In the eyes of foreigners, how rich are China's local tycoons? Luxury stores in foreign countries on the first day of the shopping festival almost only entertain Chinese.
For example, in the famous luxury store street in Paris, almost all the shops are restricted, and the queue at the door is full of luxury aunts wearing expensive clothes, and these people carrying large bags and small bags are all Chinese.
Later, when Copenhagen Cosmetics was 20% off, the huge shopping mall was also full of yellow-skinned and dark-eyed Chinese, and only Chinese would buy a large amount of lipstick at checkout.
In the duty-free shops and tax refund points in Europe and the United States, all of them are Chinese, buying things at will to pull out a 500 euros (about 3500 yuan), blonde clerks can not find, let her smile stiffly refuse, but also Chinese.
But only Chinese was robbed of a bag by a foreign thief, which contained thousands of euros and dollars.
Many foreigners do not like to Chinese, but almost all foreigners like to Chinese money.
01. Luxury Chinese local tycoons
Let's set our sights on 2019, when at an auction in Tokyo, the eyes of all the attendees were drawn to a woman who spoke In Taiwanese.
The auctioneer held up the auction hammer, trembling slightly, because he knew that the fish behind him had already auctioned the miracle of his career, which was a terrible price.
The woman, named Zhong Yingying, was well-known in the auction market and was known as the "Queen of Koi" in the jianghu, only to see her slowly raise a finger, which meant that the high auction price rose by another 1 million.
At that time, the president of The Japan Fish Garden Co., Ltd., Narita Takahiro did not want the fish to leave Japan, so he invested heavily in pursuit and interception, but it seems that even his capital is still inferior to Zhong Yingying, let alone Zhong Yingying's "behind-the-scenes boss", and the sweat of the brain is dripping from his forehead.
Finally, with a "bang", the auctioneer dropped the hammer, and the koi with red spots on a white background finally fell into her pocket for a staggering price of 230 million yen (about 12.3 million yuan).
Later, people found out from the details that Zhong Yingying was just a "glove" for a big buyer who did not want to show his face, and according to her private words, her bid for the koi was commissioned by a buyer from Chinese mainland, because the koi is a symbol of wealth in China.
Zhong Yingying also said that this time this sky-high koi was a retirement gift he bought for himself.
When people were very curious to ask whether this koi was bought by Ma Yun, Zhong Yingying was silent and did not answer positively, leaving only a meaningful Chinese smile.
We still don't know who the buyer of this fish is, but we can still see the exaggerated records set by China's local tycoons in the world.
Liu Yiqian, a billionaire with a net worth of 41.5 billion yuan, once said a bold saying called "only buy the most expensive", in fact, he did the same, in 2015, the famous rich man took a painting, spent 1.084 billion yuan.
This painting is the famous oil painting "Nude Woman Lying on the Side" by the famous painter Modiliani.
This is not the whole story of Liu Yiqian, who once spent 348 million yuan in cash to buy the Imperial Embroidery Red Night Mo thangka during the Ming Yongle Period and later spent 280 million Hong Kong dollars to auction the famous Fighting Bowl Cup during the Ming Dynasty.
Next, this local tycoon also spent 308 million yuan to buy Wang Xizhi's "Peace Post", bought a rosewood dragon chair, bought an official kiln vase, bought a Tibetan bronze Buddha statue, and all kinds of local tycoons' behaviors, countless acts...
Liu Yiqian
This super-rich man who has been working in junior high school is so willful, there are many people who do not understand, and there are even countless conspiracy theories that Liu Yiqian is laundering money, and the rich people are not so stupid at all.
But empathy, to Liu Yiqian, a person who is on the rich list, there is no need to rely on the way to shoot the chicken bowl cup, which can make headlines, which is too public and obvious.
But the act of buying one luxury item after another at sky-high prices like Liu Yiqian's is considered an unusually cheap "luxury" in the circle of the rich.
Even in the eyes of foreign old money (old aristocrats), this kind of wild money belongs to the category of shameful people.
Because the money they spent was much higher than the price of the artwork itself, some local tycoons thought that as long as they bought art, they could show their taste and value, but these people were wrong.
Imagine that ordinary people also have to buy cheap and affordable vegetables, if a child buys a bottle of soy sauce and spends one or two hundred yuan, it will definitely become a word of mouth among the people in the community, and it will definitely educate the children to be a warning.
Therefore, this kind of high-priced local tycoon is likely to be called "stupid money" by foreign auction houses, and it has also become a means of showing off wealth.
02. The story of the beast head in the Yuanmingyuan
In recent years, there has been a saying in foreign auction houses, that is, "as long as there is a Chinese auction house will have 10 times the transaction price."
For example, the chairman of the Wanda Group that we are familiar with, Wang Jianlin, for a while especially liked to invest abroad, and once spent a full 127 million yuan to buy "Water Lily Pond and Rose" by the Impressionist grandmaster Monet.
After spending another 172 million yuan to buy Picasso's work "Two Children", Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China at the time, said to reporters: "I will continue to pay attention to the works of such a master as Picasso and continue to work hard." ”
It turned out that only Chinese knew that Wang Jianlin was very rich, and now that it is good, the whole world knows it, and when this inexplicably and funny sentence "keeps trying harder" blurted out, the impression that China's rich people have a lot of money has been passed on to the world.
