When dirty foreign apes first arrive in China they think certain stuff is cool: Chairman Mao watches, bikes overloaded up with polystyrene boxes (sorry Nik) and Haibao.

After a while though you get tired of that stuff, and start to find the next tier of Chineseosity cool: Shanghai watches, electric bike accidents and Haibao Mexicano.

haibao fever

No contest is there?

Many of these second-tier cool items can be found in a shop called The Thing.

Here are three examples of the kind of stuff they sell:

IMG_3042_500x375

“Back to the village” cap.

The material on the front of this is the same as the cheap bags that migrant workers buy when they travel home at Chinese new year. The Chinese for it is something like “Snake skin bag”, but Emma always calls them “Back to the village bags”.

Louis Vuitton brought out a version of the back to the village bag for suckers with too much money, but this hat is to that bag what Haibao Mexicano is to regular Haibao.

IMG_3043_500x375

Mao purse

The quotation on here is a Chinglishy translation of a famous Chairman Mao quote (often written on school walls) meaning that if you study hard you’ll improve every day.

It sounds much cooler in Chinese though-

hǎo hǎo xué xí tiān tiān xiàng shàng!

See?

IMG_3044_500x375

Chinese zodiac shirt

My knowledge of the whole Chinese zodiac story is still pretty basic. It’s something like

The Jade Emperor wanted to select twelve animals to represent the different years as totems. Hearing this, all the animals on earth rushed to the call with each desiring to be selected. Finding no suitable method on which to base his selection, the Jade Emperor decided to have a tournament of physical skills and abilities.

And then the Chicken cut the head off a hostage.

Whatever, I like this shirt.

If you liked that, you might like...