holiday. Hard to say.

Chinese Traveling to Japan During the Victory Over Japan Holiday

Chinese are spending their time during the Victory Over Japan holiday in a variety of ways, including watching the "Commemoration of 70th Anniversary of Victory of Chinese People's Resistance against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War" military parade or eating Japanese food in China. Takuya Karube reported for Kyodo on another way which presumably involves Japanese food:

Japan was one of the most popular overseas destinations for Chinese tourists during a three-day national holiday through Saturday, travel agencies said. . . .

“I chose this time to visit, because the government suddenly announced (in May) this special holiday,” Yu Yong, a 40-year-old employee of an information-technology company, said. “I heard that Japan is a very good place and recently it’s a hot tourist destination.” . . .

Yu said he made a good decision to leave Beijing around the time of the parade and it has been worth seeing the many differences between the two countries with his own eyes, although he thinks the 70th anniversary should be observed at a state level and by the rest of the world.

As Liz Flora noted in Jing Daily, the increase of Chinese travelers to Japan, not only during the current holiday, is remarkable:

After seeing a dramatic downturn in the number of Chinese tourists in the wake of China’s fall 2012 anti-Japanese riots, Japan’s rebound has been swift. Buoyed by price-conscious Chinese shoppers chasing a weaker yen and no sales tax for foreigners, the country is expected to see 4 million Chinese tourists by the end of 2015, a two-thirds increase from last year. . . .

Despite an onslaught of anti-Japanese propaganda TV shows and films in the lead-up to the parade, this summer saw especially high Chinese traveler growth numbers in Japan as many Chinese tourists opted to skip South Korea due to the MERS outbreak and Hong Kong due to increased travel restrictions and anti-mainland sentiment.

So while Beijing has been loudly displaying its growing military power, Japan may be more quietly building its soft power.

Genuine and Not So Genuine: Baltimore Ravens Boxer Shorts and Other NFL Items for Sale in China

A small portion of the vast Zhuhai Port Plaza

Hundreds of stalls in the underground Zhuhai Port Plaza shopping center in front of the Gongbei Port immigration checkpoint in Zhuhai, China, sell a wide variety of clothing. Yesterday I saw an unexpected item there which reminded me of where I last lived in the U.S. — Baltimore, Maryland.

Assorted underwear and sleepwear for sale

A young saleswoman said the boxer shorts with the logo of the Baltimore Ravens, a National Football League team, cost 25 RMB (about U.S. $3.90). Although bargaining would likely lead to a lower price, the shorts are already much cheaper than any similar items for sale on the Baltimore Ravens official online store. Obvious imitation products are plentiful at many shops in the market, so it is easy to believe these boxer shorts aren't entirely legitimate.

In regards to counterfeit Baltimore Ravens merchandise coming from China, a few years ago the Baltimore Sun quoted the NFL's vice president of legal affairs as saying "If you're buying merchandise from a China-based website, you're probably not getting the real thing". But the claim doesn't appear to be as true anymore, since the NFL now has a store on Alibaba's Tmall.com which is referenced on the the NFL's website for China.

NFL store on Tmall

A Ravens hat currently sells there at nearly a 50% discount for 158 RMB (about U.S. $24.80), not very different from the same hat's current discounted price of $22.99 on the NFL's U.S. online store.

New Era Baltimore Ravens Training 39THIRTY Flex Hat for sale on Tmall

The Ravens page at the NFL Tmall store doesn't list any other items. The store offers five items with the logos of the Ravens' biggest rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers, though.

Items for sale on the Pittsburgh Steelers page at the NFL Tmall store

At least the Ravens can take heart in the fact I didn't see boxer shorts for any other NFL teams at the shop in Zhuhai.

But the Ravens and the NFL shouldn't look at the shorts themselves as necessarily a sign of growing popularity in China. It is not uncommon for people in China to wear clothing with logos more familiar elsewhere simply for their look without concern for their full meaning. Although there are indications the NFL's relatively small fanbase is growing in China, I very rarely meet anyone familiar with it, sharply contrasting with widespread recognition of the NBA. Likely similar to most people in China, the saleswoman didn't know the meaning of the logo. Nor she she seem to care in the least when I informed her of its connection to an NFL team in the U.S. Nonetheless, if the Baltimore Ravens later notice a fan base unexpectedly growing in Zhuhai, these shorts may be where it all began.

Minquan Road Mobile Phone Street in Zhongshan, China

Although many mobile phone stores exist elsewhere in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, Minquan Road in the central Shiqi District may have the greatest concentration. Below are just a few scenes from there during March earlier this year. Most of the stores sell new phones of brands common in many Chinese cities. The Minquan Xinyi Shopping Center — a collection of stalls selling a variety of lesser known brands, more blatant imitations, or second hand phones — is similar to the Bu Ye Cheng (Long Xiao) Communications Market in Shanghai but much smaller in scale. The photos provide a sense of the brands available and how some stores are changing their look to stay "fresh". They also provide context for a particular store which will be the focus of a later post.