But what foreigners look down on the most is not these, after all, one hand pays for the delivery, you pay the money, I give you the artwork, both sides agree, everyone is happy, their own money is used by themselves, let others say go... However, some rich people are not like this.
We may have heard a lot of news like this, a mysterious foreign businessman bought the head of the cultural relics of the Yuanmingyuan, and then returned it to the state, without taking anything, hoping to wash away the shame of the Eight-Power Alliance when it invaded China.
Every time we saw this kind of news, we clapped our hands and applauded, macau gambling king Ho Hung-sun spent a lot of money before his death, bought pig heads and horse heads in the Twelve Zodiac animal heads lost abroad in the Yuanmingyuan, and then donated these two cultural relics to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
Without the righteous deeds of these rich people, the beast heads of the zodiac cannot return to the 7 now.
The story that follows is also related to the beast head of the Yuanmingyuan, 13 years ago, in 2009, Chinese businessman Cai Mingchao held up a sign at Christie's auction house.
This means that Cai Mingchao wanted to buy two Yuanmingyuan animal heads for 14 million euros, namely rat heads and rabbit heads.
When the auction hammer fell, many people in the venue gave Cai Mingchao extremely warm applause, but people did not know that Cai Mingchao had made up his mind this time.
He intended to insist on not giving money, and he also gave the reason that these Yuanmingyuan beasts had been plundered from the land of Chinese by the British and French forces and should not be repaid to their country.
Cai Mingchao is rich, but he just does not pay, this matter instantly set off an uproar, and public opinion at home and abroad is discussing this matter.
Some people say that Cai Mingchao is a big hero, because the beast head itself is Chinese, it was illegally plundered, and the auctioned cultural relics are illegally plundered, so we don't have to talk about honesty with this kind of person, and we don't have to pay!
However, some people have put forward different opinions: this will make the country passive, and it is not appropriate or worthwhile to exchange personal credit bankruptcy for the head of the Beast of the Yuanmingyuan, which will make it more and more difficult for Chinese businessmen to do business in foreign countries! China's international image will also be damaged!
In the end, netizens quarreled and did not come to a conclusion that they all agreed with, saying only that Cai Mingchao was an "international old lai with national righteousness" or "an international lai who hyped himself in the name of patriotism."
In short, the name "International Old Lai" cannot be taken off.
Zheng Xinyao, deputy secretary-general of the China Auction Industry Association, said meaningfully that if you look at the pure art auction market, the market value of rat heads and rabbit heads is far greater than the intrinsic value of these two cultural relics.
Therefore, Zheng Xinyao called on the Chinese people to be wary of some people using our national feelings to carry out malicious commercial speculation, but he did not elaborate on who he was referring to.
The chain reaction of this incident was that it really brewed into a diplomatic incident, and the Yuanmingyuan officials and the relevant Chinese departments have said that this is completely Cai Mingchao's personal behavior, and have reiterated his views many times.
Cai Mingchao
For a while, diplomatic rhetorical words of "no right to comment" and "no speech" often appeared, and Cai Mingchao really affected some of the more macroscopic things.
Moreover, the credibility of Chinese buyers has since been greatly affected internationally, and foreign auction houses have also set up an access system for Chinese billionaires, that is, to charge higher deposits to allow them to participate in the auction.
But even so, there are still many rich people flocking to it.
Some people may want to ask how the two Yuanmingyuan beast heads ended up, this is the end of the story of this matter - after a few years, the French Pino family bought these two Yuanmingyuan beast heads, and finally the French gave them to China free of charge, regardless of the story behind it, in the end, the spoiler Cai Mingchao still completed his purpose.
Is Cai Mingchao a national hero or an untrustworthy man? The jury is still out. But the image of China's rich man seems to have plummeted since this time.
03, how China's rich have become a joke
In 2010, an auctioneer at a British auction house with little fame auctioned off a piece of porcelain brought by a rural brother and sister, and almost all of them were Chinese at the auction site.
These Chinese are all for this porcelain, because this porcelain is amazing, which is a pastel hollow bottle from the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, when the photo of the auction item appeared on the website, the distant East, China's collecting circle was instantly sensational.
At this time, the famous collector Ma Weidu could not withstand the media's inquiry and commented: "I am afraid that such a bottle does not even have the Palace Museum." ”
Eventually, the lavish collection was auctioned for 550 million yuan by a buyer from mainland Beijing, a new record for the sale price of such works of art, but immediately word came out that the buyer did not want to pay.
What happened? The reason is that the buyer returned to Beijing to inquire in many ways, and found that this bottle is not worth so much money at all, and he was wronged, in fact, there is indeed this reason.
Because many people heard Ma Weidu's voice at that time - he said, "I'm afraid there is not even the Palace Museum", then another layer of meaning is that if this thing is true, is it a bit suspenseful? Is it worth that much money?
Ma Weidu
The bottle was dragged on for two years, and finally bought by another rich man from China, this time for 300 million Hong Kong dollars.
