Shanghaied Weblog

Fake clothes soon a thing of the past?

On Beijing's famous Silk Market you see mainly foreigners buying fake brand name clothing. Most of them are tourists, who know the place from their guide books, or who are even taken to the fake market in tour groups. But also expats are a big group of buyers, especially the ones that are still relatively new to China. The Silk Market opened 22 years ago, and is still going strong, although the location was changed in 2004 from the small cosy alley behind its current location to a big new...

Fake Chinese aircraft carrier

Have you ever seen a Chinese aircraft carrier? I had not seen one until today, and I was very surprised when I saw one today while driving to Dianshanhu. When we left the highway on our way to the lake, we suddenly saw the huge boat on our right. My first thought was that the Chinese navy has a ship wharf here, and that there might be a connection to the Yangtze river. But it turned out that the boat is fake: it is made out of concrete and a small lake has been dug around it. There are even...

Overcharging taxi driver

A few weeks ago I had lunch with some Indian business partners. During the lunch they told us that upon arrival from Mumbai, they had paid RMB 626 for a 19 minute taxi drive from the Longyang Road Maglev Station to a hotel in the Pudong financial center. They knew the amount was too much, but the driver had used the meter, and the figure was indeed RMB 626.I asked them for the receipt, that they had luckily kept. It turned out that the driver had added RMB 600 in toll fees to the actual amount...

Fake Melrose pizza?

This afternoon I had lunch with Sam Flemming in my office, and we ordered two pizza's from Melrose Pizza. I like their pizza's, and delivery is always quick. I just received a flyer in my mailbox with a special promotion offer, two medium pizza's for RMB 99, so we decided to go for that. While ordering we mentioned the promotion, but when the delivery guy arrived he wanted to charge us RMB 155. The receptionist came to my office to tell me I had to pay more, so I walked with her to the entrance...