It’s no secret that China is home to the great fakers of the retail world. Let’s take, for example, an American brand, the Apple iPhone. Do you know about the Meizu M8 (pictured left)? Looks a lot like an iPhone, right? Or how about the iPhone Air, which is neither an iPhone, nor made of air. What about the CECT T5, pictured below and to the right? Other than having a little extra trunk-junk, this one looks really close, even down to the call screen and home button. It actually runs Windows Mobile 6.

Snatching intellectual property like the specific design of an iconic product and then flagrantly copying it as closely as possible? Eh, I dunno. It might be easier to justify if we were talking about medicine or some democracy-promoting technology. But the fact is that any of the Chinese bootleggers, whether making fake iPhones or anything else, are purely profit-driven and intellectually lazy. Of course Apple is also driven by profit – but at least their products are inspired and actually developed by people working at the company.

Think back to the ‘08 Beiging Olympics –  engineered by China to act as a demonstration of the country’s smarts, spirit and size, flecks of that same special brand of shady showmanship were everywhere. Do you remember the digitally-enhanced fireworks controversy? What about the 7-year-old girl who sang the national anthem, but was too ugly to represent the Chinese nation? A beautiful 9-year-old lip-synched the performance for the world to see. (Of course, no one was supposed to know about the actual performer.) And what about that whole thing with cloud seeding? China was literally controlling the weather during the opening ceremonies. That is crazy.

But the biggest deception came as Chinese government constructed what it called the “culture wall” – a three-meter high structure built along the official Olympic marathon course, designed to hide dilapidated slums and abject poverty in some of Beijing’s worst neighborhoods.

Obviously this has nothng to do with the Chinese people, but rather with their government’s obsession with keeping up appearances. It shouldn’t be too foreign a concept; after all, here in America beautiful women and men with fine clothing and spa-treated hair, nails and skin continue to blacken their lungs with cigarettes, clog their arteries with saturated fat and indulge in otherwise unhealthy habits. True, the national psychology of a country as large and storied as China needs to be respected; you can’t really blame people for wanting to return to the prestigious status they once enjoyed throughout the world.. But scamming your way to the top of the pile never really pans out.

Enter the beleaguered American real-estate market. A recent story on NPR detailed the novel tactic employed by seemingly desperate real-estate agents: actors are hired to walk dogs and have cookouts in a neighborhood where a potential sale might be made. In other words, the agent brings the prospective buyer to a home, where that consumer sees lots of appeal – friendly faces, a seemingly warm and robust community. The consumer surely factors these things into their home-buying decision, but little do they know that the guy on the grill and the hot girl walking a puggle are fakes, there to paint a picture that isn’t true.

And the line between what’s right and wrong? Well, it’s blurry – at least on paper, the only place where it really seems to matter – as evidenced by real estate developer Randy Denaro’s response to questions regarding the honesty of this tactic. With transparent disregard for all things, you  know, fair and honest, he says:

“Look around. You don’t see anybody impersonating a cop, do you? Because why? Because that would be illegal. It’s an image of a nice neighborhood, even if it’s not nice right now.”

Hey, at least American cheaters and fakes follow the law, right? 

You can’t plant your seeds in sour soil. That’s especially true if you’re talking about taking people’s money, or fucking with people’s lives vis-a-vis their real-estate. Are most Americans profit-driven and intellectually lazy? Wait – don’t answer. 

How about this – a little less “me” and a little more “we”.

Postscript: Oh, that NPR piece was an April Fool’s gag. But people should still be honest!