Shanzhai (山寨 shānzhài) refers to Chinese knockoff and pirated brands and goods, particularly electronics. Literally "mountain village" or "mountain stronghold", the term refers to the mountain stockades of warlords or thieves, far away from official control. "Shanzhai" can also be stretched to refer to people who are lookalikes, low-quality or improved goods, as well as things done in parody.
Origin
According to the "Modern Chinese Dictionary", ("现代汉语词典"), "Shanzhai" can stand for two meanings:
A fenced place in the forest.
Villages in the mountain that have stockade houses.
Historically, "shanzhai" is sometimes used as a metaphor to describe bandits who oppose and evade the corrupted authority to perform deeds they see as justified. One example of such bandits is the story of "Outlaws of the Marsh" (水浒传).
The use of "Shanzhai" to refer to knock-off products comes from Cantonese slang, in which "shanzhai factory" means an ill-equipped, low-end and family-based factory. However, with the accumulation of profit, quite a few those factories invest a lot of money to improve their equipment. some factories also get investment from someone other than family members. Nowadays, a significant portion of Shanzhai factories are no longer ill-equipped or family-based. And their products are no longer poor-quality. Yet they still can not escape the fate of no-brand(or fake brand), not-for-sale in top department stores with non-shanzhai phones. Some big Shanzhai companies like ZTE Communications(Zhong Xin Tong Xun) tries to promote cellphones with their brands. However, with the increasing cost of licensing and marketing, the losing design flexibility for repecting others Intellectual Property and brands, the prolonged time for government product checks(usually 4-6 months), the trials for Shanzhai companies to becoming normal electronics companies were not so successful. After the open door policy, such factories started operating in little wood houses located on the hills around the Cantonese area, so people started referring to them as "shanzhai factory" and their products as "shanzhai product."
Another account of the origin is that because knock-off electronic appliance manufacturers are largely located in Shenzhen, thus wholesalers from other parts of China started calling their products "Shenzhen product". Yet gradually "Shenzhen product" became "Shanzhai product" because they sound similar when people speak mandarin Chinese with Cantonese accent.
Shanzhai Products
The use of "shanzhai" became popular with the outstanding sale performance of "shanzhai" cell phones. According to Gartner's data, 1.15 billion cell phones were sold worldwide in 2007, and according to data provided by the Chinese government 150 million "Shanzhai" cell phones were sold in the same year, thus making up more than one tenth of the global sales.
Copycat version of the Apple iPhone.
The market for "shanzhai" cell phones lies not only in China, but also in the surrounding developing countries in Asia and Third World countries in Africa and Latin America. The outstanding sales performance of "shanzhai" cell phones is usually attributed to their low price, (usually lower than $50), multi-functional performance and imitations of trendy cell phone design. Although "shanzhai" companies do not use branding as a marketing strategy, they are known for their flexibility of design to meet specific market needs. For example, during Barack Obama's 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign, "shanzhai" cell phone companies started selling "Obama" cell phones in Kenya, with the slogan "yes we can" and Obama's name on the back of the cell phone. They also designed "Bird Nest" and "Fuwa" (福娃) cell phones in light of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Shanzhai Fuwa cell phone.
Prior to the booming "shanzhai" cell phone industries, since the early 2000s knock-off electronic products like DVD players and MP3 players were already manufactured in the Pearl River Delta ("珠三角") area. Many "shanzhai" cell phone companies accumulated their capital in that process. Yet the fact that "shanzhai" cell phones stand out as the most successful and most frequently discussed "shanzhai" products among them is arguably because the cell phone strongly symbolizes a sign of wealth in china, and yet it is much more affordable than other symbolic signs of wealth like cars and apartments.
"Shanzhai" cellphones can be sold at very low price compared to normal cellphones. On average, the knockoffs sell at retailers at about $100-$150, while production costs are about $40.
"Shanzhai" cell phone factories are able to manufacture at a very low cost because of two reasons. First, they don't buy cell phone manufacture licenses from the Chinese government, thus saving all the related costs. Second, the Taiwanese company Mediatek has developed a complete chain of core technology support for cell phones to sell at a much lower cost than the traditional suppliers of mega cell phone companies like Nokia and Motorola.
"Shanzhai" is most popular for cellphones. Quite a few Shanzhai cell-phone companies tried to exploit the market by manufacturing Shanzhai Netbook(light-weight Laptops mainly used for Internet browsing), however, those Shanzhai Netbooks gained little martket acceptance and sales.
Although there many fake garments, watches, bags, and shoes in China, they are not called "Shanzhai". Those fake product came into existence earlier than fake cellphones and the term of "Shanzhai". So people are not used to call them as "Shanzhai."
Shanzhai Culture
The frequent reference of "shanzhai" cell phone on internet and in traditional media made people started labeling low-cost imitation cultural activities as "shanzhai" as well. Some of the most well-known events include, "Shanzhai" National Spring Gala ("山寨春节联欢晚会"), "Shanzhai" Lecture Room ("山寨百家讲坛"), "Shanzhai" Olympic Torch Relay ("山寨奥运火炬传递"), and "Shanzhai" Nobel Prize ("山寨诺贝尔奖"). One thing these events have in common is that they all imitate high-end, popular yet authoritative events in which grass-root power usually has no participating role.
Shanzhai version of the Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung on the right, real version on the left.
"Shanzhai" movies are another profit-driven "shanzhai" phenomenon. These movies usually have low budget, yet achieve commercial success by parodying, making fun of or borrowing elements from high-end Hollywood standard blockbuster movies. The first movie of such kind is arguably Ning Hao'(宁浩)s "Crazy Stone"(疯狂的石头). It imitates the multi-angle shooting, rapid cutting and stunts that are usually used in Hollywood action movies, yet retain the grass-root, Chinese set up. With a 3 million Hongkong dollar budget, "Crazy Stone" achieved 22 million-box-office revenue. Following its success, "shanzhai" movies like "the Big Movie" series ("大电影"系列) and "No.2 in the World" ("天下第二") were made. Some also argue that Hollywood parody movies like "Scary Movie" are the true inspirational force behind "shanzhai" movies.
