Luxury consumption on Jinbao Street

Posted on 2011-11-16 by Interns

Legendale Hotel

Inhwa Chung and Lucy March are currently interning at Danwei. They have spent several weeks researching stores and consumers on one of Beijing’s luxury shopping streets by talking to sales staff and customers.

Jinbao Street screams wealth. Jinbao (金宝) means “gold and treasure” and the name is apt:

The Hong Kong Jockey club squats in the middle of the street, surrounded by stores that sell Bentleys and Ferraris with price tags in the millions (please refer to our previous research for more about the cars and background to Jinbao Street). Private drivers in expensive cars roll up to five-star hotels to pick up their customers. During lunch hour, men and women in designer suits come out from their offices suites and descend upon the street which is lined with stores offering luxury goods.

We asked sales staff at nearly all the stores on Jinbao Street what their most expensive and cheapest items were and for comments about their customer demographics. Some were more talkative than others.

The most expensive item on the whole street is a Pagani sports car that sells at 26 million yuan. Other products with outrageous price tags include:

• A password-protected cabinet with a price tag of 5 million yuan;
• A diamond encrusted watch for 6.6 million yuan;
• A medicinal fungus for 200,000 yuan;
• Men’ suits for a million yuan;
• A cell phone for  840,000 yuan.

Not far from the Hong Kong Jockey Club is Jinbao Place, a seven-story mall. This self-described “Palace of Global Luxury” is on most afternoons almost completely devoid of customers, save for the few who are grabbing a latte at Esquire’s Coffee, or sitting down for lunch at the Dadong Peking Duck restaurant.

Salespeople we spoke to at Jinbao Palace were almost never busy with a customer, and some said that they had not had a transaction in months. Still, it seems there are enough people who can drop tens of thousands or even millions of yuan on an impulse to keep the stores on Jinbao Street open.

Who are these people?

A recent McKinsey report titled “Understanding China’s Growing Love for Luxury” found that 73% of China’s luxury consumers are under 45, and 45% are younger than 35, which corresponds with the typical age range of customers on Jinbao Street, according to sales staff we interviewed. Many of the sales staff said their customers were from Shanxi; Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, Shandong and Shaanxi were also mentioned. Although the Jinbao Palace Mall seems to have more women shopping and window shopping, many of the sales staff said men were the main customers.

The following is a list of descriptions, prices and anecdotal information about the stores on Jinbao Street (see also Luxury cars of Golden Treasure Street for information about luxury cars sold on the street).

Orchard Farmer
A well-known dried fruit and nut chain store.
Cheapest item: Torreya nuts, 9.8 yuan / 1 jin (500 grams)
Most expensive: 302 yuan / 1 jin
Sell about 100,000 yuan of goods per month.

Good Neighbor Convenience Store (好邻居）
Cheapest item: 1.5 yuan (bottled water)
Most expensive item: 1,000 yuan (liquor)

Casajolie
Home furnishings
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan for flooring, several thousand for a bathtub.
Most expensive item:  6,000 yuan for flooring; 350,000 yuan for a bathtub.

Time (时光)
Home furnishings
Cheapest item: 27,000 yuan, a watch winder.
Most expensive: 5 million yuan, a password-protected cabinet.
Customers range from age 30-60, most of them are men.
Sell about 10 million yuan of goods per year.

Convenience Store （便民商店）
Cheapest item: 0.5 yuan(meat snack)
Most expensive: 70 yuan (a pack of cigarettes)

Millennium Wine Cellar
Cheapest item: Over 80 yuan (liquor), 3 yuan (pack of cigarettes)
Most expensive item: Over 1,000 yuan (liquor), 60 yuan (pack of cigarettes)
The store owner told us that customers prefer Chinese cigarette brands to foreign brands.

Parmigian
Watches
Cheapest item: 164,000 yuan
Most expensive: 6.6 million yuan (diamond men’s watch)
They have at most five customers per day, from age 18 and up, and from all around China.

Jinbao Street-image by Inhwa Chung

FFF Automobile – image by Inhwa Chung

Starck by Warendorf
Home furnishings
Cheapest item: 500,000 yuan
Most expensive: 1.5 million yuan
Many customers per day, some from as far away as Macau.
Most popular item is a glass kitchen counter, of which they typically sell ten a year.

Very-Grass
A medicinal fungus popular in traditional Chinese medicine.
Cheapest item: 10,000 yuan
Most expensive: 200,000 yuan
They claimed to have many customers per day, but couldn’t tell us how much they sold in a month.

