Strawberry66:

Sort of agree. But I hope they can break after like one year so they will have no reason to be kept. I get bored with my things very easily.

Strawberry66:

Make sense. I only want good quality with food and water,I would rather spendmore money on them now. For clothes,shoes and bags,I guess I won't go for the good quality real ones now as I can throw them away after one season. I always want new ones so quality doesn't matter lots to me as long as they look good.

Strawberry66:

I did not buy fake ones to gain some face. I always tell people they are fake. I like the the fake ones bacause they copied the nice design from the real ones and they look almost as nice as the real ones and not much too diffrence on the looks. And they are cheap too. I can just throw them after one season and get a new style.

I used to buy a expensive shoes,the quality worthy the money I paid. But I get bored with them after one season. Since they are a bit expensive and are still not broken so I did not throw them away. But I really bored with them and wanna new shoes. 

xinyuren:

I agree with Eorthisio - I never knowingly buy fake name brands.  They are just for face.  I don't buy things for face.  It makes the buyer look like a stupid peasant.

Strawberry66:

Buying fake does not mean you buy faces for all people. It all depends on people's purpose.I buy fake ones for the design and I always tell they are fake when people ask. Ha. And people know they are cheap and fake but they all say mine look nice.

xinyuren:

Strawberry, me and Eorthisio are talking about fake brands, not copying a style.  I might buy something that resembles a brand name because i like the style and I don't want to pay the high price of the brand.  But I refuse to buy fakes of the brand that try to pass themselves off for the real thing.  Or ones that have similar names like Porcshe.  The only reason people buy these is because they are ignorant or stupid enough to be fooled.  They want to let others think it is the real brand named item.

Strawberry66:

xinyuren,I know some people buy fake items to fool people and gain face. I feel those are shallow.

I do not care about brand or whatever. I buy only if I like the design and it looks good. I do not care about quality much either. As long as it can last one season and I won't need it next season.

xinyuren:

of course you are free to buy what you want.  But a fake is a fake.  fake people, fake hair, fake boobs, fake iphones.  A fake is different from copying.  A fake is a malicious attempt to cash in on somebody else's name and reputation.  It attempts to deceive others.  For example Xiaomi copies iPhones.  They don't put Apple's name on them so they aren't fake iPhone.  They are Xiaomi.  Do you understand the difference?

Strawberry66:

Xiaomi is still fake iphone. We understand fake in a diffrent way. If you copied the design,no matter what name you are using,you are the fake one.

xinyuren:

@strawberry.  Perhaps if you looked in the dictionary, you wouldn't be confused.  a fake is an item that appears to be authentic but is not.  It is meant to deceive.  A copy is a reverse engineered product that may or may not have the intention of deception.  For example, I can copy my father's handwriting in order to learn to write.   But if I write like my father to cash his checks, I am creating a fake.  Big difference there.  Xiaomi does not try to pass itself off as an iPhone.  It has it's own unique branding.  At worst, it's a copy, not a fake. 

Strawberry66:

I like fakes ones. But it uncessary to buy them to show off. Just like having the design and they look almost as nice as the real ones. Cheap and can throw away fast and next season Vicky can have another copied design and throw away fter the season and next and next...

Hahahahaha. I think it is a good idea to do.

Do not buy fakes for face,only buy fakes for the design.They really look almost as nice as the real one.

Strawberry66:

I saw handmade shoes in small store in the downtown of Shanghai,the lady told they are made of cow leather,are they trustful?

xinyuren:

gouxiong - let me educate you again.  Most high-end luxury clothing brands make their big profits on exclusivity.  In other words, the less they make, the higher price they charge, which satisfies the wealthy face chasers.  It has also to do with luxury houses hiring the best designers and craftsmen.  It is not by accident that their designs are the best.  We pay a premium for good design.  It is a well known fact that some high quality clothes lines are made in the same factory as the no-name brands.  The quality control inspectors work for the name brand companies.  Quality inspection costs money. 

But other parts of the market, luxury cars, for example, strictly follow the price/quality "rule".  Porsche cars cost $100k for a good reason.  Porcshe cars are cheap for the very same reason.  They may look similar, but they are actually miles apart.  In this case name brand means quality.  And quality is commensurate with the price you pay.  The wisdom is to understand where price matters and where it doesn't.

gouxiong:

The shoes? Well I so far never talked to any shoes so I really do not know if they are trustworthy... 

gouxiong:

xinyuren,

Looks like you have irresistible urge of educating the others connected with certain, probably false, superiority feeling.

