Counterfeit Kingdom

Let me tell you something I’ve noticed about the people of Vietnam.  They look good.  They might just be the most fashionable people I’ve ever met.  They are always dressed for success, especially the women.  It’s hard to find a Vietnamese girl not dressed in a carefully put together outfit, with high-end brand names and spike heels and a flashy purse, even if she is out toiling in the rice paddies.  We went on a hike a couple of days ago, a couple of sweaty Westerners in sporty clothes hiking up a mountain, and passed hordes of intrepid Vietnamese hikers wearing designer jeans and swanky footwear prancing down the mountain without breaking a sweat.

At this point, you might be asking yourself – isn’t Vietnam a relatively poor country?  How can they afford the Miss Sixty’s and Ray Ban’s?  The answer, of course, is they can’t.  But in a culture obsessed with looking good, there’s always a way – just fake it!  It turns out that there isn’t anything that can’t be copied for a much cheaper price.  And they’re SO good at it! We scrutinize everything we buy, but mostly can’t tell the difference between the original and the copy.

It is hard to comprehend the scale of the counterfeit industry here.  Let me give you a few examples.

1. The first thing we bought in Vietnam was a Lonely Planet guidebook – perfectly bound, with colour pages and (almost) perfect English. Fake.
2. Then we bought three pairs of jeans – Guess, Dolce & Gabbana and Diesel.  Fake, fake, and probably fake (it’s really hard to tell).  Total cost: $95.
3. Prescription glasses with frames by Burberry.  Fake.  Probably fake lenses too…
4. DVD’s.  All fake, of course.
5. Bottled Aquafina water.  Fake.  After we bought it, we realized that is was Aqualifa water.

And those are only the obvious examples.  The ‘faking it’ here in Vietnam gets much more insidious. A traveller arriving in a Vietnamese city might be confused when he finds three versions of the hotel at which he made a reservation.  Guessed it? Fake hotels, cashing in on the good reputation of the original.  And the reviews you read online for that great hotel?  Fake.  Most online reviews for hotels, restaurants, and tour operators are written by the owner, or if it is a bad review, then it was written by the competitor.  What’s a tourist to do?

-E

What three things are wrong with this picture?

My eye exam in the fake glasses store

They use state of the art technology to determine my prescription

And some other pictures of our Vietnam travels:

Gully is enjoying the fresh air

And he found a friend

The streets of Hue

A rare peaceful moment

Statues guarding the emperor's tomb

A Buddhist shrine near the city of Hue

Strolling in the gardens of the Buddhist temple