Dtiga
Authorized Apple product reseller
Cheapest computer: 7,600 yuan
Most expensive computer: 18,000 yuan
An used iPhone costs 5,999 yuan for 16GB; the storekeeper told us that 32GB iPhones are sold out all over China. They will start selling the 4GS iPhone at the end of the year.
Customers are of all ages, including students. They have 50-60 customers a day.

Iran Carpet Company
Cheapest item: 1,500 yuan
Most expensive item: 270,000 yuan
They sell two to three items per month.
Most customers are male, usually “bosses or managers” (老板) aged 30-40.

Orlov
Diamonds
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan
Most expensive item: Several hundred thousand yuan
Customers are mostly female and come from everywhere.

Marco Bruno
Brand suit rental
Cheapest item: 3,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 10,000 yuan
Most customers are men aged 20-40 looking for wedding tuxedos. About ten shoppers a day, most of whom are just passing through during their lunch hour.

JINBAO PALACE
Luxury shopping mall containing 49 stores.
Cheapest stores: (on average) Siu (cheapest item: a shirt for 1,000 yuan) and Beprine (women’s clothing – 1,000 yuan).
Most expensive store: He Sheng Jewelry (和生珠宝 ) had the most expensive item (a jade necklace for 3.8 million yuan); Omega on average has the most expensive items (including a 1 million yuan diamond watch).
The average customer at Jinbao Palace is 30-40, usually a Chinese male from all over China.

These are stores in Jinbao Palace:

Burberry - image by Inhwa Chung

Burberry – image by Inhwa Chung

Burberry
Men’s and women’s clothing / accessories
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan (card holder)
Most expensive item: 60,000 yuan (clothing); 20,000 (bag); 4,000 (scarf)
They sell 100-200 items per month; customers range from age 20-50.

Bottega Veneta
Men’s and women’s clothing / accessories
Cheapest item: 1,340 yuan (keychain)
Most expensive item: 340,000 yuan (bag)
They typically sell 500 items per month; customers range from age 20-50.

Cornelani
Formal men’s clothing
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan (tie)
Most expensive item: 130,000 yuan (suit)
Typically sell 700,000 -800,000 yuan per month. Most customers are from Shanxi and Erduosi (Inner Momgolia).

Pal Zileri
Formal men’s clothing
Cheapest Item: 1,000 yuan (tie)
Most expensive item: 130,000 yuan (suit)
Prices go up in the wintertime, when they usually sell more products.

Kilton
Men’s clothing
Cheapest item: 128 yuan (socks)
Most expensive item: 1 million yuan
Typically sell about 500,000 yuan per month.

Canali
Formal men’s clothing
Cheapest Item: 100 yuan (socks)
Most expensive item: 60,000 yuan
Typically sell 1 million yuan of goods per month.

Gucci
Men’s and women’s clothing / accessories
Cheapest Item: 1,000 yuan (key chain)
Most expensive item: 40,000 yuan (accessories), 70,000 yuan (clothing)

Vertu
Luxury cellphones with concierge service
Cheapest item: 39,500 yuan
Most expensive item: 840,000 yuan

Omega
Watches
Cheapest item: 20,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 1 million yuan
Typically sell 3 million yuan per month.

Giada
Women’s clothing
Cheapest Item: 1,000 yuan (belt)
Most expensive item: 200,000 yuan (leather jacket)

Bilacioni
Men’s and women’s clothing, specializing in Italian furs.
Cheapest Item: 2,000 yuan (belt)
Most expensive item: 60,000 yuan (fur coat)
They sell less than 10 products a month; customers range from age 30-50.

Autason
Formal men’s clothing
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 200,000 yuan
Customers range from age 30-50.

Ilaria
Women’s clothing
Cheapest Item: 3,000 yuan (blouse)
Most expensive item: 300,000 yuan
Customers are in their 30’s, and are mostly from Northeast China and Xi’an.

The Swank
Men’s and women’s clothing / accessories
Cheapest Item: 120 yuan (very small item)
Most expensive item: 200,000 yuan (leather jacket)
Customers are from all around China.

High Quality Suit Care (优凯高级西服护理)
Suit care
Services costs 100-800 yuan

Ludwig Reiter
Men’s and women’s accessories (mostly shoes / bags)
Cheapest item: 300 yuan (shoe shine), cheapest shoes 2,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 110,000 yuan (shoes)
Customers range from age 40-50 mostly from Shanxi.

