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Gary Epstein
And now for something completely different . . .

The China (Shopping) Syndrome

I rashly placed my online order, disregarding all the warnings about my loss of privacy, dangerous malware, and worse. Here's what happened
Online shopping from China. (iStock)
Online shopping from China. (iStock)

I knew, or at least I hoped, that Trump would be better for Israel than Harris, but my expectations have been exceeded to such an enormous extent that I have been rendered almost speechless on the subject. Given my history, this is likely to be temporary. Enjoy the respite.

However, this provides me the opportunity to shift gears for the moment and to express my wonder, admiration, and stupefaction before the Chinese online marketplace Temu (which, I believe, is Mandarin for shoddy goods manufactured by slave labor and sold at astonishingly low prices). If you had expected to use your time here to read anything of substance, do both of us a favor and leave now.

I recently left Israel for a three-week sojourn in the United States of Trump, an annual attempt to maintain relationships with my American grandchildren and gain the weight that I had struggled to lose during the preceding eight months. (In case you are wondering, mission accomplished on both fronts, plus I got the flu.) Before I left, I decided to make my first purchase on Temu, disregarding all the warnings about my loss of privacy, the possibility of dangerous malware, and the likely provision to China of the disturbing ability to penetrate all the sophisticated cyber defenses of the Israeli military. I acknowledge that it was a rash decision, but, after all, there is no longer any privacy, I assume that denizens of the dark web already know and trade my passwords, and members of the Israeli military regularly disclose its secrets to the press.

So, I figured, I might as well see what all the fuss is about.

I did have some residual concerns about the slave labor thing and I wish that more attention were being paid to the plight of the Uyghurs, but then I figured that if no one buys the stuff (my wife won’t let me say “crap”) they produce, the Chinese will have no reason to keep them alive, so my purchases could be a lifeline while they wait either for the world to take note or a Uyghur Moses to arrive on the scene.

My office is in the safe room, so that I can continue to do my important work while the Houthis try to kill me, so I closed the door firmly against spousal interruption (Ahuva hates me to waste money on silly, whimsical purchases, despite the fact that she uses my Amazon Prime account to buy things that prudence and outright terror prohibit me from disclosing – suffice it to say that the Amazon Prime algorithm thinks that I am a post-menopausal reader of mostly worthless fiction with an unhealthy obsession with children’s toys and clothes that I send all over the world to people with whom I am not familiar, but to whom she tells me I may be related).

Safely behind closed doors, I order a remote controlled mouse (not the computer kind, the rodent kind, and it might be a rat), a box of 50 placker-type dental floss things, and a manual knife sharpener. I look at, but decline to purchase, a belt and dress shirts. I also bought something else, but it is so insignificant that it escapes my memory (what, you ask, could be more insignificant than a knife sharpener, mouse, and floss?). In any event, I spent about 80 shekels and, according to Temu, saved about 120 shekels. So I was feeling pretty virtuous and frugal.

This being Israel, when the package arrived (FREE SHIPPING!–doesn’t it cost more than 20 bucks to ship something from China?), it did not arrive at my home, but at a candy store on steroids in Shilat, a few miles away. I received numerous notices that my package was waiting and, in due course, picked it up. The mouse required batteries, but moved forward and reverse when buttons were pushed on the remote. It also had the benefit of really irritating my wife, who doesn’t like larger-than-life rodent facsimiles in our bedroom, and really delighting two young grandchildren, when I let them play with it. The knife sharpener may work, but so far it is just occupying space in a drawer.

The dental floss thing, probably with recycled (i.e., used) nylon, silk, or polyester, is a true Chinese wonder. There are 50 items in a box measuring about 2×1.5 inches. In small print, it says “High tensile force fine slip floss help,” but then there is a legend on the box in print too tiny to read without extreme magnification that confirms that the people or artificially intelligent bots who wrote or copied the legend had no idea what was in the box, other than the name of the product: “FLOSS is the use of nylon, silk, or polyester thread to clean teeth adjacent plaque, very effective, especially for flat or convex tooth surface is best. Pull down a piece of floss about 25cm, make a loop of FLOSS with double-knot shape at both ends or take about 33cm floss, wrap the two ends around the middle fingers, use right and left fingers to pass the floss through the contact point . . .” It goes on for a few sentences, blissfully unaware that it is describing floss on a spool rather than the actual product in the box.

For some reason, this gave me much pleasure and delight, like reading the English translation of an Israeli menu when the proprietor thinks he or she knows English (tapuach adamah —land apple; peirot yam — sea fruits; hamburger meforak — deconstructed hamburger. In case you are wondering, potato, sea food, and pulled hamburger).

And then I went to America, totally unaware of the marketing typhoon I had caused.

Upon my return, occupied as I had been with grandchildren, fried chicken, and pastrami, imagine my shock when I found 106 . . . count them, 106 . . . e-mails from Temu awaiting me. I am neither joking nor exaggerating. I assembled them in a search, 1-50 on one screen, 51-100 on the next screen, and then a meager 6. The first message shouted, “We’ve sent you a surprise!” The second one said “Sorry, I can’t believe I forgot.” The third one ordered me, “Open at once!”

There were “Credit back!” “Open immediately!” “Take your pick!” “Up to 90% off.”

Translation ear pods. Very revealing bras. Double layer storage for eggs. Breathable boxer briefs. And, because of my purchases and non-purchased but viewed items, thousands of belts, mice, knives, shirts, and dental hygiene products.

As I unwittingly negotiated by absence and silence, Temu’s offers kept escalating. “Are you there? . . . Confirm your offer while it lasts . . . You’ve received credit back [5 times]. Claim your credit back . . . We’ve sent you a surprise [6 times] . . . You’ve received a jackpot treat . . . You got a BIG OFFER [which is flattering] . . . WOW! You Got a BIG OFFER [which is very flattering].”

I am now at a crossroads. I feel bad that I have not responded. This software is working so hard and I, through no fault of theirs or mine, paid no attention, probably causing the poor marketing executive assigned to my account to be sentenced to hard labor in some Chinese gulag. I’m also worried about the Uyghurs, who may be depending upon me. Additionally, now that Trump is placing tariffs on Chinese goods and the United States Postal Service is declining to deliver packages from China, I think that there may be even more pressure on Chinese vendors to maximize sales elsewhere. Thus, they are likely to reduce prices further or offer additional inducements in Israel. My accumulated discounts now approach 700% and I think that might strain the Chinese economy and exacerbate global tensions if I start buying in bulk. I also can’t figure out how it would work – do they send me the product plus cash worth six times its cost, or do they send me seven mice? If the latter, would my marriage survive?

You (and Ahuva) will be relieved to know that, for the time being, I have decided not to order any more, because I made it out of the candy store unscathed last time, but America has reduced my resistance and immunity to junk food and I think that the accumulated sugar products would kill me, if the Chinese malware doesn’t beat them to it.

About the Author
Gary Epstein is a retired teacher and lawyer residing in Modi'in, Israel. He was formerly the Head of the Global Corporate and Securities Department of Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm with an office in Tel Aviv, which he founded and of which he was the first Managing Partner. He and his wife Ahuva are blessed with 18 grandchildren, ka"h, all of whom he believes are well above average. [Update: . . . and, ka"h, one great-grandchild.] He currently does nothing. He believes he does it well.
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