Fakes, shopping, and going to China

It is a lovely sunny, but a bit chilly day here in Hong Kong. Its about 65 degrees. This is actually more or less what the weather has been lately, getting down to about 50 at night. A bit to cool for my liking and certainly not what I expected (I thought it would be much warmer all the time). I am told this is fairly normal for this time of year and to enjoy it now as I will be longing for the cool temperatures when the hot weather does finally arrive. However this cold weather is not all doom and gloom because I have been able to wear the new jacket and scarf that I got on my recent visit to Shenzhen.

Shenzhen is the town just over the boarder in China. It is where everything that is made in China is produced. It used to be farm land and now it is a vast, sprawling city where things are made (except food) and where one can consume. It is a Mecca for buying "fake goods" as well. Fake is in scare quotes here because it is not always clear what fake means. Certainly the mechanical goods being sold as branded goods need to be taken with some skepticism. Likewise, the handbags, are not entirely "real" as the real ones are not finished in Shenzhen, but the basic look and design is there. I got a great pale blue "Valentino" bag, and, OK, Ive had to superglue the screws in the handle because they fell out, but the difference in the cost of the real and the cost of the fake plus the superglue is still quite a bit. Enough to make the handbag within my economic reach, which it would not have been otherwise. In fact, it was cheap enough that if the bag only lasted for a year I still would feel I've had a real bargain.

There is also a whole village, a shortish taxi ride from the Lo Wu crossing, where you can buy "fake" art--like the Mona Lisa, but also other things, and you can have stuff copied-like photographs but also other works of art--in oil paints or water colors or whatever the original was in. The paintings are really painted, not printed, and not in a paint by number kind of way either (we watched a guy doing the painting). They are also really pretty good copies--at least to my untrained eye. The couple of things I got certainly lift the tenor of our fairly meager collection, which consisted of mainly framed prints and one original piece from my cousin Barbara, who is a proper artist. What is more, you can get a large canvas including frame for about $30 US. I got an oil of the tram in Wan Chi that is about 2.5 feet by 3.5 feet. The hardest part is carrying them home on the train!

In the part of Shenzhen that is just across the border from Lo Wu, which is also incidentally just up our train line, there is a large mall/factory building where you can buy fabric and beads, including pearls, which they will string for you (including individually knotting and adding a clasp). I was able to get a fairly long string of dark green colored pearls of a largish size for about $40 US. The area where the fabric is is filled with stalls where different materials are sold including silk, wool, cashmere, stretchy fabric, cotton silk blends, cotton, etc. etc. etc. There is some absolutely beautiful materials. What is more is that next to the fabric area there is a whole area of tailors. They will copy or make about anything you want. Lined if you want. And it fits beautifully. I may never buy off the rack clothes again (lets see how long that pledge lasts!?!). What is more, is that again it is really not at all expensive. I had a cashmere wool jacket made for about $50 US, it is lined and that included the cost of the fabric, lining, and buttons. While this was not a fake, I did also take some of my favorite things with me, which they copied perfectly. Maybe these are fakes, though they do not have copies of the labels in them. They were certainly less expensive than the originals. The down side is that going to the tailor requires two trips spaced about 10 days apart, and a visa.

Visitors to Hong Kong don't automatically get access to China as a result of this one country two systems business. What is more, the cost of the visa varies by where you come from, so unfortunately US and UK passports are on the expensive side. There is a sliding scale for the UK passports, so it gets a bit more expensive to buy a visa for more entries. For Americans it is one price for all the visas, no matter how many entries. This works about to about $150 US per visa. The first visa you get cannot be a multi-entry visa, so mine was for 2 visits. Once you have this first visa you can get a multi-entry visa in Hong Kong on your American passport provided your resident visa in Hong Kong is for longer than the 6 months of the visa itself (this constraint does not operate for those who get their visa in the US and who are not resident in Hong Kong). I cannot do this now, as in the first instance, my resident visa is just for one year and it expires in early August. Once I renew the Hong Kong visa, however, I can get a multi-entry visa to China, which allows unlimited entries for up to 6 months. There is also a place at the Lo Wu border where people can buy their visa for about $15 HK, but this option is not available to Americans or British visitors. I am looking forward to the multi-entry visa as it is closer for me to go to Shenzhen than it is for me to go to Central. But I have to wait, which maybe is a good thing.

While the Chinese government prefers that people get their visa's in their home country prior to coming to Hong Kong, you can get them here through a variety of ways. The long slow way is to go to the China visa office, wait for several hours in confusing lines and hope that you can communicate what you want. There are also several travel offices that will do this work for you. China Travel Service is the most well known, but they are also expensive--about two times the cost. There is also a travel service located on the 40th floor of the building where the visa office is (China Resources Building in Wan Chai) called Sunrise Travel. This company is much less expensive than CTS and for a small additional fee they can expedite your application so that you can get the visa in a day or two rather than the usual week if your trip is urgent. You can also download the form from their web site directly and take it in all filled out when you go.

Of course one need not go to China to have a tailor make things for you, though it is not as easy and certainly not as cheep as in Shenzhen, but it is still less than if one were to have a tailored suit made in the UK or the US. Adrian has had a couple done and they are lovely. It is like getting Seville Row for just a bit more than Marks and Spencer off the rack prices. The particularly nice thing about having a tailor make things is that they fit perfectly. You can also get factory outlet goods in Hong Kong as there are a couple of branded factory outlet malls in the city that have last year's styles and seconds. One has to look closely as I found a pair of jeans with no buttons in the fly once. These shops are very much like the outlet mall shops in the US or the UK. Pretty good value, but still can cost more than one might want to pay. The Pedder Building in Central has some branded goods with the labels cut out and some things that reportedly come from the same factories as the big name Italian designers. There are 6 floors of shops and one has to pick through a bit and sometimes the sizing is very small, but pretty convenient and worth a visit. There is also an area where there are factory wholesale shops where some of the sellers will sell retail provided they are not too busy. The best place is at the Hong Kong Industrial Centre near the Lai Chi Kok MTR station. This stuff tends to be smaller (for asian bodies) and the styles are more asian as well and there are no fakes, but still there are some very good bargains to be had even for my large american body (one has to get over the mental issue of buying clothes in XXL size). There is an excellent web site for outlet shopping in Hong Kong at http://www.hongkongextras.com/_outlet_shops.html. It is the most comprehensive list, though some things have changed and some are not really worth it--e.g. the outlets at the China Ferry Terminal are pretty rubbish unless you want to buy trainers.

I've yet to find a good place for shoes. Shoes are generally a bit difficult for me here in Hong Kong as my feet are the very largest size they sell and even then sometimes that doesn't work. Which is to to say it is impossible, just a bit more difficult. There are some great shoes to buy, but finding a low cost source has alluded me so far. I'll keep you posted...