Xiangyang Market

We moved offices on Monday. Now we’re in much more spacious digs on Huai Hai Road, one of Shanghai’s main shopping avenues. The space is nice with big windows and a clean modern layout. The office’s only groan-inducing aesthetic quirk remains the fresh flowers that are delivered to the lobby and conference rooms on a weekly basis. Think explosion of pink carnations with glitter and ribbons. Think Long Island “Sweet Sixteen” party. Think Kentucky Derby winner’s circle.

I asked the office manager about something more, eh, subdued. (With my characteristic tact I think I said, “less god awful.”) Apparently any flowers that are remotely tasteful (even something generic like white lilies) signify death or bad luck or suffering for some typically arcane Chinese reason. I’ll try to remain culturally sensitive, but if I have my way the flowers are gonna go.

The office is also adjacent to the infamous Xiangyang Market, an open air mall where they sell reasonably well-constructed fake versions of luxury watches, bags, sneakers, wallets, clothes, basically anything. Need a Prada bag to impress your label-conscious comrades? Only got $10? This is the place.

I never actually bought anything there because the shopping experience is about as pleasurable as amateur brain surgery. Mobs of people surround you when you come within a few blocks of the place. WATCH? WATCH? WANNA BUY WATCH? I try to keep my cool since I never begrudge anyone trying to hustle a living. But since I live only 5 blocks away from the place, every day is a new opportunity to test both my patience and the outer limits of my white Liberal guilt.

It was with mixed emotions that I heard the government was going to shut the place down. As the country gets ready for the Olympics, prepares for the WTO and enters the rank of first tier countries, having Uncle Mao’s Rip-Off Bazaar on a prime piece of Shanghai real estate is something of a national embarrassment.

Today was the last day and the place was thronged with thousands of people. Piles of Louis Vuitton bags on the street for 20 yuan (about $2.50.) Women digging through mountains of Burberry scarves. Screaming. Fighting. Vendors selling squid-on-a-stick. (Get three or more people together and those squid-on-a-stick vendors seem to magically appear.)

I fought the crowd and bought some stuff -- a couple of knit polo shirts and a watch. I guess the sales pitch finally worked.