While in Beijing I met with Hu Fang, a writer, art critic and curator*, who very generously lent me his ear and, gave me his time, after my request to get some feedback on my perceptions of China. I’ve been coming to China now on a yearly basis since 2004, observing, absorbing, interpreting, comparing, contextualizing, processing. Each time maintaining a weblog for my visual and written notations. Throughout these past years this has been very much a solitary exercise. An indulgent undertaking resulting, until now, in a subjective collection of images and ideas that have not been exposed to, or examined by, those who know infinitely more about Chinese culture than I do.

When the opportunity to talk with Fang arose, it met with my growing craving to embark on dialogues with others about various themes that recur in my collection of possibly fanciful notions about aspects of Chinese culture.
One of those themes is the attitude towards copy vs. original, imitation vs. authentic, fake vs.genuine. Fang introduced me to the term shanzhai initially meaning “a fenced place in the forest” or “village in the mountains with stockade houses“.
It is however currently often used to refer to certain type of pirated goods in China. As I understood it, it means not a literal copy, whereby every detail is replicated, but rather it’s an almost copy. A reference to an existing product and/or brand, whereby the shanzhai product has some alterations in it that distinguish it from the original article, yet it clearly is based on an original product.

Wikipedia offers some insights on origins and usage of the word shanzhai. One of the references given is an small article in the New York Times:

[Shanzhai] associates fake products with the actions of old-time bandits who thumbed their noses at various Chinese dynasties, an increasing number of Chinese people are viewing such products as an anti-establishment symbol.(…)

*Fang is also artistic director of Vitamin Creative Space, an art space in Guangzhou.

The well-known Louis Vuitton print, or references to it, can be seen just about everywhere: of course on fake LV handbags. But also on socks, scarves, stickers to decorate your mobile phone with, underwear, fabric, plastic carrier bags, hairpins and so on and so on.

A couple of days ago in the Guangzhou metro, I saw this woman wearing her LV inspired sleeves. These loose sleeves are worn mostly by women, and small children, over their coat sleeves. I guess they’re meant to keep the coat clean and whole. People wearing them are often engaged in activities involving dirt and grease (like streetvendors), and small children are of course crawling and climbing all over the place, including rather filthy floors.
So anyway, this woman is wearing loose sleeves that I associate with low income labour, yet sporting a motif that refers to one of the most ridiculously chic brands in the world. (Even though it’s not an exact copy: it says LS, not LV and the shapes that make up the pattern are not very precise replicas of the original LV shapes.)
Encounters as these fuel my curiousity about the cultural meaning of the act to copy from the Chinese perspective. I hope to address this later on in this blog.

My reflection in an LV shopwindow in Xiamen/November 2009

It’s going to be tough time for a white wine lover such as myself.