Artiloli
Men’s and women’s shoes
Cheapest item: 2,000 yuan (belt)
Most expensive item: 200,000 yuan (bag)
Customers are age 30 and up.

Siu
Clothing and Jewelry
Cheapest Item: 1,000 yuan (shirt)
Most expensive item: 15,000 yuan
Typically sell 30 -50 items per month, sometimes more. Customers are age 25 and up.

Ublcount
Men’s clothing and accessories
Cheapest item: 600 yuan (purse)
Most expensive item: 60,000 yuan (marten fur coat)
They sell less than 10 items per month. Customers range from age 30-40

Hesheng Jewelry (和生珠宝)
Jewelry and jade
Cheapest Item: 8,000 yuan (bracelet)
Most expensive item: 3.8 million yuan (necklace)
Customers mostly from Northeast China and Shanxi.

Beprine
Women’s clothing
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 15,000 yuan
They typically sell about 5 items in a month. Customers range from age 30-40; most of them are actresses and they usually rent the dresses.

Samsung
Home electronics (TVs and fridges)
Cheapest item: 15,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 20,000 yuan
They initially sold 50,000 yuan per month, but have not sold anything in a while. The sales person said that very famous people shop there so she couldn’t tell us about them.

Gts High Quality Cashmere (Gts高档羊绒)
Women’s clothing
Cheapest item: 100 yuan (gloves – on sale)
Most expensive item: several million yuan
Customers are age 30 and up.
Usually there are no customers during the summer, because they sell winter clothing.

La Belleza Salon（部丽莎美发沙龙)
Hair salon
Cheapest service: 80 yuan (shampoo and styling)
Most expensive service: 980 yuan (perm)

Yuming Jewelry (嶎明珠宝)
Jade
Cheapest item: 1,000 yuan (popular with younger customers)
Most expensive item: 1 million yuan
Customers range from age 30-40.

Anshangte Salon (安上特美容院)
Japanese style massage salon
Cheapest service: 280 yuan (facial massage), 320 yuan (full body)
Most expensive: 5,000 yuan (facial), 1,080 yuan (full body)

Juva
Massage salon
Cheapest service: 600 yuan
Most expensive service: 6,800 yuan for five sessions of laser treatment; also offers botox.
Customers are of all ages “because they all want to be pretty.”

Tanya - image by Inhwa Chung

Bailigong Cinema (百丽宫影城)
Movie theater
Price range: 60-70 yuan

Tanya
Women’s dresses and bags
Cheapest Item: 2,800 yuan (shirt)
Most expensive item: 20,000 yuan
Customers range from age 30-40.
Most customers are friends of the boss, mostly actresses.
Need notification two weeks in advance.
Had Hermes bags on display that belonged to the boss.

Polardeck
Home accessories
Cheapest Item: 3,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 200,000 yuan (wolf skin rug).
Customers are mostly from Shandong province.

Run Bao Xuan (润宝轩)
Jade
Cheapest Item: 30,000 yuan
Most expensive item: 100,000 yuan
Typically sell 1 million yuan per month.

Written and Researched by Lucy March and Inhwa Chung, all images by Inhwa Chung.

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Liu Jing and his comic book history of China

Posted on 2011-11-04 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Understanding China through comics - cover

Liu Jing (刘京) is a Beijing-born entrepreneur, designer and cartoonist. He recently published Understanding China Through Comics, a book for iPad and Kindle about Chinese history.

Below is a brief Q&A with Liu, followed by an excerpt from his new book. You can buy the book on Amazonand iTunes.

JG: Can you explain how you came up with the idea for this book?
LJ: I have two inspirations to write the book. One is my new born son, the other one is actually a Chinese saying.

Living in China, watching my son growing so fast, I’m just as anxious as a lot of people to know where China is going. I believe, to better guess where China is going, I have to know where it came from. The other inspiration is a Chinese saying, “At 40, one should be no longer confused.” This was said by Confucius, an ancient Chinese philosopher, over 2500 years ago to review his own life.

Today, most Chinese still measure their lives with these Confucius’ benchmarks. A few years before my 40th birthday, I was still confused about many things, the history of my own country was one of them. So I decided to write this book.

I first looked into Chinese history for self-education, and realized how much of an information overload it can be to most people. With this condensed comic book, I hope that it has made it easier for readers to connect the dots of China’s past and to see its compelling relevance today.

Why you decided to publish it for iPad and Kindle?
So far, they are the only major platforms that allow me to reach a global audience instantly.