You wanna educate me by saying that I am right? Just using different words?

Actually the funny thing about your example is that the small series are exactly in the luxurious cars business (where Porsche does not fall into the most upper end) while the topic was about female articles where even upper brands are going for relatively big series ... (at least those mentioned here and being the most popular among Chinese women - if you do not know that so ask your wife as  I do not have the urge of educating you ...)

xinyuren:

I am a designer, so I very well know that quality and exclusivity are what drives prices in the fashion industry. It's true, i have an irresistible urge to educate you because you seem so dim-witted.

gouxiong:

Well may be you are good designer. I do not know but I trust this as otherwise you would not be able to succeed in China.

But you certainly have a problem which is sometimes referred to as Messiah complex.

You somehow for some reason believe you are right and you shall bring all the other people to your 'the only correct way of thinking'.

Offending then the others is certainly a good argument which almost always works .

I suggest a bit more humility and tolerance.

I would almost bet that you must be one of those foreigners who came to China and now are frequently whining that China is too Chinese for their taste, blaming the surrounding environment instead of trying to find the solution in themselves, may be even that type who would happily come to Chinese guy looking at him and tell him in broken Mandarin with hardly understandable pronunciation - you are peasant!

But may be I am mistaken - I will certainly not waste the time to search for any prove for this so in case I am wrong so pls accept my sincere apology.

xinyuren:

I am opinionated, i admit, but that does not mean I have a complex.  What I do have is a limited tolerance for wumaos whose comments are the equivalent to: 'don't say anything bad about China and hurt our feeling and besides, Western culture is the same or worse' on every topic.  This is ineffective and tiring.  If you wish to defend China, please use reason and logic.  And even then in some cases, you really won't have any defensible position (as in the case of your wife = prostitute philosophy).   If you have a problem with my position on a topic, refute it and don't be a pussy!  And you don't need to bet on what kind of foreigner I am.  My history of comments on this board speaks for itself.

jetfire9000:

I suppose I shouldn't interrupt this discussion.   However I found the mention of Xin Yu's wife a little low.  Guo Xiong, after pulling such a dirty tactic, you should not mention in the next sentence for Xin Yu Ren to be more humble.  The Chinese have an expression for this type of behavior, saying "五十步笑百步”  [ a guy who retreated] 50 steps laughing at [a guy who retreated] 100. I'm not sure about your Chinese level, nor am I sure if this expression exists in Holland, however I'll just say in English, this means "the pot calling the kettle black" and hope that clicks

I like to read ya'lls exchanges, but let's try not to mention anybody's wives eh? That looks like bait.

gouxiong:

jetfire9000,

Reference about asking xinyuren wife came actually from xinyuren who in another post was using an argument that he will ask his wife about the prostitution topic.

I agree totally it's irrelevant in this discussion and I shall really know better than referring to uttered sentences without sense ... Nevertheless I still do not see in what sense is offensive.

By the way I am not Dutch and there are many more countries in Europe who are taking very liberal approach towards these issues (and I am really convinced it's to their benefit)

xinyuren:

I didn't take offense to anything gouxiong said.  I don't believe he was referring to my wife as a prostitute, but was saying that he thinks wives in general are just like prostitutes.  It is well known that mainland Chinese men do (in general) feel this way.  gouxiong is not in Europe.  He is Chinese from the mainland.

gouxiong:

xinyuren,

I do not find important if you do or do not believe that I am coming from Europe.

But I am wondering why you indicate that being from somewhere makes a person more or less correct in his/her argumentation ... (or may be even more or less valuable ...)

What does it matter if the person is American, European (and here I admit it's a bit vague because there are quite huge differences between European countries as well as the way how they approach to the prostitution problematic - from total ban which you would probably prefer to absolute freedom which I find better) or Chinese?

And I do think you have a problem with reading the written text calmly and without assumptions. 

I never wrote I think wives are prostitute - I used that once, may be awkwardly, trying to point out that comparing mistresses and prostitutes is a bit ridiculous - clarified the point later. 

I also read the argument of Shining_brow and even though I searched hard I did not find his standpoint to this topic. The reason why read his comment twice is that after first reading I got the impression he suggests that your point of view/world requires higher ethic (quite opposite to your impression from his post by the way). But after second reading I realized he did not say anything like that - but also did not say anything contradicting it. He just did not express his opinion. But you still uttered at him even worse than at me who clearly expressed my disagreement with your point of view.

