Diplomatic Channels Hasn’t Helped China’s Illegal Loggers…Yet
One reason I like living in Beijing is its convenience with regards to shopping, the city’s stores offering the widest price range for goods and services possible (if only the same range would extend to housing). For consumer goods such as apparel, jewelry, furniture, or electronic products, it is just as easy to find expensive, deluxe products in shiny shopping malls as it is to visit one of the city’s wholesale markets and get a much cheaper price for a lower quality product. Last week, I was planning on finishing the decoration my new apartment, and the final step was to purchase new furniture. My first choice for furniture was for items made from solid wood; I wanted strong, durable furniture and was willing to pay a little extra for it. I looked all over Beijing for my furniture-to-be, traveling to a number of medium- and high-end malls as I searched for the wooden furniture I so desired, only to find that the price was seemingly unaffordable. Nearly every salesperson I encountered would proudly tell me that their wooden furniture was imported from countries such as Canada, the U.S., Russia, Brazil, and Myanmar. I wondered if that was why it was so expensive. After failing to find what I wanted in the city’s department stores, I turned […]
China & The World Jul 28, 2015