Is it easy to publish in this way? What are the advantages compared to traditional publishing?
Both Apple and Amazon have clear terms and steps for digital publishing. It takes some time and effort, but manageable. For comic books like mine, it’s a bit more complicated, since it involves lots of images and specific layout. There are many benefits of digital book publishing:

For readers:
Instant delivery
Easy to carry around
Cheaper than print copies

For me:
Instant worldwide distribution
No need for warehouse and inventory management

Are you expecting to make money from this book, or is it mostly for fun?
It’s my long term hobby, and to me, it’s more of a meaningful thing.

How long have you been drawing comics and what first inspired you to do it?
I started to draw for fun when I was a kid. When I went to primary school, I signed up for an after-school program, where I spent 2 years just learning how to draw goldfish tails, using a Chinese paint brush.

In my first job at Beijing Scene, an independent English newspaper, I did some cartoons and illustrations. Since 1997, I’ve running a design firm, where I’m lucky to keep my hobby by drawing for some projects.

The reason I chose comic format for this book is that comic is entertaining, personal and emotional. It can make a very complicated topic easy to understand.

What is your day job?
My full time job is to run a creative agency to help help our clients to tell their brand stories, and I’ve been doing that for 14 years.

Now I need something more challenging and I decide to tell the story of my country, China, in comic format, in my spare time. One way to put it: I did what I had to do, so now I can do what I like to do.

You have been interacting with foreigners in China since the mid 1990s. Do you think knowledge of China amongst foreigners has improved over this time?
Actually I met my first foreign friend in China in late 80s. I believe the interest in China is growing over the decades, giving the chance to improve the knowledge of China among westerners.

There are a lot more English books about China, mostly written by westerners, reflecting western logic and rationale. In many of these books, China will either save the world by driving global economic growth, or rule the world so everyone has to live in its shadow. When I read these books, I find both sides’ arguments convincing, based on the facts they gathered.

But there is a strong feeling that something were left unsaid, at least for a Chinese person like me, who grew up with Chinese legends, tales, arts, crafts, symbols, propaganda and tragedies.

I hope my book can contribute to improving the perception of one aspect of China, which is that, China has always been very busy with its own problems. It doesn’t have extra energy to either save the world, or rule the world.

Anything else you’d like to add?
The book is a visual guide to understanding China and its long history. The value of the book is that, the readers can get a solid grip on China’s history in 3 days. It’s for people who do not have time to go through tons of history books, especially for business people who really want to understand China, Chinese culture and Chinese people.

I hope, after reading the book, the readers will understand China’s historical context, understand what China is, and be informed.

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Child kidnapping in China: A case study

Posted on 2011-10-11 by C. Custer

Mr Liu and poster about missing Jingjun

This post is by C. Custer, editor in chief of ChinaGeeks. For the past year, he has been researching and filming a documentary about kidnapped children in China. This is the story of one of the subjects of the film.

Mr. Liu and his wife were much like any of the other millions and millions of migrants who have moved to cities all across China. The couple met in the countryside in their home province of Shanxi but soon decided to move to Taiyuan, the provincial capital. There, they rented a tiny one room apartment in a building at the end of a long, narrow alley. Mr. Liu found full-time work as a laborer; his wife took a part time job and watched over the family’s two children, a daughter and their young son Liu Jingjun.

By the time Liu Jingjun was two, the parents had decided they didn’t want more children, and both had operations to ensure there would be no further pregnancies. Shortly after this, Liu Jingjun was kidnapped.

On April 11, 2010, Mr. Liu went to work and his wife stayed home to watch the children. Jingjun, who was not even two at the time, was outside in the alley playing with some older neighborhood children, and his mother was inside the apartment. Around 10:30 A.M., she went to look for Jingjun and discovered he was missing. She called Liu, who came home, and together they called the police.

The police did come, but told them to calm down and have a look around themselves, assuring them that the child had probably just wandered off or been taken into some neighbor’s house. So the couple searched on their own until the evening, when Mr. Liu discovered one of his neighbors had a surveillance camera with an unobstructed view of the alley. He got his neighbor to let him review the recordings and watched in horror as he saw a man walk onscreen, grab his son, and carry him into a van at the end of the alley.

It’s difficult to get around the fact that Liu’s wife left their two-year-old son alone outside, and indeed, following the kidnapping, many of Liu’s friends urged him to divorce her. In her defense, though, the apartment they live in is off a long and somewhat secluded alley. While it’s probably never a good idea to leave a two-year old in the “supervision” of other children (who had left by the time Jingjun was kidnapped), the tenants in that area do have a sense of community and it’s withdrawn enough from major roads that a parent might come to see it as a “safe” place that was sort of part of their own home, especially given that their actual apartment is extremely small and many tenants spend a good amount of time in outside areas.