It almost looks like you have a problem with people who have different point of view than you. Therefore I suggest a bit more tolerance. Tolerance does not mean you shall not arrange your own life and values as per your own wish. Tolerance just means that you will be able to accept that there are people around you who have different values and different points of view on the world.

But to be fair I noticed that this problem is quite common on this forum - a lot of people cannot accept that different is not automatically wrong. 

xinyuren:

@gouxioung - no it doesn't matter where you're from.  I was clarifying things for the person who thought you were from Europe.  But at the same time, mainland Chinese people tend to have a limited capability of understand the world outside of China.  Often times their thought processes are broken.  This is not always the case, but it is often enough for most foreigners to comment on it.  Some concepts are really difficult for them to grasp because they are not accustomed to thinking critically and creatively.   So you not understanding the difference between a mistress and a wife was no surprise to me.  Many Chinese men can't.  If that offends you, I'm sorry.  It is the truth.

You may be confusing lack of tolerance for strong opinions.  I am very tolerant, if you have an opinion backed by a good argument.   You didn't.  You had no opinion and your only argument was it's nobody else's business, which i refuted and you refused to address it.  So you had nothing.  And I have little patience for someone trying to shoot with no ammunition.  So in the future,  If you want to respond to my comments, you come ready with something.  Chinese have a famous saying, "no why".  This is how I sum up your total argument on that topic.

gouxiong:

xinyuren, So you claim not to be superior but a bit further claim you are superior to Chinese men - because you do have the ability they do not have. No, it does not offend me. Even if I would be Chinese it would not offend me from a person believing into superiority of own arguments and not even realising that the arguments in one simple comment contradicts. But allow me to use a sentence in my language (as it's hard for me to translate it into English properly) which I already used once on this site to describe my opinion about mental abilities of of mentally chalenged contributor to this site: 'Kdyby hloupost nadnasela tak by tu xinyuren lital jako holubicka'

oldscholar:

Generally in our countries handmade is better because of the extra care taken to make the product. Every stage is inspected and when you add in the experience and the expertise of the craftsman this results in a high quality product. Yes there are exceptions to this but it is a general rule. You seem to have fallen into the trap of buying things simply because you think they look nice, typical Chinese, and throwing them away when you are bored. Whether you admit it or not does not change the perception of how others see you. Most people recognise this as  a way of gaining face, or simply showing off that you have enough money to keep on buying new things. Anyone with enough common sense can usually tell the difference between fake and real, and fake really does not match up. It just shows up the person as a non-achieving wannabe.

gouxiong:

I would just add that you are also buying an original.

Very unique - only one of its class - what actually also partly wipes the argument of xinyuren that the top brands skyhigh prices are justified by exclusivity ...:)

xinyuren:

@ gou - a handmade product by a skilled craftsmen is usually more expensive than a mass market made item.  So what I said stands -  exclusivity = high price.

Strawberry66:

Oldscholar,you went too extreme. Most people know my bag is cheap,I spent around 75rmbon a bag,other women may spend 400rmb on a bag,they know their one bag's can buy biy a lot of my bags.I never gained my face among people who know me and it wasn't my intention to gain face. I just bored with one thing fast! No matter how good they look in people's eyes!

oldscholar:

strawberry you missed the point. I did not say that YOU bought copies to gain face. I said that a lot of people, particularly westerners, who see  someone with fake stuff as someone who cannot afford the lifestyle but wants to give the appearance of that lifestyle. When we see someone like that it is assumed thay are just a wannabe. Do you now see the difference between what I said and what you assumed I said.

Strawberry66:

Oh I see. People who pretent to afford thevlifestyle by buying fake product are ridiculous.

oldscholar:

You still miss the point, it is not about people pretending although that does come into it. You buy fake goods because you like the style, you say you are not pretending. However other people who do not know you look at you and see you have fake bags, clothes etcetera. They know these are fake and it is other people who label you as a wannabe. Most westerners think that people who buy the fake stuff are just pathetic.

Strawberry66:

Then let them think. I can not live myself in a way to control how everyone thinks of me. 

gouxiong:

xinyuren,

Even though I agree that exclusivity has clear relation to the higher price so I disagree with you that:

1) Handmade product by skilled craftsman is more expensive than one of the upper brands one (talking here again about female related accessories like handbags etc.) even though you can probably find craftsmen with the prices equally inflated like many of these brands

2) Price of upper brand is dictated by exclusivity. When this would be the case so the price in China and for instance US or Singapore could differ just for the applied taxes but that's not the case. 

I find the prices of these brands ridiculous and in absolute disproportion to their value. But as value is very relative so I admit that some people (and apparently not little) see the value behind it and are willing to spend their money.