Store featuring Vivo, HTC, Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Meizu, Oppo, and Gionee

Store featuring Apple

Android robot promoting the iPhone 6

Store promoting Samsung, Huawei, Vivo, Apple, Xiaomi, and Oppo

A store with a strong Apple theme

Store featuring Oppo and HTC

Promotion for Oppo

Minquan Xinyi Shopping Center

Inside the Minquan Xinyi Shopping Center

A Mix of Old, New, and Inexpensive: Shanghai Yinxiang Cheng Electronics Market

Shanghai Yinxiang Cheng (上海音像城) offers a shopping experience which feels like a cross of a flea market and a large electronics store. I haven't seen any official names in English, but instead of the previous transliteration the name could be translated as Shanghai Audio & Visual City. And at least one online site refers to it as the Qiujiang Lu Electronics Market, though that doesn't reflect its prominently displayed Chinese name. Whatever the case, it is easy to find the market just east of Shanghai's Baoshan Road metro station — part of the complex sits underneath the elevated metro tracks. It may not be where to go if you want something like the latest models of popular mobile phone brands, but it offers an wide array of electronics for sale not seen in many other electronics stores in Shanghai.

Below are a few photos I took there. They only provide a quick look at the market and don't capture many of the second-hand classics available. Like the Bu Ye Cheng (Long Xiao) Communications Market near the Shanghai Railway Station, a visit can be eye-opening even if you aren't interested in buying anything.

More scenes from markets elsewhere in China later. I will also have more to say about mobile phones like those which appear below.

Bu Ye Cheng (Long Xiao) Communications Market in Shanghai

About 300 meters (1000 ft) to the east of a pedestrian bridge near the Shanghai Railway Station is a market which fills the majority of a large building. The market's name is written, translated and transliterated in numerous ways. A map inside the market, the sign of a complaints office for the market, and a sign by the market's management, all indicate a name which includes the Chinese "龙晓通信市场" which I'll translate as "Long Xiao Communications Market"*. But names more closely resembling "Bu Ye Cheng Communications Market" — "Bu Ye Cheng", sometimes spelled as a single word, comes from the name of the entire building — appear to be more commonly used. Whatever you call the market, fortunately the gold-tinged building with a large digital billboard at the intersection of Tianmu West Road and Meiyuan Road is easy to spot.

If you so desire, you can collect business cards from the hundreds of stalls and marvel at the different names they give the market. But of more interest to me are the various mobile phones and related products that mostly fill its six dense levels.

I think it offers the closest experience in Shanghai to some of the markets in Shenzhen's immense Huaqiangbei electronics commercial area. I recommend taking a look, especially if you are interested in mobile phones and won't be in Shenzhen. I will refrain from sharing more details about what I saw there, since a closer look is in store for some similar markets in Shanghai and elsewhere in China.



*Two of the signs used the slightly longer name "上海龙晓通信产品市场".

Sights and Sounds of the Land of the Free at a Fuzhou Mall

Yesterday at the large Baolong City Plaza shopping mall in Fuzhou, Fujian province, I stopped to admire a karaoke club advertisement which included a slightly altered Statue of Liberty.

I then walked into a central courtyard area where a guitarist was either warming up or testing the equipment for a later performance.

As I made my way to lower levels, I realized the melody I heard was rather familiar. But simply recognizing it is not what caused me to do a mental double take.

After all, most days in China you don't hear a live performance of The Star Spangled Banner.

A Duet and Quartet at a Mobile Phone Promotion in Changsha

In the spirit of the recent themes of music and duets, last night around 8 p.m. I heard a performance with electric string instruments.

The performance was part of a promotion at a Changsha mobile phone store selling brands such as Vivo, Samsung, Apple, Gionee, HTC, and Oppo. Some of the those brands aren't familiar in many places outside of China or don't receive much international media attention. But they are common in many cities I have recently visited in Hunan and elsewhere in China. Inside the store another brand familiar in China was featured — Huawei. A quartet sans musical instruments was there to help.

A table of hors d'oeuvres and wine was also nearby. As I was full from a recent meal of spicy fish and snails, I did not partake.

Except for the hors d'oeuvres, none of this seemed exceptional for a mobile phone promotion in Changsha. Other examples to come later . . .

Genuine, Fake, and In-between: A Visit to Electronics Markets at Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei

Several days ago I spent part of one afternoon in Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei (also known as Huaqiang North) commercial area. According to ShenzhenShopper:

Theres over 20 shopping malls located in the Huaqiangbei area which provides about 70 million square meters of business area. Annual sales reaching over 20 billion, and there’s something like 130,000 people employed in the area. Yep, it’s large.

Huaqiangbei is most known for being one of the biggest electronics markets in the world. For many first time visitors, especially those already familiar with typical consumer electronics chain stores in China, I would agree with the suggestion on PIXEL to:

Skip [the consumer electronics shops] and spend your time in the buildings dedicated to Android tablets, “Shanzhai” phones (copies), phone accessories, components, LEDs, various gadgets, etc.