In any event, Jingjun had clearly been kidnapped, and after reviewing the videotape, police promised to investigate. To date, however, they have had no major leads and there have been no changes in the status of Jingjun’s case.

Not content to wait for police to “investigate” — based on our interviews, it seems the vast majority of these investigations are fruitless and whether or not the police are actually doing much is questionable — Liu and his wife and family took to the streets, printing flyers and searching high traffic areas like the train and bus stations for the next seven days straight. They found no sign of their son.

In the year and a half since then, Liu has had to return to work, but he visits an Internet cafe every night to spend several hours online looking for his son and making posts about the case. Information about Jingjun has appeared on the local TV and radio as well as in newspapers. Liu and a number of other Shanxi parents also hold publicity events to pass out flyers about their children and raise awareness about kidnapping. At one such event we attended, the parents set up a truck and dozens of posters along a crowded sidewalk in central Taiyuan, and stayed there for several hours passing out flyers and speaking with passers-by and reporters before police arrived and told them to leave.

In their search, Liu and his wife have also come in contact with scammers. The couple — like many parents of kidnapped children — frequently receive phone calls from strangers who promise information on their lost son, but only if Liu pays the caller an exorbitant sum of money (generally around 50,000 yuan). At first, the couple was tormented by their inability to pay, but later as they came to know other parents in the same situation, they learned that these calls are quite common, and generally speaking, the caller has no real information to offer. Now, Liu tells them he’ll be happy to pay any sum they’d care to name as soon as his child is returned home. So far, no caller has taken him up on the offer.

The outlook for Liu Jingjun is not great. As such a young age, chances are he was kidnapped to be sold into “adoption” by another family. On the one hand, this means he will likely live a relatively normal life, and if his new “parents” are careful, he may never even know that he was kidnapped and sold into his “family.” Of course, even if his “adoptive parents” are caught, Liu Jingjun’s chances of finding his way home are slim. Just this June, police cracked a kidnapping ring and rescued dozens of children but were ultimately forced to return them to their buyers because they were unable to determine the children’s origins.

Successes should become more common as more and more parents have their DNA tested and filed to be cross-referenced whenever police uncover kidnapped children. But at the moment, official statistics are hard to come by and anecdotally, success rates seem dismally low. Of all the parents we’ve spoken to in the past year, not a single set has received any significant information about their child’s case, let alone recovered their child.

Needless to say, they’re still searching.

To learn more about Liu Jingjun and other kidnapped children, visit a special information section at ChinaGeeks. To learn more about the documentary film, which is currently soliciting donations to continue production, visit the film’s official site or watch the trailer below.

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Across China during National Day holiday

Posted on 2011-10-10 by Jonah Kessel

Shanghai

I spent China’s October holiday traveling across the country on a work trip.  I was working on a video project and a short post for Danwei about corner stores in China, but took some shots of crowds and buildings around China during the holiday week:

Above: Clouds cover Shanghai, September 27, 2011. This view from the observation deck of the Shanghai World Financial Center in Pudong district of Shanghai is 474 m (1,555 ft) above ground level. See their very fancy website here.

Shanghai

Shanghai

Workers clean the observation platform of the Shanghai World Financial Center in Pudong district of Shanghai, 474 m (1,555 ft) above ground level.

Beijing
Taken October 5, 2011 in a crowded Tiananmen Square, Mao Zedong’s portrait is seen on the outside of the Forbidden City. China’s National Tourism Administration reported:

From Oct 1 to 7, the days of the holiday, about 24.3 million tourists went to the 119 national scenic spots that are directly overseen by the National Tourism Administration. That was about 8.84 percent more than had done so in the same period of 2010.

Beijing
Children and adults alike show their support for the People’s Republic of China with flags in Tiananmen Square. While the infamous square and adjacent temple are not new to crowds, Beijing allowed more tourists in the area during the week:

Meanwhile, more than 127,800 tourists went to the Forbidden City on Sunday, far more than the maximum of 80,000 tourists that the administrative office for the site had previously said could be admitted there during a single day, according to a report by the Beijing Times. To maintain order during the holiday, more than 500 security workers were stationed at the Forbidden City. By Thursday afternoon, more than 50 ticket scalpers had been detained by the police for manipulating ticket prices, said Jiang Yanjie, deputy head of the Tiananmen public security sub-bureau.

