I got a very interesting email from a regular reader of this blog. He lives in Zhengzhou in Henan Province, and recently had an unusual experience trying to buy a computer.
I have a maddening and interesting story to relate to you. Might be an interesting story for you.
I am a filmmaker. I came to China in 2002 twice making documentaries and a year later came back to stay. I've been teaching and doing my photography for the last five years but not a lot of video. Oh, I've been shooting a lot of video but without a good computer to edit my stuff, I haven't really been doing a lot. A few months ago, I decided to buy a powerful media computer and start producing TV again. I've been looking, deciding the perfect computer for my needs. I've been to the Chinese Lenovo, Sony and Dell websites. I finally decided on a Lenovo workhorse of a computer. Found it on the Chinese Lenovo website. Powerful processor, 1TB hard drive, tons of ram, HD video board and Blue Ray DVD burner. Nice, nice machine...nice price too, 10,000 yuan.
Last month I was back in Dali and chatting with a couple of western filmmakers who also work and live here in China. I told them of my plan to buy a good "power" computer and start doing my thing again. They both laughed and said good luck buying my computer in China. I said I found it on Lenovo's website and I was sure I would have no problem. They went on to tell me it was next to impossible for the average Joe Blow to walk in off the street to the dealer and actually BUY one of those big computers you see online. They told me their experience here was that the government DOES NOT want the public to have these powerful computers. They said I would find I'd have to go home to buy a good Lenovo. Well, I just couldn't believe that.
Well...yesterday I went to Zhengzhou's computer center with 10,000 yuan in my pocket...and found what I had been told in Dali was 100% correct. I spent three hours...went to a dozen stores...Lenovo, HP, Dell, Sony...and found the same thing. I can buy a moderate computer...good for the internet and small chores...but they couldn't even order the big ones that were currently listed on their Chinese websites. If I'm a university or a Communist government office maybe but not me, average Joe Blow.
I went online at the stores and showed the managers (always deal with the managers!) their own company websites and SHOWED them the computer I wanted and the reply was always the same...not available! When I walked in the first Lenovo store (where my school bought all their computers), I showed the salesman my computer printout of the computer I wanted FROM THEIR OWN WEBSITE and he said he could order it for me and have it in a week. I said order it...he walked to the counter and made a phone call. About five minutes later the manager came to me and asked me why I needed such a powerful computer. I told him to do video. He proceded to give me a bunch of excuses why he couldn't get it. Lenovo has several models that will suit my needs...but when we went to Lenovo's website, the manager said ALL those models were "unavailable". Basically the same story at all the stores I went to.
I've been fuming ever since. What really pisses me off is not the computer per se...no, what angers me is for the past five years I have been pretty naive about just how much control this Communist government actually has over the people. I've told my friends and family of the freedom the Chinese people actually have...or what I have PERCEIVED to be freedom. But yesterday was just a small example of one of the many, many little things, little freedoms that the people here are denied. Little things that as an American I just take for granted. All those little freedoms...it's not the big stuff...it's all the little things. I told my Chinese wife that in the states I can walk in the store and walk out in 30 minutes with the actual computer I want. It's just a small thing but rather profound to me. What an eye opener to me to say the least.
Does the government believe I'll use that computer to overthrow Tibet or something???
Anyway...the more I thought about it, thought it might make for a good story.
Thanks.
I wonder if one can get a high end workstation off the shelve in a computer retail store say in the middle of Kansas?
People forget that despite the development China has been through. Outside of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou it can still be very 3rd world.
There are certainly government restrictions on many things in China. In this instance however, it is just a case of a silly ignorant biased foreigner.
But for Tim Johnson to be so ignorant... that is unprofessional.
Posted by: fairplay | March 22, 2009 at 11:01 PM
"I've told my friends and family of the freedom the Chinese people actually have...or what I have PERCEIVED to be freedom. But yesterday was just a small example of one of the many, many little things, little freedoms that the people here are denied. Little things that as an American I just take for granted. All those little freedoms...it's not the big stuff...it's all the little things."
This brings up a much more interesting debate on just how much the perceived restrictions foreigners feel in China are actual restrictions rather than frustration/ignorance that is perceived to be restrictions because of an authoritarian government.
Posted by: zhengning | March 22, 2009 at 11:45 PM
Guess it depends on what you define as powerful. What I was looking for was a dual processor, 4 gig of ram, HD card, nice hard drive and fire wire so I can import digital video. Not a workstation but a bit more powerful than your average computer. Something that doesn't keep crashing when I edit with my Adobe Premiere and Pro Tools software. 6,999 Yuan on Lenovo's website...add a Blue Ray DVD and a bigger monitor...the total is just over ten thousand. I did my homework and I didn't just get off the boat. And I damn sure knew I couldn't just walk in and buy it. I KNEW i'd have to order it. It takes 2-4 weeks to get the machine in the states.
