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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (44896)	1/7/2009 5:20:31 AM
From: Snowshoe	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217572

>>i am enthusiastic to learn about cultural events<< Me too. It's fun to look under the hood and see how other countries work... Not All Hairy Crabs Are Created Equal The Wall Street Journal 26 November 2003 By STAN SESSER ZHENGYI, China — Hunched in the back seat of a car on the shores of the pristine Yang Cheng Lake, famous for its prized and pricey hairy crabs, I'm witnessing a strange, shady transaction. While I keep a low profile, inside a nearby shop my interpreter is turning three commonplace hairy crabs that I bought for a total of $6, into Yang Cheng Lake hairy crabs that together could sell for as much as $60 in Hong Kong. He has paid just 37 cents to buy my crabs a fake pedigree — a laser stamp on their shells, complete with serial numbers, marking them as genuine Yang Cheng Lake hairy crabs. Hairy crabs — so named because of hair-like growths on their legs and bottom shell — are revered in Chinese cuisine as much as abalone and shark's fin. They appear on the finest dining tables in Shanghai, an hour's drive from the lake, and Hong Kong. As their reputation has spread, they also are appearing in the far reaches of Asia, from Tokyo to Bangkok. The Yang Cheng Lake hairy crabs are the most esteemed of all. For years, people have been passing off crabs from less distinguished waters as Yang Cheng crabs. But the lake's crab producers were fed up. To protect their valuable franchise, this year, for the first time, they imprinted their crabs with a laser stamp and serial number. That wasn't the end of things. You have heard of fake Gucci handbags and phony Rolex watches coming from China. Now, welcome to the world of counterfeit hairy crabs — the latest and possibly the most unusual subjects of China's culture of faking labels. Just 10 days after the Yang Cheng crabs appeared with their new stamps at the start of the hairy crab season in August, the counterfeiters moved in with their own laser machines. "Other companies that made laser stamping machines and didn't get chosen by us, sold them to the counterfeiters," says Yang Wei Cong, president of the Yang Cheng Lake Hairy Crab Business Association. Mr. Yang estimates that for every genuine Yang Cheng Lake crab on the market, there are 10 with fake stamps. During the August-to-December season, the lake produces 1,000 tons of the delicacy — translating into 10,000 tons of fake crabs and millions of dollars. "If they can counterfeit renminbi and U.S. dollars, they can counterfeit anything," Mr. Yang shrugs. more: cs.virginia.edu