Yet another random tip.

[randomness]

In China, you should examine the sunscreen products carefully before you buy them. Available sunscreen often includes skin lightening additives. That's probably not what you want.

I noticed this while I was looking along the drugstore shelves for dry skin cream*. (Watsons, CapitaRetail Mall, Xizhimen.)

Another reported problem is that many local brands don't work, but that's a general problem with products in China.

*Also, you'll need plenty of moisturizer for Beijing. The city is dry, dry, dry: particularly in winter, but also early spring, late fall, etc.

Comments

[mangosteen]

Another reported problem is that many local brands don't work, but that's a general problem with products in China.

I'm sure that the combination of issues behind that is complex, but can you give some insight as to why that happens?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

"It's complicated." :)

For one thing, you have no effective consumer protection organization. You also don't have the civil society that would create and demand such an organization. The Party tends to consider non-Party organizations anti-Party organizations. (One of the leaders of the parents protesting the tainted milk scandal was jailed for his efforts, for example.) This makes accountability rather hit or miss.

Producers moreover tend to value short-term advantage over long-term considerations; this is a country where government policy cannot be relied upon and is in any case deliberately obscure. People in general tend to seek immediate profit because planning for the long-term can so easily be upset, and corporate actors share this tendency.

Also, there are a lot of counterfeits on the market, and there's no pretense of efficacy whatsoever with a counterfeit. It's easy to fake packaging and put some (at best) innocuous compound inside the bottle, and it results in quick profits and damage to a brand you don't own.

I tend to feel that what happens with products in China is a natural result of local conditions, and that won't change until conditions change.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

And you can add: very little consumer protection regulation by the government, and little effective remedy through lawsuits.

Interesting. The actual answer is "anarchy"; there is no "The System" to enforce good behavior on manufacturers.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call it anarchy so much as a system organized without any great concern for the individual. Lack of protection for consumers is just one of many manifestations of that unconcern.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Well, it doesn't protect businesses either. What there isn't much of in China is a rule of law over commercial activities.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'll shorten that for you:

What there isn't much of in China is a rule of law

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

This kind of thing is how we got the FDA. It boggles my mind when I hear any of our fellow Americans talk about wanting to deregulate or to get rid of the FDA.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

There is that, but there's the additional problem that there's no equivalent of Consumers Union there, and the government isn't particularly happy with the idea of popular organizing not under their control.

It's interesting in this context that Consumers Union is thinking about expanding into China. I don't know how that's going to go, given that they will be stepping on a lot of powerful toes if they do any serious investigating.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

It boggles my mind when I hear any of our fellow Americans talk about wanting to ... get rid of the FDA.

It's one of those cases where the regulatory power of the State works so well that we forget why we installed it in the first place -- Hey, I haven't seen any problems, why do we need all this bureaucracy?

Somewhat similar was the itch by techies for libertarian politics in the 1980s and 1990s. Of course, if you're life has run smoothly from suburbia to a good college and into a well-paying tech job, you're not going to see the value of police, welfare systems, etc. The tech downturn of 2001 raised their sympathy for the welfare state. (Remember the "Declaration of the Independce of Cyberspace"?)

Or the general view instilled by good colleges that people are well-meaning toward each other, because between growing up in good suburbs and a college life (where threatening people were diligently weeded out), people don't learn about the harsh parts of life.