Stories from the Road – China
Futuristic Sci-Fi movies often have a mashup of dystopian elements that include elements of Chinese culture, marketing and technology. Today we experienced a couple examples of pervasive (and invasive) marketing while flying from Guilin to Hefei. On the flight, a young male flight attendant stood at the front of the aisle and proceed to do a extensive sales pitch for several seemingly unrelated items, speaking in a very loud voice that was supposed to reach everyone on the plane but with no microphone. We were in the third row so it was right in our face. He was hawking a large metal airplane model, a pink kids backpack, a blue zipper pouch, a stuffed airplane keychain, and several hues of lipstick which he opened and swirled up so we could examine each color. Then they put these items on a cart and went up and down the aisle hawking these loudly to the travelers. Fortunately the plane landed which cut short this sales expedition.
Then we rushed out of the plane and found a ladies room in the airport. When we came out of the stalls to wash our hands, we found a video screen over each water faucet, selling a myriad of products. Each sink had a different video. Thank god they were silent marketing videos! We feel like we’ve been forced to stop and shop way too many times on this trip, and the reason for this is because the local guide and/or the tour operator get a cut ( a kickback or a commission) on how much money a busload of tourists spends at a shopping stop. These stops should be 30 to 45 minutes, but often they are stretched out to an hour or 90 minutes so that last big spender can drop more money. This is truly unfortunate for everyone else on the bus, but for the guide or tour operator, they are raking it in. I could never understand why these tours had to stop and shop at length in one big captive shopping event every single day, until I learned about the kickback scheme. So that is perhaps something to inquire about before signing up for a tour.
On this trip I’ve seen tons of down parka coats with fur trim around the hoods. I’ve seen so many Canada Goose coats that I’m sure many of them must be knockoffs, otherwise known as Genuine Fakes. What many people don’t realize is that these fur trims come from dog fur, and there is a horrific dog fur trade which often sweeps up family pets and stray dogs who end up packed tightly in cages before meeting a brutal end. We even saw fur pelts displayed at vendors outside the Terracotta Warriors in Xian, which were obviously from domestic dogs. People were standing around admiring these dog pelts, stroking them, but they looked they came from someone’s pet dog. Parka down coats imported from China can have these dog fur trims. Buyer beware!
There seems to be a general expansion of airports in China now. In several cities we’ve visited, we were proudly told that this was a brand new airport, or a recent expansion of an airport. One thing we have noticed is that these airports are not heated so our fingers and noses were like pieces of ice as we proceeded with this Winter tour. If you are traveling throughout China in the winter, do wear your coats and maybe wear an extra layer to the airport. I had to put on my gloves in airports on this trip. I guess they are trying to save money. Or they are trying to pay for the new Western toilets and bathroom paper products by marketing items on the bathroom sinks and on the airplanes. The money has to come from somewhere! Many hotels have unheated hallways and lobbies, which is something we take for granted in the wintertime at US hotels.
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