Coincidentally, in 2016, at an auction in Paris, there was a jade seal engraved with the "Treasure of the Qianlong Imperial Pen", or a Chinese billionaire bought it for 160 million yuan, and the seal that an emperor once used was thus collected.
However, after 3 days, the buyer was like "no one", and he disappeared.
Some people say that it may be because this buyer found that the Qianlong Emperor had more than 1800 seals in his lifetime, and he left his own seals on various calligraphy and painting posters, which can be described as a stamp maniac.
The entire Qing Emperor's seal did not add up to more than his, and this time this seal was actually not valuable. The disappearance of the buyer has had a great impact on the overall credibility of Chinese buyers.
In 2017, Chinese art buyers were already notorious in the world auction circle, and a report released by Art Basel showed that the outstanding rate of Chinese auction houses reached 41% in 2015-2016, that is, after 10 works of art were bought by Chinese billionaires, 4 of them did not pay at all.
But this does not prove that the buyer can pay the bill on credit, the mainland will be sophisticated, this kind of thing can help each other in the winery conversation to give face, but foreign countries pay attention to the "spirit of contract".
After the occurrence of such a serious breach of contract, the art will soon be auctioned again, and if the price of the second auction is lower than the price of the first, the buyer of this credit must also bear the difference.
What if I resolutely do not pay? Easy to do, see you in court.
Many auctioneers see the Chinese rich, just like in the "wolf" story, and can no longer believe these rich Chinese rich people, because they are likely not to pay.
04, let's talk about some cute rich people
More than a decade ago, a coal boss spent a lot of money to auction a famous oil painting at a foreign auction.
In private, when a friend asked him why he liked the painting, he simply replied, "This thing is oily." ”
But these coal bosses have paid out real money and silver every time, compared to those who do not pay money, the bosses of these traditional industries are unexpectedly trustworthy, even if their group is synonymous with "soil" in China.
In the world of "upstarts", it is often what is the fire to play, some young and rich people are popular to raise Tibetan mastiffs, they spend a lot of money to raise a few Tibetan mastiffs, and the blood-red eyes and soft hair often need to spend millions to buy.
Finally, there was even a passage of "one mastiff fighting three tigers, three mastiffs sinking aircraft carriers, six mastiffs destroying God, and ten mastiffs in genesis", and at the most popular time for Tibetan mastiffs, there were really many magical scenes.
There is even news that the coal boss has spent tens of millions of lights to take the Tibetan mastiff home, and some people say that he did not spend so much money to marry his daughter-in-law.
That was the peak of the Tibetan mastiff's hype, and then it took a sharp turn, and the Tibetan mastiff has now begun to sell, under the chicken feathers, but pity those dogs.
At that time, there were also many coal bosses who went to Sanya to buy land, and at that time, everyone had a Rolls-Royce, but people often found that these Rolls-Royces were in Hainan, but they hung a Guizhou Provincial license plate "Gui A" sign.
Why? Hainan's license plate is obviously the beginning of "Qiong", and after drinking with these bosses, people will know that sanya's environment is beautiful, but the beginning of the license plate is a very uncomfortable "Qiong B", they are extremely uncomfortable, so they tried their best to do a "Gui A" sign.
After the word "expensive" was hung on Rolls-Royce, it looked much more pleasing to the eye.
End
By 2022, we really don't know whether the koi that cost 12 million yuan to buy is still alive, but the story of China's rich people continues, and there are still many foreigners who think that Chinese are local tycoons.
Indeed, in China, it seems that it is not unusual for the rich to do anything, today this is a monk, tomorrow the one is exposed to bastards... All kinds of strange news have appeared in people's sights.
The author has no intention of denying the wisdom of China's rich people, who can lay down so much wealth, and must have the ability and will to surpass ordinary people, but the external image of China's rich people is so unbearable, it is also a thing worth studying.
Finally, according to Mr. Lu Xun's "A Q Spirit", these "ridiculed" individual Chinese tycoons can still find reasonable reasons to comfort themselves to save their faces.
In the UK, for example, heathrow Airport is recognized as a global shopping paradise, with 75% of the revenue of luxury duty-free shops here contributing to luxury goods.
You may naturally imagine that it is not the income contributed by Chinese local tycoons, this time everyone is wrong, the consumption of Chinese tourists can only rank second, so who is the first place?
It is a Middle Eastern tycoon who is built on the bottom of the chain of mass contempt.
Compared with The Chinese tycoons, these local tycoons who can shovel out oil in their own gardens seem to be more in line with the consistent impression of developed countries such as Europe and the United States for upstarts.
After all, a few decades ago, the legend of the Middle East taking dollars to the mainland to buy weapons should be heard by everyone now, and these people are indeed richer and more willful.
Bibliography:
1. "Tibetan Mastiff Becomes China's "Status Symbol of the Nouveau riche"; Anon. "China Working Dog Industry"; Issue 09, 2007
2. "The Coal Boss's Self-Description of Thirty Years"; Old five, jinfei; Culture and Art Publishing House
3. "The Great Secret of Contemporary Chinese Upstarts"; Winter leaves