of Industry and Commerce. Open all the bags of milk powder in that crate!’ He looks barely out of high school. There are four officers behind him wearing hats emblazoned with gold badges. A large truck is parked outside.
Meili notices that one of the officers is a woman who visited the shop last week, and quickly slips a one-hundred-yuan note into her palm.
‘I can’t take it,’ the woman whispers, glancing behind her. ‘Someone’s reported you, and we’ve been told to search your stock and confiscate any counterfeit goods.’
‘This brand’s definitely fake,’ the young man says, pulling a bag from the crate. ‘There was a big report about it last week: it contains zero protein. And these ones? Let’s see: “Milk Powder for Primary School Children”, “Calcium-Enriched Milk Formula” – yes, they’re fake too.’ His eyes flit between the list in his hand and the bags he pulls from the crate.
‘No, that brand’s not fake,’ Meili protests. ‘The government awarded it a gold prize last year. I research my products very carefully, I assure you.’
‘Drag the crates outside,’ says a middle-aged officer standing in the doorway.
‘I bought them from a legitimate wholesale company,’ Meili says. ‘How was I to know that they’re fake?’ The truth is, she is fully aware that everything in her shop is counterfeit. If she bought genuine products, her costs would quadruple and she’d make no profit.
‘If you had a child of your own, you’d never dream of feeding it fake formula,’ the young man says. ‘They provide no nourishment at all.’
‘I do have a child, and if I could afford it, I certainly would give her this. The women who buy my formula are migrant workers, many of whom have several children, so they get through a lot of it, but not one of them has ever come back to complain.’
‘Real formula is a creamy colour, but look, this stuff is white,’ the young man says, opening a bag and pouring the powder onto his hand. ‘This is just ground rice and instant chrysanthemum tea powder, with some melamine added to ensure it passes the protein tests. Melamine – that’s the plastic that kitchen cupboards are made of. If a baby were to drink this powder, it would develop kidney stones and die.’
‘We’ll fine you and confiscate your goods,’ the middle-aged officer says. ‘Count yourself lucky. If you dare sell fake products again we’ll revoke your licence.’
Meili’s heart sinks as she watches the eleven crates of milk powder being dragged out of her shop and loaded onto the van. That’s a thousand yuan lost for ever.
One of the officers notices Meili’s round belly and says to his colleague, ‘This place really is a heaven for family planning fugitives!’ in a local dialect he mistakenly presumes Meili doesn’t understand.
Passers-by gather outside the shop and mutter among themselves: ‘We can’t trust anything we eat these days! Tofu fermented in sewage, soy sauce made from human hair, mushrooms bleached with chlorine, and now fake baby formula! Whatever next? . . . Apparently, after just three days on that powder, babies lose weight and develop “big head disease”. . . I heard that thirteen babies have died already from kidney stones . . . Those evil peasants who make this stuff – have they no conscience? . . .’
Meili looks down, aghast, at the 5,000-yuan fine the officers handed to her. She considers phoning Kongzi, but is afraid he’ll blow his top, so she phones Tang instead and asks him to come over straight away.
‘I want to throw myself in the lake,’ she sobs as Tang walks in.
‘This fake milk powder has been in the news a lot recently. The government announced that there would be a national crackdown. Hundreds of infants have developed swollen heads, apparently, and a few have already died. One manufacturer raised the protein levels in the powder by adding ground leather from old shoes and boots. Can you believe it?’
‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ Meili says, feeling stupid and incompetent.
‘I had no idea you sold fake goods.’
‘But everything in Heaven is fake! Those Clarks shoes you’re wearing are as fake as the baby Nike trainers on that shelf. That teddy bear with the Made in France label, that American dummy, that Hong Kong baby-walker, even the President Clinton autobiography I’ve put in the front window – they’re all pirated, copied, fake, made in Shenzhen . . . I have a sack of foreign designer labels which I can stick on any product I want. If