Words & Phrases 词汇与词组 - Baby, you can be expensive!

Traditional Chinese

calligraphy brushes that cost 10,000 yuan ($1,571) sound like fairly luxurious items. But these are being bought for people who can't write or draw and cannot even hold a brush in their hands. It's the Year of the Dragon, reportedly a very auspicious period to have a baby, and new mothers in Shanghai are being pressured to fork out for some amazing baby gifts and services.

The second half of this year will see the baby boom continuing. City authorities have readjusted the estimated number of babies to be born this year from 180,000 to 220,000. With 85,000 births recorded in the first five months, the other 60 percent will happen over the next six months.

The city's three major maternity care hospitals have had to increase the number of beds for mothers-to-be by 40 percent. Still, many mothers have found it impossible to book places in public hospitals and have had to turn to private hospitals which charge at least three times the prices.

Perhaps for some the price of a calligraphy brush made with hair from their newborn baby is well worth the cost - compared to the 10,000 yuan bill for a stay of around three days in a private hospital if the birth is normal and not a cesarean (which will set a mother back some 30,000 yuan for a four-day stay in a private hospital). These brushes are now controversial items with many asking why people are making huge profits from parents who seem willing to pay whatever is asked for extravagant gifts. As well as these brushes, indulgent parents can buy ornamental seals that contain newborn baby hair and tiny molds of the newborn child's feet and hands.

Evil spirits

Before her baby arrived in May, Lin Lin searched the Internet to find a reputable business that could provide her with a fitting gift and memento for her child. "It's like routine homework for many mothers-to-be. I've always been thinking of leaving something memorable to my child. Newborn baby hair is special and is said to keep evil spirits away."

The calligraphy brush seems to be the most popular of these items. But after reviewing the advertising on different websites Lin found herself lost among the huge selection - these brushes can come with shafts made from ivory, rosewood or jeweled enamel. And the prices differ hugely. The new mother eventually spent 400 yuan on a brush with an ox horn shaft. "It's a standard design. It's said to be the most popular with local parents."

Selecting the company to buy from was no easy. Her big concern, like other parents, was that whether the brush would contain the actual baby hair. "What I was looking for was an established and reputable business."

Just after she left the hospital with her newborn son, Lin's mobile phone started ringing. Salesmen and women were calling asking her if she needed these personalized gifts for her child. "I don't know how they got my number. The business names were unfamiliar. But I guess if I hadn't made the arrangement earlier, I could have been persuaded to buy something by one of them. The prices they quoted were reasonable," the 28-year-old said.

Wang Yi, the manager of the Shanghai Xiaojintong Babies' Souvenir Company, said that there were at least 50 companies competing in the city's baby souvenir market. "Many are extremely small with just two or three workers. Some haven't even registered with the local industry and commercial authorities," Wang told the Global Times.

She explained that there were 36 procedures needed in the making of a baby hair calligraphy brush. Some of these procedures involved patented technologies owned by particular workshops. "We only send our products to Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, which is famous for making brushes. A standard procedure takes at least two months. If someone says they could provide you with a finished baby hair calligraphy brush in just two or three weeks, I can tell you for sure that they're not authentic."

While the brand name is one guarantee for the customers, Wang said that her company kept file samples of every baby's hair. "So that there will be no mistakes we keep a small piece of hair on file for a year after the product is delivered to the customer. Everything can be checked back," Wang said. Some of her customers were doctors who sent their calligraphy brushes to laboratories for DNA tests. "If something had ever gone wrong, our reputation would have been destroyed."

With the number of newborns this year soaring, Wang said her company would probably see its income increase by 20 to 30 percent over last year, when the city recorded 170,000 new births.

A distinctive business

Shanghai was one of the earliest markets for baby souvenirs in the country, with the distinctive business emerging in the early 1990s. Yang Xiemin, the co-founder of Ahua in 1993, the city's first brand-name baby souvenir company, has been working in the industry for around 20 years. "It was a small business. It seemed that many businessmen in Shanghai weren't interested then in small deals. So together with others, we began to explore this market," Yang said.

Yang knows the intricacies involved in making these baby hair calligraphy brushes. He can make ornamental seals containing baby hair and molds of babies' feet and hands. This process is similar to making dental casts, Yang said, and involves applying a special substance to the hands and feet to obtain the mold and then recreating this with glass-reinforced plastic. But the 54-year-old said his best work is in cutting the hair of newborns and this is vital if the parents want to have a perfectly-looking calligraphy brush made.

