(smartshanghai.com)
Updated: 2007-02-25 10:09

Those people standing around the South Shaanxi Road metro stop, the annoying ones who yell "Watch! Bag!" at you as you walk down the already congested sidewalk, you should really give them a break. They used to be vendors at the thriving Xiang Yang fake market. They had stalls of their own and business was good. Now they have been reduced to renting storage units in the area and trying to grab the attention of passers by to hustle up business.

The football stadium-sized scar in the earth off of HuiHai Lu that used to be the Xiang Yang market is more than just a pile of rubble. It, along with those sidewalk dwellers, is a reminder of the absence of something that was once a large part of Shanghai. So what's the story? Where did all venders from Xiang Yang go (no, they're not all standing on the sidewalk), and where are all the fake goods?

The simplest answer is that the venders have scattered. The vast majority, about 70 percent, moved their shops to the new Longhua Fashion and Gifts Market (inconveniently located at 2465 Long Hua Lu). The rest are scraping by somewhere else or have gotten out of the fake goods business entirely.

I got the story from one of those sidewalk hawkers, a woman named Miss Wang who used to operate a stall in the C section of Xiang Yang, right by the entrance from Hui Hai Lu. The difference, she said, between working in Xiang Yang and working out of a storage unit is like the difference "between heaven and earth." At Xiang Yang the business (and the money) came flooding in. Now it's barely a trickle.

And according to Miss Wang things aren't much better for her former Xiang Yang compatriots at Longhua. Noting its position - far from the center of the city and a long walk from any of the current metro lines - she said, "Nobody goes there. Some days you can't even sell one bag." She should know. Along with her storage space around the old Xiang Yang she has invested in Longhua also.

Similarly unsatisfied by the new digs at Longhua was Mr. Kong Pei, who once had a shop in Xiang Yang but now operates stall 272 on the first floor of Longhua where he sells velour juicy suits and sunglasses. "Of course it is much worse here [than at Xiang Yang]" he said. But he claimed not to be angry at the government for demolishing his former place of business. "We understand the situation," he said. "Everyone knows we are selling fake goods." So while it is far from an ideal situation for him, Kong Pei understands why his business should be relegated to the outskirts of the city rather than in the center. Besides, though the government knocked down Xiang Yang, it also helped find Longhua for the venders, and it has tried to seed advertising for the new market in a variety of media.

Kong Pei's comments point at the larger story at work here. Before Xiang Yang there was Hua Ting, a clothing export market that, according to Miss Wang, shifted to fake goods around 1997. The Hua Ting venders moved to Xiang Yang, and those who didn't fa cia (strike it rich) there have moved to Longhua. It seems that movement is just a part of being in the fake goods business.

So Xiang Yang is gone, but the buying and selling of fake goods continues, not just at Longhua but also - as the reader is probably already aware - at Qipu lu, in the covered market near Jing'an metro, in the market of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum metro stop, and in other markets in virtually every corner of the city. Maybe these places are a little harder to find than Xiang Yang was, but they have certainly not disappeared completely, and, thankfully for the bargain hunter, it may be a long time before they do.

*Longhua Fashion & Gift market
Location: 2465 Longhua Road, near Huarong Road

*Science and Technology Museum
Location: 2000 Century Avenue, near Jinxiu Lu
Tel: 021-68622000

*3rd floor of a shopping center on 580 Nanjing Xi Lu

*Qipu Lu Market
Location: North of People's Square