Lately I’ve been thinking about a particular aspect of Beijing history that doesn’t get written about much: bootlegging. VHS never caught on in China as it did in the West. It was only when CDs, VCDs, and DVDs landed that things shifted dramatically from state-sponsored TV and film to virtually anything that could be dubbed to disc. Suddenly the French New Wave, Chuck Norris, and Buster Keaton -- even whole historical collections from foreign national archives -- were available to anyone who had a few kuai to rub together.
H&N, Zare, Hugo BGSS, SFFCCCKS Coffee: these are just some of the counterfeits of famous brands -- not the same as "famous counterfeits"... or is it? -- you can find on a shopping street in Wuxi, Jiangsu province.
Chengdu recently hosted the 88th National Food and Beverage Fair (糖酒会), the seen-and-be-seen pimp show for anybody who’s anybody in China’s F&B industry. My own Belgian beer company basically ruled the catwalk with our four phallises of draft beer, freely pumping to more than 50,000 attendants who will now go about thinking that Belgian beer... Read more »
How did you enjoy the season debut of Game of Thrones yesterday? (No spoilers, please.) Enough to watch its opening cinematic co-opted by baijiu brand Jian Nan for a commercial?
The video is a few months old, but it was just posted on That's Beijing yesterday, with RFH writing:
ot sure what explains the Game of Thrones connection, other than that Chinese history is too long, often unwieldy, tortuously complicated, filled with names you cannot remember and most of the last few hundred years is to be found in the Fantasy section.
Tudou video for those in China after the jump China doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to intellectual property. Big international companies spend lots of money fighting IP theft when smaller groups here in China happen to “borrow” IP rights. Which is why the current IKEA commercial in its spring public transport... Read more »
