May I interest you in a fake Prada bag, sir?

Things are not always as they seem in China.

In early July, Shanghai officials announced with fanfare that they had shut down the famous Xiangyang bazaar. Like Beijing’s Silk Alley, the Xiangyang market in Shanghai had just about all the counterfeit products you could dream of.

Lining the shelves of stands were fake Hermes, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Chanel, not to mention the ubiquitous bogus North Face jackets and Rolex watches.

Well, one recent day I found myself a couple of streets away from Xiangyang, and a tout began tugging on my sleeve and showing me photos of counterfeit goods.

I got curious so I followed him. Turns out that the alleys around the old Xiangyang market, now demolished, are once again filled with backroom stores containing the same merchandise. We toured one shop filled with colorful fake Prada bags, another with all sorts of bogus Swiss-made Patek Philippe and Boucheron watches, still another with designer clothing.

Led down a different alley by other touts, including the one above, we climbed wooden stairs and found more rooms crowded with shoppers pawing through mounds of fake purses. Shopkeepers scrambled out of the way when I whipped out a camera. That’s why this photo of the watch display has no one in it.