Beijing
A man collects cans and bottles from the thousands of tourists who pass through Tiananmen Square every hour during the October holiday.

Shenyang

The expanding cityscape of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, now home to more than 8 million people.

Shenyang
China’s largest lavender field outside of Shenyang, capital city of northeast China’s Liaoning Province. The park covers an area of 333 hectares.

Shenyang

A couple in matching “Astroboy” sweet shirts strolls through Shenyang’s lavender field, September 25, 2011.

Chengdu

Residents play majong in a park in central Chengdu, Sichuan Province, September 26, 2011.

A sea of tourists walks passed the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province.

Shenyang

A crane is sillouetted near the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province, October 2, 2011.

– Further photos by Jonah Kessel from the October holiday are on Danwei here, or see Jonah Kessel’s website for more. 

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What do people buy from corner stores in China?

Posted on 2011-10-10 by Jonah Kessel

I spent China’s October holiday traveling across the country on a work trip. In each city I visited, I went to a small corner store (known in China as xiaomaibu 小卖部). Such stores sell a range of goods similar to convenience stores, but usually packed into a tiny space. Many xiaomaibu‘s are so small that you cannot walk into them, but have to ask the vendor for what you want through a window.

I asked the person manning each store to tell me the most popular item they sold, and then took a portrait.

Xiaomaibu Chengdu

Chengdu 成都
Population: 14.05 Million
Name: Fan Wei 范伟
Top selling item: Lottery tickets (彩票)
China’s has two major lotteries; one supports sports teams and training, the other funds state welfaresystems. According to the Ministry of Finance, China’s lottery sales totaled 138.12 billion yuan ($21.58 billion) during the first eight months of 2011.

Xiaomaibu Shenyang

Shenyang 沈阳市
Population: 8.1 Million
Name: Gong Nanhua 宫华南
Top selling item: Uni-President Iced Black Tea 统一冰红茶

Xiaomaibu Shanghai

Shanghai 上海市
Population: 23 Million
Name: Tang Zaihua 唐仔华 
Top selling item: Mai Dong Energy Drink (Robust Group product) 脉动

Xiaomaibu Guangzhou

Guangzhou 广州市
Population: 10.182 Million
Name: Qiu Xinfu 邱心富
Top selling item: Double Happiness Cigarettes 红双喜香烟

Xiaomaibu Zhengzhou

Xiaomaibu Zhengzhou

Zhengzhou 郑州
Population: 8.63 Million
Name: Zhao Xinzhi 赵新枝
Top selling item: Golden Leaf Cigarette 黄金叶香烟
Ms. Zhao (top picture) requested a portrait of her grandson Feng Yi (冯毅 – bottom picture) appear with the Golden Leaf Cigarettes with this article.

Xiaomaibu Beijing

Beijing 北京
Population: 19.61 Million
Name: Dou Jiadong 窦家东
Top selling item: Huiyuan orange juice 汇源橙汁
Notes: This store is in a Beijing neighborhood where many foreigners live.

– Research for this report by Wang Miao 王淼 .

– Further photos by Jonah Kessel from the October holiday are on Danwei here, or see Jonah Kessel’s website for more. 

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Hong Kong’s dirty little secret

Posted on 2011-09-28 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Hong Kong's underclass

Kristie Hang and Benjamin Gottlieb recently wrote a story for CNN’s website about some members of Hong Kong’s underclass:

Hong Kong’s poorest living in ‘coffin homes’

Hidden amid the multi-million dollar high-rise apartments and chic shopping malls of Hong Kong’s urban centers are scores of tiny, unseen tenements — some no bigger than coffins — that many people call home.

Mak, 72, has lived in his four-walled “coffin home” overlooking the city’s Wan Chai neighborhood for the past decade. His entire living space is no bigger than a twin-sized bed, and has just enough room for him to sit up.

Hang and Gottlieb produced this video about coffin home inhabitants:

More about the producers of the video:
Kristie Hang has a website, Facebook fan page and Twitter account. Benjamin Gottlieb has a blog and Twitter account.

Image above courtesy of CNN

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Tricycle water calligraphy

Posted on 2011-09-23 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Water calligraphy is a poetic activity that you can observe in many Chinese parks: Artists use a large brush to write Chinese characters using water instead of ink. Minutes after the characters are written, they disappear.

Media Artist Nicholas Hanna built a tricycle that writes Chinese characters on the ground as it moves.

