Right from Xi's hand to yours: snag your Chairman-themed umbrellas, mugs and more (well, not very much more) at a wonderful Taobao shop dedicated to curating goodies affiliated with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Dubbed "XiFansClub," the Taobao vendor has a plentiful stock of black umbrellas, flowery tea sets and, our personal favorite, a mug featuring the Xi-Peng-Modi trifecta from the Chinese leader's recent trip to India.
Tea sets hover around the RMB138 mark, umbrellas slide in at RMB128 and mugs are a bargain-basket price for just RMB48 (a guaranteed conversation starter.) For the money-conscious Xi Jinping fan, these are a much more reasonable investment than buying Xi Dada's APEC uniform, which costs a cool thousand yuan.
Still, even the lower prices are nothing to scoff at if, like Xi himself, you're only pulling in a few grand per month.
The Wall Street Journal contacted the shop's owner (they seriously don't have more pressing stories?) and inform us that dolls, notebooks and pens are in the works. The shop owner identified himself as "a very, very ordinary citizen, from the lowest rungs of society," which is extraordinarily suspicious.
All things considered, this is probably the most palatable case of Xi-fever we've seen in the past few days (we are comparing this, of course, to the astonishingly terrible 'Xi Dada' song.) With that said, there is no way we're going to buy from a Taobao shop that only has a two-heart rating. Call us back when you get a golden crown.
[UPDATE] Within moments of publishing this article, Xi Jinping's biggest Taobao fan is no longer selling. This could have happened for any number of reasons (including the seller himself taking it down after getting a bit uneasy after talking to WSJ, for example.) We hope another brave vendor will rise again, hopefully with a higher consumer-trust rating.
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