Even the flowers are fake

Spot the differences in the photos.

Difficult, isn’t it? Don’t they both show Hallstatt, the beautiful Austrian town which has been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

Of course, the picture below shows the outcome of an ambitious housing project by Minmetals Land Ltd., a subsidiary of China’s mining company Minmetals Corporation – a full scale replica of the town in Huizhou, Guangdong, which is about 100 miles north of Hong Kong. According to Crystal He, the person in charge of the project, this 20,000-square metre upmarket residential area not only targets the well-to-do in China but also the foreigners living in Hong Kong, helping the latter cure their homesickness. There is no doubt that those foreigners will fall for it, especially because, according to He, there will be a shop selling “Austrian-style” (not Austrian, mind you!) crystal and other souvenirs. I’m sure they will feel more at home than in their own countries.

Authenticity issue apart, there is also the integrity issue. The fact is that China has copied the town of another country, having been clandestinely conducting the research and surveying the town for years. Even if it does not amount to infringement of intellectual property, as Moniker Wenger, owner of a guest house in Hallstatt claimed. "They should have asked the owners of the hotel and the other buildings if we agree with the idea to rebuild Hallstatt in China, and they did not," said Wenger. The copycat version has angered the residents of Hallstatt, who think that this sort of copying without permission is like “a painter stealing the works of others”. The local media had requested that the government try to intervene on their behalf, and the residents were furious about the tolerant attitude of the government. When a Hallstatt delegation attended the opening of the replica town on 2 June, Mayor Alexander Scheutz, who signed a cultural exchange agreement Saturday with the new Hallstatt, diplomatically said that "we are very proud".

The truth is that not even the residents of Huizhou were proud of the project, as some were skeptical that the replica would ever match the beauty of the original. "Chinese architecture is very characteristic and stylish," said Zhong Ping, a Huizhou resident. "Just work on your own style. Why do you have to copy others? Even the flowers are fake, I can tell they are fake at first glance."

European Quality Fruit

A grammar question: Does “European quality fruit” mean “quality fruit from Europe” or “fruit of European quality”?

When I saw the three words in the labels of some apples I recently purchased, I went for the latter interpretation, thinking that the fruits were from China and it was another of the nation’s dodgy ploy of misleading consumers into thinking that what they purchase were European produces rather than inferior or potentially dangerous Chinese ones.

A round of Internet research proved me wrong. Truval is indeed a Belgian company, meaning that those apples are, after all, “quality fruit from Europe”. But I don’t regret smelling a rat that, as it turned out, wasn’t there. China has an ignominious track record of faking everything, and it has got better and better at turning it into an art. It is very likely that they have gone past the days of using logos with the names of famous brands intentionally misspelt. Calling their fruit “European quality fruit” would have represented a huge progress.

The killing fields

According to a report by a newspaper in Guangdong, some dried vegetables that have been soaked in sewage is on sale in Hong Kong.

An article in the newspaper reported how the operation by an unlicensed farm in Dongguan worked. The freshly harvested vegetables were cooked with boiling water for 20-30 minutes in a stove right next to the fields, after which the cooked vegetables will be cast into a drain for cooling, the putrid water of which came from three public toilets and a chicken run closely upstream.

Asked by the newspaper report whether they dared to eat those dried vegetables, the women working in the fields were starkly frank. "No, no!" they said. "They are for selling only."
Here is a very good indication of the moral standard of many in this great nation. It is alright to do absolutely anything to make money, just as long as they themselves do not consume whatever sub-standard, fake, harmful or toxic products they produce.

Or so they think, at least. One thing they probably fail to see is that when everyone has that mentality, most products other than the ones they sell are likewise compromised, corrupted or contaminated.

Or perhaps they do see the problem but feel that they have a solution. When they have made enough money out of selling those products, all they need to do is to come to Hong Kong or go overseas to buy whatever will give them better peace of mind. Just let those who cannot afford to do so "enjoy" their proud production.

Can it possibly be from Italy?

China being the Factory of the World, its commodities are of course very competitive. Consumers are able to buy products they make at a fraction of the cost they have to pay for products made elsewhere. But there are often certain more or less universal standards that many of these cheap products fail to meet.

I went to a hardware store to buy a showerhead recently. There were lots of choices, most of which were within the USD10 price range. From the more "expensive" items, I spotted a stylish one that I liked. The only problem was that while the box had some illustrations showing that the spray jet was adjustable, I couldn't see how the adjustment could be done. So I went to the counter and asked the woman. She said that that one had no adjustment function. When I pointed out that the illustrations suggested that there was, she opened the box and let me examine. Of course she was right. So that's one problem that many Chinese products have - the packing claiming that the products are equipped with some functions that they actually don't have.

In the end, I went for a "less expensive" item. This one has the word "Italy" printed in the packing. They haven't said "Made in" so technically there is no lying. But why else should the word be put there except to try to mislead the consumers into believing that even if it is not made in Italy, the brand is owned by an Italian company?

But any such attempt would end up in dismal failure when one looks at the pitiful English in the printed description. From the following description that I have reproduced from the product, how many mistakes can you find?

The Bendt's handshower has been designed with a special spray head & available in different colours. It complete with 1/2" threaded flexible hoses.
-stylish spray head, easy to clean,
-fits all standard 1/2" threaded shower hoses & easliy installed.
-ensure constant efficiency with longlasting service,
-high performance, reliable & enjoyable

These mistakes often show that the text is copied or drafted by copywriters with very limited English. No reputable Italian company would allow such irritating mistakes in their products, would they?

No cheaters please!

What's going on here? Is there a terrorist attack? Or a bank robbery?

No no. It's just this year's high school public examination in China.

In the first picture, the troop of traffic policemen was just "protecting the examination with love", as the placards in the vehicles said.

In the second picture, the policemen were escorting not criminals but candidates into the examination hall.

What the woman in the third picture was trying to detect was not chemical weapons. Nor was the girl about the board a plane. This 'security check' was to ensure that there would be no devices for cheating to be brought into the examination hall.

But why all the fuss? According to the news reports in the last couple of days, some examination candidates have been adopting hi-tech, state-of-the art, James Bond movie-like gadgets to cheat. The glasses they wear are a camera for taking pictures of the question paper. The eraser on the desk is a signal transmitter. The watch is a display screen showing the answers the fee-charging cheating syndicate has worked out and sent in.

What could only be found in a scene of a sci-fi movie has now become a reality. And what can be a more fitting stage for this real-life drama than our great Motherland?