His tricycle is part of an exhibition for Beijing Design Week: You can see it at the Northern Electric Relay Factory in Dashilanr, south of Qianmen gate. The exhibition opens 6pm  on Saturday September 24, 2011, and runs until October 3.

The video below was shot ands edited by Jonah Kesssel. You can also watch it on Vimeo and on Tudou.

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Luxury cars of Golden Treasure Street

Posted on 2011-09-22 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Jinbao Street wheels - image by Jonah Kessel

Danwei’s Beijing offices are on Jinbao Street (金宝街).

“Jinbao” means “golden treasure”, a tacky new name with no history: the street is the brainchild of real estate developer Chen Lihua, who is the subject of the chapter titled “The Rich Lady” in Out of Mao’s Shadow, by Philip P. Pan.

The kitschy Legendale Hotel on Jinbao Street - image by Banyue

The kitschy Legendale Hotel on Jinbao Street – image by Banyue

Jinbao Street is an avenue created after the destruction of a swathe of alleyways and traditional courtyard housing just east of the Wangfujing shopping district. While Wangfujing has been a shopping district since the Qing Dynasty and caters to ordinary people’s tastes and budgets, Chen Lihua’s plans for Jinbao Jie were to transform it into a super luxury street.

The street is rather unprepossessing, but it has already become a destination for high rollers. The Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Beijing headquarters are on the street, and there’s a seven storey mall that contains only stores that sell luxury brands. But the most noticeable products on sale on Jinbao Street are obscenely expensive cars.

Danwei recently spoke to some salespeople in some of the stores. This is what they told us.

Aston Martin
Price range of cars in store: 2.8 – 5.2 million yuan
More than ten cars sold per month
A new car will stay in the store for as little as 1 to 2 days or as long as 2 to 3 weeks. Most customers are from Beijing, Shenyang

Lamborghini
Price range of cars in store: 3.48 to 7 million yuan
70-80 sold per year
Age range of customers: Most customers are below the age of 30, but they have customers aged up to 55.

Jinbao Car Plaza
All cars on show are large SUVS: Land Rover (1.5 million yuan); Mercedes Benz (2.6 million yuan); Lincoln: (1.78 to 1.88 million yuan)
Three to five cars sold per month
Customers are men aged 30-50.

FFF Automobile
Pagani cars that cost 18 to 26 million yuan
Fewer than 10 per year sold.

Bentley
Price range of cars in store: 3.58 to 6.38 million yuan
More than 30 sold per month
Customer range 18 to 60 (one car in the store had just been sold to an 18 year old).

Ferrari and Maserati
Ferrari 3.7 to 8 million yuan; Maserati 2.11 to 3.12 million yuan.

Rolls Royce
4.18 to 11.8 million yuan
300 sold per year
Customers are age 30 and up.

BMW
Price range: 1.6 to 3 million yuan
Customer are mostly age 30-40.

Research by Lucy March and Inhwa Chung, top image by Jonah Kessel, bottom image by Banyue.  

Links and sources
China Vitae: Chen Lihua
Baidu Baike (Chinese): Chen Lihua
The Financial Times: Chinese dominate list of richest women
The Wall Street Journal: Behind China’s Luxury-Car Boom

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Groundhog day in China – Super Girls and the Internet

Posted on 2011-09-20 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Make a civilized Internet
This morning, a reader drew my attention to an article on Danwei:

Alongside the movement for a “civilized” Internet, the anti-Super Girls campaign seems to be picking up steam as well. China Times published an interview yesterday with Liu Zhongde, one of the most outspoken critics of the Super Girls phenomenon.

The article excerpted above links to a piece about the “civilized Internet” movement:

[I]t seems that the great push to “Run a Civilized Internet, Use the Internet Civilly” (文明办网，文明上网) is having an effect. Nineteen service providers signed a voluntary agreement yesterday to self-regulate online content, bringing to fruition the “Blog Pact” that was first proposed last year as a way to regulate blog content. Today’s People’s Daily ran an edifying op-ed article by a CASS academician arguing that the only way to enjoy, preserve, and cherish freedom online is to voluntarily limit yourself – otherwise, someone else will have to.

The above stories were written in April 2006.

It’s now September 2011, and once again a campaign against Super Girls is in the news (e.g. Chinese hit talent show to be replaced with housework programme – The Guardian) and so is a movement to clean up the Internet (e.g. : Sina Weibo Braced For Tighter Regulation–Financial Times – Digicha).

Plus ça change…

The links above and the further reading below should also put paid the notion that Super Girls is being clamped down on because it resembles democracy too much.