Lord_hanson:

Vicky, if you get a handmade item from a skilled craftsman the product will likely be of high quality and last a long time. I bought some hand made shoes in the UK once. They lasted nearly 8 years and I lived in an area with lots of hills so they took a beating. I have yet to buy a pair of shoes in China that can last 5 months.

Strawberry66:

Martin,I would feel so bored to wear the same shoes for 8 years. I prefer cheaper and less good quality shoes for lasting one year.

oldscholar:

strawberry I do not like saying but your viewpoint is typical of just what is wrong with China today. It is all about appearance but with nothing behind the facade, no quality no substance. A while ago you wrote on here about your business selling into Europe and America, I wonder do you take the same attitude to that as you do to this. There are many, many Chinese companies working with this attitude which is exactly why so many people abroad do not trust Chinese goods and view them as very poor quality.

gouxiong:

oldscholar,

I assume that Strawberry approach is quite normal for females of all cultures - in the West we have a lot of jokes how woman looks into the absolutely full wardrobe and lamenting that she does not have anything to wear.

And many females in the west would also not wear one year old models - therefore outlets ...

And when she just expressed this, after mentioning that she likes the way how she handles it and does not really care about the bunch of Westerners opinion so you brought the topic of China not being trusted producer in the West and Chinese goods to be of poor quality.

I am not exactly sure how this is connected with a lot of females (throughout virtually all cultures) desire to look nice and special.

And let me just mention the example of one meat grinder producer in my home country. They were doing absolutely awesome, supe-rhigh-quality meat grinders. I have one which still my granny bought in her youth as it goes for majority of people in my country. 

Guess what - the producer, several years ago, bankrupted!

Why? Because their goods was so good that it lasted for decades and after saturating the market, there was nobody else to buy it.

This opens very interesting and important economical-sociological problem of further development sustainability but has very little to do with the women's desire to look special! 

Strawberry66:

Gouxiong. Smart man,thank you for the imputs. You were absolutely right about women. Most women always feel lacking things to wear,no matter how many clothes they have got. And what I called fake products are whatever products which copied the design,no matter they sell in the same brand name or got a new name to sell,they are fake products in my eyes,I don't care what fake products mean in English or in your eyes. Nothing to do to gain face to buy fake. I guess you guys have got lots of fake products which I view them as fake with the name changed. I really hope my things would be broken after one season or two.Change makes me happy and feel fresh. After they copied the design,they can sell the producuts in the same brand's name or change name to sell,I don't care. As long as they look good on me and cheap for me,I buy them and change them fast!!! Thats all I want. By the way,today I feel excited to see one of my dresses is broken after two season of wearing.

gouxiong:

Strawberry, I never mentioned I find such an approach reasonable :-). I just wanted to help to clarify the clear misunderstanding when somebody wanted to lecture you over the points you did not say or at least cannot be taken accountable for :)

Strawberry66:

Gouxiong. Anyway still thanks for the help. I guess I will donate some and use some to cleam house.

Strawberry66:

The law should protect the design from being copied. People who steal the design should be punished.Otherwise it is bad for technological progress as you said.

coineineagh:

Purchasing counterfeit or fake designer goods is a crime. Even in China, though not enforced. By buying the stuff, you create a market for illegal merchandise. You are just as guilty as the people who stole the design. Compared to illegal downloading, your offense is worse, because you devalue the design and don't give money to the designer. Illegal downloading most often doesn't take away profits from the owners, because most people wouldn't have bought the product anyway.

ScotsAlan:

An interesting take on the difference between physical product and software.

I have a copy Armani suit. I needed a cheap suit for a wedding and the Armani copy was very cheap.  I did not buy it for the name, and I would never pay the full price for a real Armani.  I have no need for it. I happily cut the labels off the suit I have to convert it from a copy to just a cheap suit.... and yes, I look like an estate agent when I go to weddings.

But I always buy real software. The Windows on my laptop was bought full price in the UK and brought over. As was my photo editing software.

So in the past year, I have spent a few hundred RMB on a copy suit, but many thousands on real software.

Strawberry66:

I agree with Alan. 

coineineagh:

Illegally downloaded music, videos and software increases the products exposure. Pirate fans will praise the product and create enthusiasm on online forums and through word of mouth. I wrote over half-a-dozen gaming guides for games I never paid for. I add value in my own little way. Some of this also applies to fake goods, but the lost profits and loss of elitism is often more damaging than the increased exposure.