Henry Blodget: What To Do in Shanghai – When you can’t buy fake stuff

Posted by Xiao Qiang | Apr 7, 2005

My last day in Shanghai, it rained. This put a damper on my plan to study the Xiangyang Park market, Shanghai’s Mecca for those hellbent on buying knockoffs. Two days earlier, en route to the French Concession, I’d gotten within a few blocks of the place and had nearly been tackled by frontmen shouting “looka, looka, looka!” and brandishing watches (Rolex), pens (Mont Blanc), and bags (Louis Vuitton). Why these three brands occupied so much of the fake-stuff mindshare was a mystery, but, thinking I had another day to devote to this thriving China industry, I had resisted the men’s attempts to drag me”literally, in one case”into alleyways. Then the monsoon arrived, and I defaulted to Plan B.