us declares war on one-handed-man

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=3026237

I wonder if this will affect the prices with my #1 source for DVDs in Chengdu, the one-handed-man. He gives me 8.5 for a DVD9 (usually haggled to 8.1-2). The last time I went to Chengdu was when my parents were here and there was a crackdown taking place. When I went to his normal alcove DVD shop, there was no one there. As I started to leave the computer center with my parents, the wife of the one-handed-man (I hate referring to him as that, but I'm afraid I don't know his real name, and that is clearly his most defining characteristic) whom I know found me and led me to a location outside of the computer area where the entire stash was. The prices were at 8.5 (standard) but he refused to bargain lower. I'm thinking of making a trip in the near future before (perhaps) the market gets shut down for good (dear God I hope not). Do I use too many parenthesis? (I think so).

No one beats the one-handed-man in terms of selection. Anybody I've taken there (now including a roster of around 15+ people) can attest to the quality and quantity of his goods. He's one of the few vendors that has actual rips of DVD shows as opposed to the poor quality compressed garbage they sell on the floor below. I remember one time when Ethan, Pierce, Ethan's friend, and I were purchasing DVDs when a police raid took place and the one-armed-man took a number of boxes to another location, shut off the lights, and ordered us to be quiet. It was an interesting experience despite the fact that nothing really exciting happened, ie there was no shootout over Butterfly Effect 2.

Piracy is indeed a way of life here and pervades the culture in realms well outside the DVD market in Chengdu. I have a couple "Polo" shirts from Beijing, a pair of "Converse" sneakers from Nanjing, and a couple "Tommy Hilfiger" button downs from Guangzhou. People will counterfeit anything that could potentially be counterfeited. You can read a previous entry here about 32 and 64 gigabyte pen drives from Shenzhen.

Cheating's apparently rampant in the school systems, though admittedly I haven't experienced any troubles with it. I've caught a couple students trying to exchange answers from one class to another (as I teach several of the same classes and sometimes use the same tests), but nothing similar to what I've heard from the other volunteers.

I think if you really try to police the DVD markets etc.. which to me seems like an impossible task in itself, you really only hurt the one-armed-man. He probably only makes a few yuan a DVD anyway and lives precariously from month to month in small apartment in a run down section of the city. Seems excessive to line the pockets of movie and music executives who probably spend the equivalent of the yearly salary of the one-armed-man in a single day at the course. And don't think that Congress is acting in the interests of the little guy from the US; this is just big business directing the agenda.

Btw, my mom purchased that exact same DVD pictured in the ABC article from "you know who" in Chengdu. There's a new-ish Chinese movie I want to get called Disciple about a heroine drug lord who decides to retire and pass on his drug empire. I can't remember the Chinese characters but it's men (as in door) something (there are only two characters). If anyone knows, let me know.