Fake fakes

Some of the fake fur used in clothing isn’t synthetic, and actually contains dog hair.

“Americans don’t want Lassie turned into a fur coat,” Moran said. “In the US, we treat cats and dogs as pets, not trimmings for the latest fashion wear.”

Apparently most of the fake fakes come from China, which isn’t really surprising, given they have a tendency of producing fakes of everything.

This reminds me of the time I dined at a supposedly venerated vegetarian restaurant in Sanya on Hainan Island. The establishment prided itself in creating dishes which were supposedly the closest visual and flavour facsimiles of meat dishes.

So we had mock-roast duck, mock sweet sour pork, mock steamed fish (the steam was real), mock braised chicken, mock stir-fried beef – basically every dish in a non-vegetarian Chinese restaurant menu you could poke your chopsticks at, and which might have been the envy of a person who was vegetarian on account of his religion, this place could and did mock-up.

So, when the 2nd last dish was served – braised buck-choy with garlic – my cousin, in mock-delight, cried, “wow, mock vegetables!”, at which a surprisingly life-like waitress swooped in and informed my cousin, with genuine concern, that the vegetables were real.

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