International Glasses City

After reading the New Yorker article entitle "Buy Shanghai," given to us by my father, I learned about the apparent prescription and sunglass market under the city's old train station. I told Mr. Gu of our interest in visiting and he said no such market existing under the old train station, but that he knew just where to take us. Twenty-five minutes later, nestled among what is known as "Old Shanghai," with prostitution, drugs, and small buildings seemingly held up by bubble gum, we arrived at a giant shopping center labeled "International Glasses City." Inside the building were literally hundreds, maybe thousands?!, of booths selling just about every style of glasses/sunglasses known to man. There must have been millions of pairs of glasses here. Run by Chinese with limited English-speaking skills, we hit upon a true Chinese gem, where most foreigners do not venture. We started on the first floor and made our way up to the fourth floor, each corridor overflowing with long glass display booths of frames. Mostly they were very good direct copies of known brands, but there are also many Chinese counterparts, like Lier & Vuidun for Louie Vuitton, Naike for Nike, and Kuci for Gucci. With names as conspicuous as that, it's a miracle our sleuth skills were able to connect the dots to the real names!

Eyesight must be horrible in Shanghai. Otherwise, I don't know how these vendors could possibly stay in business. It's as if we took all of the eyeglass centers for all of New Jersey and put them in one building. If they could just work together and scatter themselves all across the 18 millions residents of Shanghai, surely they would all do well. I recalled an economics lesson on why gas stations and hot dog stands often end up next to each other. Here, a Princeton article summarizes the game theory nicely:

"Town planners agree the gas stations should be placed at one-quarter and three-quarter mile marks, so that no one in town has to drive more than a quarter mile to fill up. And since residents are distributed evenly along Main Street, both stations would share exactly half the business in town. But try explaining that to the station owners. The owner who should build at the one-quarter mile mark knows people at his end of town will never go to the competing station because it's too far away. So he'd want to build closer to the center of town to dip into his competitor's mid-town market. Of course, the other owner is equally wily, and he, too, edges his station closer to the center of town. Game theory tells us — and an astute business sense dictates — that the two gas stations will both end up on the same corner in the exact center of Main Street. The equilibrium solution of the gas station game is clearly not the most efficient. While the stations still share half the town's business, people on the edge of town have to drive farther to get gas under equilibrium than under the town planners' solution."

Anyway, back to our L&V's. While Eden seems to get great pleasure from the look of my adult-sized glasses on her toddler-sized head, her playtime with my glasses has occasionally left them a bit mangled and not quite crystal clear. I'm aware of the consequences, but who could say no?! That, combined with my desire to keep my glasses case-free in my pants pocket or dangling from my shirt neck, makes for a short lifespan...not to mention when my airplane seat crushed them on it's way back to a full and upright position. While Rebecca only wears glasses to bed, we both decided it was time for an upgrade. Her 1992 style isn't cutting it any more. At each booth, once we each decided on a general style, the shop owner would keep bringing more and more of that type that you barely had enough time to try on a pair, before the next set was eagerly placed in front of you. They were all very helpful (quickly telling you when a style was no good "boo how," very good "hun how!," or the occasional "how," just okay) and patient, though I imagine that is a prerequisite in this type of business. In many cases, we just didn't like the selection and moved on, but usually with a parting smile. Half of the time the vendors were just excited to have an English speaking American in their booth and communication makes for funny exchanges (many times we would draw a large group of 3-5 people, all trying to help us), even though Mr. Gu came inside to help us with the translation. (His English is getting STRONG!) He also tried on some glasses and we decided he should be the next Chinese Harry Potter. His reaction, "No Chinese Harry Potter... Fat Chinese Harry Potter!"

After looking at glasses for over 5 hours, I left with two pairs. The first, a rimless set: extremely lightweight and their elastic Eden-proof hinge-free frames can be pulled and twisted in opposite directions and manage to spring back into their original state every time. The second, a kind of retro thick black frame: a good fashion addition to any wardrobe. Rebecca chose a very cool set of half-rimless glasses that she won't be so shy to wear out of the house. Once we decided on the frames, they took our old glasses and put them in a modern machine that read the prescription. When I expressed that my glasses might be a little dated, but that I didn't have my most recent prescription with me, the vendor opened what I thought was a closet door to reveal a hallway with an eye exam machine positioned exactly the right distance away from the eyechart taped to the wall. He checked my eyes and in fact, one eye needed .25 more than my old glasses, which is what I thought I remembered from my last eye exam in the US. Rebecca went through the same exam, though her prescription stayed the same. After some haggling, we agreed to about $30 for each set - frames and the best lenses they offered - and placed our order. No more than 30 minutes later they were ready. I don't know what brand we really ended up with, but I'll bet they are all from the same factory - Naike and Nike. Besides Rebecca's unfortunate experience with WC's that had been sitting unflushed since the Ming Dynasty, we'd recommend the International Glasses City to any visitor to Shanghai.