Laowai's paranoia??? I've been buying and using computers since my first in the mid 80's. I'm not stupid.
And no reason to feel bad for my wife ren, she's doing quite well, thank you.
I'm finding I can go to Beijing or Shanghai and buy the computer I want. It's hard to buy a puter like this out of the box in Zhengzhou and I want a machine out of the box built in a factory by a major company with that one year warranty and real OS...not fake stuff and pirated windows. I've been stuck with a phony Sony DVD burner and fake Western Digital Hard Drive in my six years here. I want the real deal. That's why I went to Lenovo's website. I LIKE Lenovo stuff. I'm sitting at a Lenovo right now.
This ain't rocket science...I just want to buy something that meets my needs.
Culture shock by the clueless laowai...probably. In six years here I can not get used to the fact that nothing is easy here. Sorry about that. I meant to insult no one. I thought in a city of seven million...twice as many folks as New York City...it would not be hard to order this computer. I thought I could walk in and just take care of business. You can't do that here. I don't know why. Other clueless laowai have told me similar things.
Check out Lenovo's website yourself if you don't believe the Laowai.
Posted by: cluelesslaowai | March 23, 2009 at 01:22 AM
I am posting this comment with a computer more expensive than 20000RMB now. Yes, it was bought in Shanghai, China. Why didn't the 'CCP' stop me from that? Come guys! Open your eyes! Use your brain first. Individual customer could buy far more powerful computers like Aleinware desktop computers even servers. It's not that hard to spend just 10000RMB in China today.
If this is not a joke. It should be some kind of 'Lost in translation' again. Such kind of computer may be too expansive for a small business. Useually they would like you to make your order first, with some desposite if they are not familar with you. In my experiense, it will take about one week to deliver. I have purchased two XFX GTX280 display cards, one LG blue-ray burner in that way. Those babys have cost me nearly 10000RMB at that time.
Tim! It time to get out of your office with AC now. You are a Bureau chief for a Newspaper here. You don't even really know how people live in China. Maybe you need to spent more time 'walking around' this country!
Posted by: Jacques | March 23, 2009 at 03:47 AM
heh, sure and all those people with a huge gaming computer have an average computer as well?
Beside buy the components yourself and put them together. Difficult? not at all
Posted by: KM | March 23, 2009 at 06:07 AM
This American retard has been living in China for 5 years with a Chinese wife, and he doesn't know how retailing in China works.
Posted by: tda | March 23, 2009 at 08:54 AM
朋友，你太有才了？说的象真的一样。看来今年春节可以请你上春晚演忽悠人的小品了。应该不会比赵本山差，说不定还可以和他一起合作呢。
你给我10000吧，只要价格没问题的，你想要什么电脑，我都可以去帮你买到。。。。
我现在用的电脑就是5年前大学的时候4000RMB配的哦。到现在还在用来着。
Posted by: myzhaohong | March 23, 2009 at 11:21 AM
The price of my laptop is more than 10000RMB.No person stop me to chose another cheap one.
the salers wont tell you they dont have the one you wanted,but tell you what they have are better.
Posted by: Alex ZC | March 23, 2009 at 12:37 PM
Hei go easy on Tim. He's a nice person and fine journalist. Everyone makes mistakes. And the New York Times? I don't see that it is any qualitatively different from any other newspaper. Remember, it supported the Iraq war (although it apologized for it later on)! And it's such a sour grape when it comes to China coverage.
Posted by: NYT also sucks | March 23, 2009 at 01:24 PM
And go easy on the Laowai friend. We can all agree that getting things done in China is indeed often difficult. Our friend's mistake in this case is that he reaches a conclusion too quickly about the real causes of his problem. But everyone makes mistakes, and we should be glad that he posts his question here so we can address the issue, rather than keeping everything to himself. So let's all get over this. And I suggest someone here help him get the computer he wants, and hopefully he can make good movies with it. Peace.
Posted by: NYT also sucks | March 23, 2009 at 01:39 PM
To reply on previous post... The answer is yes and no... YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT get a powerful Lenovo for 10,000 chinese yuan. What you can do is buying parts and assemble them. The assembly is about 30 minutes or so, and costs about 100 yuan labor (in ZhengZhou its probably less, you can get away with around 50). You get original manufacture warranty for the parts, but no whole computer warranty. If you buy the already-assembled from a computer store (not lenovo), you are lucky if you can get 3 month warranty. The trade-off is get free speeker, key board and mouse, if you also buy a bargained price monitor, you can ask for a wireless mouse or a 120W average priced speeker. BTW, this is what you get in SHEN YANG, Dalian, Beijing, Shanghai and Harbin (沈阳，大连，上海，北京，哈尔滨). To my sympathy, I assume this guy doesn't look like Chinese plus being a journalist people will assume he travels a lot, so if I were the store manager, I wouldn't even bother. It's just too much risk to take.
