Fan Yang on fakes, pirates and shanzhai culture
Archived series ("HTTP Redirect" status)
Replaced by: supchina.com
When? This feed was archived on June 21, 2017 21:26 (). Last successful fetch was on June 01, 2017 19:34 ()
Why? HTTP Redirect status. The feed permanently redirected to another series.
What now? If you were subscribed to this series when it was replaced, you will now be subscribed to the replacement series. This series will no longer be checked for updates. If you believe this to be in error, please check if the publisher's feed link below is valid and contact support to request the feed be restored or if you have any other concerns about this.
Manage episode 161123625 series 1174366
Fakes, knockoffs, pirate goods, counterfeits: China is notorious as the global manufacturing center of all things ersatz. But in the first decade after the People’s Republic joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, a particular kind of knockoff began to capture the public imagination: products that imitate but do not completely replicate the designs, functions, technology, logos and names of existing branded products. An old Chinese word meaning “mountain fortress” — shanzhai — was repurposed to describe this type of knockoff.
Chinese internet users began to use the word shanzhai with a degree of approval. This was partly because shanzhai products, though aping the designs and names of established brands, often add innovations that the originals lack. This is particularly notable with mobile phones, the shanzhai versions of which were among the first to feature more than one camera lens and the capacity to use two SIM cards from different networks. Starting around 2008, the creativity and speed of release of such knockoff products began to be discussed as a type of innovation with Chinese characteristics and a creative approach suited to a poor country developing at breakneck speed.
This episode of Sinica is a conversation about shanzhai and the whole universe of Chinese knockoff culture with Fan Yang, an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the author of the book Faked in China: Nation Branding, Counterfeit Culture, and Globalization. You can read the SupChina backgrounder here.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: A Guide to the Mammals of China, edited by Andrew T. Smith and Yan Xie; A Field Guide to the Birds of China, by John MacKinnon and Karen Phillipps, in collaboration with He Fenqi; Beijing Bird Guide (????), edited by Gao Wu.
Fan: The Zhongshuge Bookstore in Hangzhou; Wei Zhuang, a branch of the famous Zhiweiguan restaurant (established in 1913) in Hangzhou.
Kaiser: Underground Airlines, by Ben Winters.
76 episodes