Expo Passport Stamps - David Sutton

Monday, June 28, 2010

[bad link] http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201006/20100623/article_440746.htm

Fake or real, Expo Passports all about image

Created: 2010-6-23

Author:David Sutton

DEAR Editor,

I would like to add some perspective to your reporter Jia Feishang’s comments – “Man tries flimflam with Expo stamps.” (Shanghai Daily, June 12, 2010).

The trouble does not only lie with the seller of flimflam but also with the buyers. Without a sizable demand for the inauthentic, baseless image there would be no market for the conman’s wares.

Unfortunately we live in a world today where vacuous image matters more than substance. Specifically let’s get back to Expo stamps.

Days after the Expo’s opening last month, I suggested to some pavilion staff, who were struggling with the long lines and waiting times for entrance, that they create a second line, bypassing the pavilion and its exhibits altogether, going directly to the stamping station.

Knowing full well the obsession of many for image over substance, I knew that most of those getting the stamp would be doing so for the act itself – for the impression that they had been there, caring little about the contents of pavilion.

In the first month of the Expo, the enthusiasm for collecting Expo Pavilion stamps has become obsessive and my suspicions have been verified.

It has become apparent to pavilion staff that many visitors have come to their pavilion for no other reason than to get a stamp without even glimpsing at the pavilion’s contents. People are walking directly to the stamp station and leaving, some bringing multiple passports and asking for hundreds of stamps at a time.

Becoming riled and ultimately offended by those that have only come for the stamps, some pavilions have now stopped issuing the stamps altogether. Some pavilions have also moved their stamping outside as people wait in line, after which most leave the line altogether without even glancing at the inside.

If this isn’t image over substance, I do not know what is. A stamp has become a symbol that you have gotten around – exposed yourself to a new variety of worldly influences.

The image of appearing to have been there is more important than actually having been there. Actually experiencing a pavilion’s content or even seeing it at all is not what matters, just the impression that you have done so.

So now pavilion stamps have become a commodity and there is a thriving business selling stamped Expo Passports. As you reported, there are 900 entries on taobao.com selling them.

The decision of some of the pavilions to no longer participate in this pretense of cultural exchange portends to cut into this image-building (or should I say flimflam) business. But the business will continue because there is a market for flimflam.

It was only a matter of time before counterfeit stamped passports and pavilion stamps would also flood this new marketplace.

The question is, are counterfeit stamped Expo Passports any less authentic than the first generation fake ones that proceeded them?

Neither counterfeit stamped passports or ones collected by someone else represent an authentic experience.

When selling image, does it matter which illusion of substance it is based on?

A fake is a fake. It’s all Flimflam.

(The author is a freelancer in Shanghai.)