Posted by: Sparkle | March 23, 2009 at 02:41 PM
10,000
power computer?
are you kidding us?
I bought one cost about 100,000 yuan,in hangzhou city
still,not a power one.
Posted by: andriychoi | March 23, 2009 at 08:41 PM
Real stupid guy.
Do you want to buy a "powerful'computer but only pay for 10000yuan, How much is it in uSA and UK?? can you buy it with so lower price?
No, You can not. Then, Same in china.
That is not relevant to China goverment. that is relevant to your IQ.
Stupid !
Posted by: teddy | March 24, 2009 at 12:54 AM
OK, I can tell this humor story to all my frinders.
Posted by: Li | March 24, 2009 at 03:14 AM
This US'man is too humor, just like not on our erath, I can sell you this computer, Please give me money, or you also can buy this online on any e-commance site on China.
Posted by: Li | March 24, 2009 at 03:23 AM
Tim, You are famous now, just you want.
Posted by: Li | March 24, 2009 at 03:36 AM
Dell - Quad processor, 6 gig memory, 1 TB (1000 gig) hard drive, HD video card, 24 inch HD monitor, no Blue Ray DVD but comes with DVD burner, 1 year warranty...
$899 (6144 Yuan) at all Costco stores in California.
www.costco.com if you don't believe the laowai.
Posted by: cluelesslaowai | March 24, 2009 at 06:03 AM
Li, do you have a lot of frinders?
Posted by: Tim J | March 24, 2009 at 06:52 AM
Looks like you did not understand the computer and the Chinese computer market.
How do you are write this article ,with your Ignorant ?
Posted by: mcc | March 24, 2009 at 07:10 AM
For what it's worth, I also agree the dots of this story may not have been connected right. As others have noted, there are a couple points:
1) Location. Although Zhengzhou is not a small city, if this is true it is definitely not country-wide; powerful computers can easily be bought in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
(Senseless plug for my fav brand) Apple just opened a store in Beijing's Sanlitun District--those machines start around 10,000 kuai, and high-end macs come with full Chinese language support, ridiculously easy to use video editing software, and DVD burners.
2) Other explanations. As other have noticed, that you can't buy the computer on the website in the store does not demonstrate that it's government preventing citizens from buying powerful machines to stop them from editing videos. Quite likely bait and switch by the retailer, but could be any number of things.
Anyway, yeah, of all the stories of things the Chinese government does, many are true, but this story really doesn't do well on the smell test.
Posted by: mike | March 24, 2009 at 10:23 AM
The author needs to realize that there is no market for these "power" computers because no one in China buys desktops like that. The technical savvy would go to one of the huge computer-cities (a giant mall) where you give the specs you want (including zero day top of the line components) and one of the assembly companies combine the parts for you (and give you the component packaging for proof of authenticity). For those who are not technical savvy, a generic pre-built computer will work (it's a ripoff). But since these people can't differentiate, the desktops compete on price, not quality.
It's much easier to obtain a custom power machine in China top tier cities than in the US actually (if you are savvy)
On the other hand, since laptops cannot be built component-wise like modern desktops, high end laptops are readily available from a brand company.
Don't be so paranoid.
Posted by: leno | March 24, 2009 at 01:08 PM
Oh and by the way, since you visited a computer center, the assembler companies for your power computer are usually in the upper levels. The brand companies are on the lower lobby area to ripoff the tech-dummies.
Posted by: leno | March 24, 2009 at 01:13 PM
"Does the government believe I'll use that computer to overthrow Tibet or something???"
The government believes you could highly use the powerful computer to make porngraph on internet.....
Why "Tibet" is always in your articales even if there is no relation at all. If I am in charge in China, Tim, you will be deported from China.
If I cannot buy wines during religious days in USA, should I complain where is my freedom?
Posted by: qunhuaa | March 24, 2009 at 03:27 PM
I live in the central part of China and this is what I did since I kind of do the same you are doing, but more then likely on a much smaller scale.
I bought the best mother board I could find, a decent video card, slapped in the best AMD processor, loaded it up with as much ram as possible, added 5 TB's of hard drives (5). The mother board was off the shelf, the rest I had to order but always had it within 24 hours all at 2/3rds the cost of the Lenovo one.
Now I don't know about the Lenovo, maybe its got some features that mine does not have, but I tend to think not.
I consider some of the things the government does pretty silly. Like the Great Cyber Wall, which is very easy to get around by using an anonymous proxy server to what I did to get a great computer.
.
Posted by: James Em | March 24, 2009 at 08:17 PM
It's just a demand and supply issue and communication issue due to language. But from this guy, it's related to politic issue.
From this story, I understand how the rumor has been generated and spread.
Posted by: Jason Ding | March 25, 2009 at 01:38 AM