Bent Chopsticks

I went to a restaurant yesterday and ordered some rice. Picking up a long thin packet of chopsticks, I tore it open with my teeth. Somehow the chopsticks didn’t balance in my fingers. I poked into the rice, but instead if grabbing rice with a well balanced pincer movement, I flicked the grain everywhere. I took a moment to study the chopsticks and suddenly realised that they were bent. I had never encountered such a thing before. But it seemed to represent so much.

The Chinese are fantastic at making things look good. Fake clothing, fake watches, fake everything. Last year Penelope and I visited the famous Terracotta Warriors in Xian. Beside the excavation site was a large building proudly displaying the company’s name “The Xi'an Counterfeit Factory of Terracotta Warriors”. Now that’s got to be saying something…

The whole counterfeit theme is part and parcel of an inherent syndrome. Goods made to foreign specification for export are often of high quality. But if it’s not for export, don’t put out your money. It will be the same junk that they sell in the cheap bazaars and shops back home. And even if you bargain them down on the price here, you find that you could still have bought it cheaper, and probably for better quality, back home,

A young man I met at a Shabbat meal in Shenzhen, involved in construction finance, told me it’s the same with buildings. Big construction requires foreign supervision.

Penelope, bless her, has been pushing me to buy quick dry shirts. I bought one here (with a misspelled ‘addidas’ label) for more than I paid for something similar in Australia, and wouldn’t you know it – it takes days to dry. P didn’t seem surprised.

Last week I bought a watch in the market. You know the kind, one of those fake Omega’s. It looks so real that I have been mistaken here for being a ‘businessman’ because of my fancy watch. How long will the strap last? That’s another story.

After searching the market for a good quality jacket, I purchased a North Face Windstopper in a reputable camping equipment store in Shangrila. Before handing over the agreed price I had the presence of mind to ask if it was a genuine North Face product. "Oh no" came the repy, "but it is 'A' quality copy!"

I am convinced that even the little sachets of butter supplied in every restaurant that serves a western style breakfast here, and marked "New Zealand Butter", is locally produced in China (though probably not from Yak milk).

To tell the truth it frightens me. Everything here is for show. There is very little substance. Surely this cannot represent thousands of years of Chinese culture, philosophy and innovation.

It certainly makes you wonder when a whole society seems to be based on illusion. The question arises, then, as to whether this has resulted from certain other domestic changes to the ountry during the last century.