The Chinese Connection

The other day Marybec was talking to Arlina on the phone and MB asked her if she wanted anything from New York. Arlina had only one request, "Get me some knockoff purses".
See in a magical land called Chinatown you can buy just about anything pretty cheap. Everything from fishheads, chintzy Chinese crap, and weapons are all being hocked by folks straight from the boat (no Mogwais though, I checked). They learn the words important to their trade,"DVD!DVD!" or "Coach FENDI Rouis Viton" and they are good to go.
But the one most important item for sale in Chinatown is Knockoff designer purses. It is a cottage industry that the Chinese have a complete control over. These folks left their jobs working in a sweat shop in Beijing to employ young Hispanic women in sweat shops in Queens producing knock off Louis Vuiton and Prada bags.
Now most places in Chinatown have what MB described as, "Obvious fakes" in plain view. They look kind of like the real thing but on close examination the are clear forgeries. an Lp instead of an LV etc. This is totally legal as they are not technically violating copyright laws. These are bought up by tourists and nearsighted women. But there are better ones...
So we were walking along and a man gave the usual "Fendi, Prada, Rouis Vuiton" schpeel to Marybec and she says, let me see. So he lead her to the back of their store that sold I Heart NY t-shirts and Chinese tourist crap to the back. You moved through a small opening concealed by silk Chinese brocade dresses and you enter a back room filled with women and purses, REALLY believable purses. The woman who ran it asked me to wait outside. She was jumpy and agitated. She kept looking out through the "door" of dresses awaiting to close it at any moment. Marybec bought a bag for Arlina and we continued on.
A little further on a second woman approached Marybec and offered purses. MB thought that she would just be taken into another hidden room at the back of the store. Oh no.
The girl told us to follow her. This girl looked even more nervous, like a wounded high strung animal. She was communicating with someone in Chinese with her Nextel walky-talky. Our journey to wherever we were going was stopped when she said, "policeman" and pointed to a cop car parked in front of us. We waited for a few minutes and then she beckoned us to follow her. She led us through several streets and corners and finally into the inevitable dark alleyway. I figured she would take us to a van where they were selling them right out of there. On our way I saw just how many people were doing the same thing we were doing. We watched ladies coming out of backrooms and Chinese people on Nextel phones. This must be a multi-million dollar industry for these people. She opened a grated door on the back of shady looking building .. 5 and beckoned us inside.
Now a smart person would have left, but we were frankly curious about what was in that room. I figured a smoky warehouse full of Chinese gangsters smoking opium. No.
When we stepped through the doors and down some steps and we were greeted by a sight I was honestly not expecting.
A room, about the size of a basketball court, full of ping pong tables with dozens of people furiously playing ping pong. WHAT?!!
So the nervous girl led us to side room as we avoided flying ping pong balls. In this room were many different kinds of purses. Marybec picked the purse she wanted and asked the girl for the price. The girl looked really nervous. She wanted to get us out of there as quickly as possible. She would not even haggle with Marybec. So she paid the price and we took the bag and stepped out of this world of purses and ping pong.
Later, Marybec was examining the purses and came to a startling conclusion. These were not knockoffs...these were the real deal. They had all the packaging, tags, paperwork, numbered editions, linings, and labels of the real thing. We had not purchased knockoff purses...we had purchased stolen merchandise. The women's nervousness suddenly made perfect sense. They weren't maybe violating copyright laws, they were fencing stolen goods. "Fallen off the back of a truck" indeed.
So, the moral is Chinatown is a wacky land full of stolen shit, and the black market is not hard to find.
So Arlina, you are not getting knockoffs my dear. You are getting real designer purses.