Looking back Yang said that in the early days the well-off families had been their main customers but today baby souvenirs are popular among most families. "In 1993 an ordinary baby hair calligraphy brush cost 100 yuan, while a high-end one with an ivory shaft cost 488 yuan. But the luxury brushes sold well at the time as rich families thought they were of special significance and could see their value increasing. And they were right. Nowadays a similar brush made of ivory costs at least 2,000 yuan."

Yang said that the most popular choices were the baby hair calligraphy brushes, followed by the ornamental seals, the hand and feet molds and embroidery or artwork that used baby hair. "Brushes are the most acceptable. The hand and feet molds have been growing in popularity over recent years with families using them as home ornaments. But the baby hair embroidery and artworks are not often selected because of the cost (at least 1,000 yuan for a very small piece) even though they're gorgeous as artworks - they involve complicated techniques (the baby hair has to be carefully threaded into the works)."

Different stories

Over the past two decades, Yang said he had dealt with more than 200,000 families in the city. A special attachment to babies and a flair for communicating have kept him in the business. "Different families have different stories. Many of them love to share their stories with me. And that's a major pleasure in my job. Because I communicate well I know a bit of almost everything - the stock market, art collecting and many other things," the ever-smiling Yang said. "But it seems that young people today have little interest in this business. I have been trying to pass on the skills I've learnt to some, but none have stayed long enough with me. They don't see the job being as good as that of an office worker. We usually do our work door-to-door. It's a matter of self-respect."

Yang left Ahua eight years ago to establish his own business. Although the customers have flown in, he said the profit margins have been shrinking. "The prices have remained unchanged for several years, but our operating costs have constantly increased. Competition is fierce. Honestly, we don't dare to increase our prices. It might scare some customers away."

Yang is more concerned about some of the dodgy practices that some competitors are employing. "We mostly contact our customers by phone. But these days, there are some competitors who phone our customers and tell them that the hairdressers we send to cut or collect the baby hair have hepatitis or hand-foot-and-mouth disease. It sounds ridiculous, but new parents never take the risk. They call us back and cancel."

This sort of treacherous behavior has not just affected Yang but other major players. The Longwen Baby, another baby souvenir business in the city, has just placed an eye-catching announcement on the home page of its website. It advises customers not to believe callers who tell them that the Longwen hairdressers are sick or suffering from colds or that they will charge extra if the address is not central, or that they will just send trainees if they don't order a gift worth at least 1,000 yuan.

The marketing director of Ahua, Deng said that only with proper regulations could these cheats be stopped.

Until now there has been no industry association that could accept complaints. And industry practitioners say that it's too complicated to explain these problems to the industry and commerce authorities. "We need to collect evidence to file a complaint and we need cooperation from our customers. It's too time- and energy-consuming for small businesses like us," said Wang Yi.

The Shanghai Administration of Industry and Commerce told the Global Times that it had received six complaints about newborn souvenirs so far this year - all from consumers. At the moment it has no plans to launch a campaign regulating the industry.

Foreign demand

While the market competition might be fierce and sometimes fraudulent, the public demands are changing as well.

Yang said that he has noticed an increase in customer families wher only one parent was Chinese. A Spanish father and a Shanghainese mother recently welcomed twin sisters. Yang was invited to their baptisms and there took molds from their tiny hands and feet.

"They've ordered quite a few and intend to send them as gifts to the babies' grandparents and other relatives in Spain," Yang said. Unlike most Chinese who keep these souvenirs for themselves or send them as gifts to the children when they grow old enough to get married, some foreigners think that presents made with newborn baby hair are invaluable gifts for their nearest and dearest.

"A calligraphy brush made from newborn baby hair is a really high-end gift in Japan. People send them to close friends who can do calligraphy well, because it's very hard to handle these brushes with this extremely soft hair," Yang said.

Chinese you need:

Calligraphy brush：毛笔 (máo bǐ)
Auspicious：吉利的 (jí lì de)
Maternity care hospital：妇科医院 (fù kē yī yuàn)
Memento：纪念品 (jì niàn pǐn)
Ivory：象牙 (xiàng yá)
Souvenir：纪念物 (jì niàn wù)
Intricacy：错综复杂 (cuò zōng fù zá)
Newborn：新生儿 (xīn shēng ér)
Ornamental：装饰的 (zhuāng shì de)
Self-respect：自重 (zì zhòng)
Hairdresser：理发师 (lǐ fà shī)
Practitioner：从业者 (cóng yè zhě)
Fraudulent：欺诈的 (qī zhà de)
Baptism：洗礼 (xǐ lǐ)
High-end：高端 (gāo duān)