Just one of the shopping centers on its own can be overwhelming to those not accustomed with their scale, density, and intensity. Charles Arthur shared a gallery of photos on The Guardian. As prelude to another gallery of photos on Tech in Asia, Paul Bischoff wrote:

Within lies stall after stall after stall of nearly every gadget, component, and tool imaginable. Over half a dozen city blocks are filled to the brim with crowded marketplaces, each ranging from four to 10 floors high. Photos hardly do it justice. The place is immense.

For a variety of reasons, I kept my photo-taking activities to a minimum this time. The photo above is of an alley on the outskirts of Huaqiangbei. On both sides are huge electronics markets which aren't labeled even on Seeed Studio's detailed Shenzhen Map for Makers (free PDF download). The several markets I visited on this block mostly focused on mobile phone products — from components to complete phones to accessories. Here is just a small taste of what I saw in these markets where the line between genuine and fake can be blurry:

• Thousands of mobile phones with cracked screens, some showing clear signs they were from the U.S.
• Screens for various brand name phones for sale.
• Workers fixing and cleaning phones.
• Workers affixing brand name labels to unmarked batteries.
• Workers packaging iPhones to appear as new.
• Foreigners making purchases, reminding me of what I learned at a fake stuffed toy wholesale store in Guangzhou.

There is much more to say about Huaqiangbei, but I will leave it this for now. It can be a fascinating place to visit, even if you don't need to change an iPhone 5c into an iPhone 5s.

An Alaskan Malamute and Wolf Teeth in Zhongshan

In a period of a little over an hour tonight in Zhongshan, I had unplanned experiences touching on recents posts about pets dogs and selling wolf-dog teeth in Chongqing, which is approximately a 1500 km (930 miles) drive from Zhongshan.

First, I met a young couple walking their friendly dog, an Alaskan Malamute, next to the Shiqi River.

Then not much later, I saw teeth for sale at a street corner.



The seller told me they were wolf teeth and not wolf-dog teeth. Based on my memory, the teeth appeared larger than what I had seen in Chongqing.

And that's all for these topics today.

Dog Teeth For Sale in Chongqing and Online

Roughly between the center of the Jiefangbei shopping district and Chaotianmen in Chongqing, one day I noticed a woman selling some interesting items.

Two days later in the same area, I saw a man selling similar items.

I asked the woman if those were dog heads in front of her, and she said they were. I asked the man if those were wolf heads in front of him, and he said they were. Both followed up their answers with comments that left me a bit confused though. After some online research, I believe they were explaining that the heads and teeth for sale in front of them were from wolf-dogs, an animal which I did not know much about at the time.

Wolf-dogs, as their name suggests, are a mix of wolf and dog. Wolf-dogs can have varying degrees of "wolfness" and "dogness" in terms of genes and behavior, and there are disagreements over what should be labeled as a wolf-dog. One type of wolf-dog, the Kunming Dog, was bred in China. PetYourDog has a description of the breed:

The Kunming Dog is a wolf dog that originated in China in early 1950s. The purpose for its development was to create a military dog for the Chinese army. Several breeds of dogs as well as several cross breeds were involved in this dogs' gene pole but most of the breeds used are unknown. . . .

It has exceptional and proven working capabilities and the dog is gaining popularity among common people as a family companion. This rare dog needs early age socialization and obedience training. A well trained and socialized Kunming Dog will make very good family pet; one that gets along well with children and treat them as its masters. This breed generally gets along well with other dogs and pets in the family. With proper training and socialization, this rare breed of dogs can be an exciting addition to a family.

The Dog Breed Info Center says that Kunming Dogs can "make excellent pets".

So it is possible what I saw came from animals that I suspect many people would consider to be dogs, even if it is technically accurate to describe them as wolf-dogs.

News articles about people in China selling items similar to what I saw can be found here, here, and here (all in Chinese and all include images). In those cases, the teeth are described as coming from dogs. The articles explain that some people believe dog teeth ward off evil spirits. Also, sellers can be concerned their products will be perceived as fakes — a reason to display dog heads.

If you want to buy dog (or wolf-dog or wolf) teeth, you do not need to visit a seller in person. It is easy to find sellers online. For example, on Alibaba's Taobao, a Chinese website similar to eBay, one seller offers jewelry made with teeth from the Tibetan Mastiff, a domestic dog.

And Alibaba's related site which targets online buyers outside of China, AliExpress, also offers plenty of dog teeth options, including one seller offering "vintage fashion".

Want to instead use a U.S. online site to buy your dog teeth? eBay has a few options, including a bracelet.

I don't know whether the sellers I've mentioned are selling what they say they are. But given how often I see restaurants in China with dog meat on the menu, I wouldn't be surprised by genuine dog teeth being readily available.

Many questions come to mind, but I don't plan to dig more deeply into dog teeth sales, something I have come across far less often in China than seeing people with their pet dogs. However, one day I will get around to commenting on the practice of eating dog meat and sharing some of what I have seen.