More Real Than Real

You've probably seen reports in the media lately about fake products in China, and I'm not talking about Gucci. Just in the past few weeks, reports about fake toothpaste, tires, and rotten seafood have surfaced. China accused the international media of hyping minor regulatory slips, while at the same time executing the former head of the Chinese FDA for taking bribes. I can tell you that it's definitely not hype - China is full of fakes.

Fake water. Fake soy sauce. Fake liquor. And it's not just unlucky drunken expats waking up with formaldehyde hangovers. In 2004 hundreds of babies in Anhui and Shandong Provinces died after being fed fake baby formula that did not contain any protein, but that caused a bloating symptom that concealed the infants' malnutrition from doctors. This is what it's like on the cutting edge of capitalism, where there's nothing to stop people from making fake baby formula. Did those producers want to murder babies? No, they just wanted to make money, and without regulation the only way to beat your competitor and get some money to feed your kids is to starve someone else's. Quality control costs money, just like fair labor practices, protecting the environment, and so on. And there are more workers than jobs for every position you can think of in China, so everyone's going entrepreneur. Buyer beware.

There's a Japanese anime movie called "Grave of the Fireflies." One of the main characters is a little girl, three or four years old. She's a cartoon, but she's also the most real child I have ever seen on screen. She is the pure expression of the idea and essence of a little girl, without any of the intermediate mess - a young actress struggling to portray a girl, or having to watch an actual human person experience the story of this little girl, which ends in death. She is still an interpretation of a little girl, rather than an actual one, and this makes her more real than real. The fundamental energy is communicated on the screen, rather than the whole construct, and you see right to the center.

In that case, artistic license is more than acceptable, it's unique, important, and valuable. So why is a fake so wonderful here, and so horrifying in my medicine cabinet? It's not just because one can make me sick, because watching "Grave of the Fireflies" put me in bed with the covers pulled all the way up for a good 24 hours. It's not false advertising, because "Fireflies" was, of all things, screened as a double feature in theaters with the happiness-confection "My Neighbor Totoro." Moviegoers who saw "Totoro" first walked out of the second feature, unprepared and unable to handle the grim "Fireflies."

And that's the key. You walk out of the movie, but you don't ask for your money back because you thought the movie would be more fun. There's an implied guarantee in soy sauce, bottled water, toothpaste, and baby formula that doesn't exist for movies. It's also why no one except movie industry executives cares about bootleg Chinese DVDs, a kind of fake that everyone loves. The very cutting edge of the faking trend is that the myth of China as a bottomless well of cheap goods and dangerous fakes is getting complicated. While once a fake Rolex was valuable just as a substitute for the real thing, China is learning the real meaning of value. You'd still better check the seal on your water bottle, but it's getting so that you can also find the great fakes, amazing stuff that will delight you, shock you, and change you. Walk into a boutique in Beijing, and it might not be all Chloe and Levis knockoffs. You might meet a Chinese entrepreneur who designs and sews her own clothes, and you can buy her originals from her, and for a fraction of the price of such clothes in the US. Walk into an art gallery in Beijing, and it's not all copies of the Mona Lisa or propaganda posters with your face painted in. I saw a copy of the Statue of Liberty, but she was a little girl holding an ice cream cone. It struck me silent, and for two days I couldn't bring myself to say anything to anyone in China because I was too embarrassed.

Eventually, China will find a way to enforce the line between what is false and what is more real than real. When that happens, more Chinese producers than ever will start to climb the value chain towards the place where there are fewer guarantees about content and meaning: design, marketing, and so on. Don't think there's anyone in China who just loves cranking out the rotten shellfish. They are just waiting for the leadership to reform the country enough so that everyone can head in a new direction, and I'm hoping that direction will be the most real - an original new way of governing, urbanizing, entertaining, consuming, and living that will make the rest of this century more fun and more of a struggle for the rest of us.