Further reading

Danwei:
• The final week of TV sensation Super Voice Girls (summary of cast and popular catch phrases etc. from first nationwide smash hit show – August 2005)
• If Super Girls were on CCTV… (translation of satirical Internet post about CCTV’s stodgy style and difficulty in making popular TV shows – September 2005)
• Hot media in Hunan (excerpt of Interfax piece on feisty Hunan media – September 2005)
• Danwei TV – Super Girl Frenzy (Danwei video showing frenzied Super Girls fans in Beijing – April 2006, see also on Youtube)
• Super Girls give Chinese Journalism a Stinging Slap Across the Face (explanation and translation of article by cultural commentator Yang Yu – August 2006)
• SARFT’s guide to talent show etiquette (A notice from the broadcast regulator about new rules intended to stem the tide of vulgar talent shows – September 2007)

New York Times: Popularity May Have Doomed Chinese TV Talent Show

Financial Times: China’s microblogs braced for tighter regulation (September 2011)

Reuters: China seeks to tether the microblog tiger (September 2011)

– The image above is the slogan “Make a civilized Internet – 文明办网 – which was Danwei’s banner for most of 2006 and early 2007.

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A village with only one restaurant

Posted on 2011-09-15 by Jeremy Goldkorn

Only one restaurant

Below is a translation of a joke that is currently being circulated widely on Sina Weibo and other Chinese social networks:

There is a village that only has one restaurant. Everyone in the village has to eat at that restaurant.

Villager: Why can’t we have more than one restaurant?
Waiter: Our village is in a stage of development where more than one restaurant can lead to chaos, so we only have one restaurant. 


Villager: But the food here is really not good!
Waiter: Our restaurant has only been developing for a short time. Even if the food tasted worse than this, at least it’s our own food!

Villager: But can’t it be a little cheaper?
Waiter: That would not suit the conditions of our village; the restaurant also needs to develop.

Villager: But the employees of the restaurant are all driving Mercedes Benz cars!
Waiter: To ensure fair and uncorrupt staff, you need to pay them high salaries.

Villager: But last year, you lent all the profits of the restaurant to another village.
Waiter: This is the village policy, you don’t need to worry about it.

Villager: I heard that the guy in charge of purchasing took all the money for buying vegetables and ran away to another village.
Waiter: That type of employee is very rare.

Villager: What about that time when we found sand inside the steamed buns?
Waiter: Don’t worry, we have already fired that chef, he didn’t have the right qualifications.

Villager: So when we’ve got so many problems, why do you still hang up certificates of high quality? Why do you tell oursiders that everyone is eating so well?
Waiter: For whose interests are you speaking? What a waste that the village has raised you!

Villager: The grain was grown by the peasant farmers, the restaurant was built by the workers, and the chef is one of us common people.
Waiter: Look at M village taking advantage of L village! M Village is really hegemonistic.

Villager: I can’t even get a decent meal, what do these other things have to do with me? Why don’t other villages have all these problems we have here?
Waiter: Whenever you talk about yourself, you can only say only bad things, when you talk about others, you say everything is good. You village traitor!

Original Chinese text

有一个村子只开一个饭店，所有人都必须去那家饭店吃饭。

村民：为什么不引进更多的饭店呢？
小二：我村处于发展阶段，多饭店容易乱不适合我们，所以我们要一饭店制。

村民：但是这菜太难吃了啊！
小二：我们饭店才发展多少年啊，在怎么不好也是我们自己的饭店啊。

村民：但是能不能便宜点啊！
小二：这个不符合我们村情，饭店也要发展。

村民：但是饭店的管家都开上奔驰了。
小二：这是高薪养廉。

村民：但是去年你把饭店盈利的钱都借给别的村了啊。
小二：这是个村策，你不需要关心。

村民：听说上个采购员拿买菜的钱跑别的村去了。
小二：那样的员工只是少数的。

村民：上次的包子里有沙子怎么回事啊？
小二：放心，已经把那个没证的厨师赶走了。

村民：那为什么出这么多问题，还要挂上优质称号呢？还对外称人人都吃的很满意。
小二：你是帮谁说话？饭店白养你了！

村民：粮食是农民种的，饭店是工人盖的，厨师也是我们小民出身的。
小二：你看现在M村正在欺负L村呢。M村真霸道。

村民：我现在连饭都吃不好，这些事和我有什么关系啊，那为什么别村的饭店就没这么多问题呢？
小二：一说自己村就是什么都不好，一说别的村就什么都好。你个卖村贼！！

Link to joke on Baidu Tieba

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