Deciphering origins of the Da Vinci code

    Updated: 2011-07-15 07:39

    (China Daily)

      Comments() Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按鈕 0

    Company accused of labeling domestic goods as foreign, He Dan and Yang Wanli report from Beijing, Gao Changxin from Shanghai.

    It was about 1 pm on Monday and the Da Vinci store on Shanghai's Huaihai Road was open, but no customers were in sight. The company, established in Shanghai in 2000, sells luxury furniture, which means overseas brands and overseas prices.

    Deciphering origins of the Da Vinci code

    Panzhuang Xiuhua, general manager of Da Vinci in China, insists that all the Italian furniture displayed in her eight stores was made in Italy. She spoke on Wednesday at a news conference in Beijing. Zhu Xingxin / China Daily

    "We sell high-end furniture, imported from foreign countries," a saleswoman said. "They are purchased globally."

    That's how the label actually read - "globally purchased" - on a silk-covered couch priced around 110,000 yuan ($16,975).

    But the saleswoman could not say where it, or other pieces, had come from.

    In Da Vinci's case, country of origin has become an important issue.

    Chinese Central Television (CCTV) reported on Sunday night that some of Da Vinci's expensive furniture was not made abroad but in Dongguan, Guangdong province. And what the company called "rare wood" was, in some cases, partly polymer and other chemicals.

    This is hardly the first time that a Chinese company has been accused of attaching false foreign identities to the goods they sell. A couple of examples:

    The Order floor material company, which claimed to have been established in Germany in 1903, was proved in 2006 to be a Chinese company with a history of only eight years. Order was fined 7.4 million yuan for fraudulent marketing.

    In 2008, Guangzhou Jiahe Cosmetics Manufacturing Co Ltd apologized for forging a Japanese background for its Marubi cosmetics. Jiahe, a Guangzhou-based Chinese company founded in 2002, had claimed it was a Sino-Japanese joint venture. Misleading advertising conjured up Japanese origins and a long history for the brand.

    Suspicion, a probe

    Deciphering origins of the Da Vinci code

    Luxury furniture fills a showroom at the Da Vinci Group's store in Beijing. Country of origin for some of the company's goods is suspect. Zhu Xingxin / China Daily

    Early last year, a Beijing resident surnamed Tang spent more than 2.8 million yuan ($433,270) on about 40 pieces of furniture from Da Vinci. She did not hesitate to pay that much for furniture labeled "Cappelletti made in Italy." She said the salesperson promised that the Cappelletti brand is world-famous and that all the furniture Tang bought was made from natural and high-quality materials.

    When the furniture was delivered, Tang said, it came with an unpleasant smell. The 100,000 yuan bed she had bought for her daughter was 1.2 meters wide, not the 1.5 meters described in the contract. A sales manager at Da Vinci Beijing explained that China's measurement standards are different from those in foreign countries, Tang said.

    Tang sent the bed and a television table for a quality check by the National Center for Quality Supervision and Inspection of Furniture and Indoor Environment. The furniture did not meet three of its quality standards. The TV table was rated substandard because it was made of high-density fiberboard, not solid wood.

    On Sunday, CCTV broadcast its investigation of Tang's case, and an employee of a furniture manufacturer in Guangdong said Da Vinci lied about where some of its furniture comes from. Video footage identified Peng Jie as the general manager of Dongguan Changfeng Furniture.

    He said his company receives orders from Da Vinci and ships the made-in-China furniture from Shenzhen's harbor to Italy. The furniture later is delivered to Da Vinci's storehouse in Shanghai as made-in-Italy products, he said.

    Peng said Changfeng has taken orders for Da Vinci since 2006 and produced three "brands" of furniture - Riva, Hollywood Homes and Cappelletti. Their trade, unknown to the owners of the Riva and Cappelletti brands, totaled about 50 million yuan last year, he said.

    China Daily learned that Peng, the whistle-blower, was sacked on Monday "because he told lies to media about our company's relationship with Da Vinci", a male employee at Changfeng furniture said on the phone.

    Peng was not Changfeng company's general manager but a salesman, the employee said. He also said Changfeng used to provide accessories or components for Da Vinci, but not whole pieces of furniture.

    All hand-carved?

    Da Vinci Group released a public statement on its website Sunday night saying, "All the Italian brand furniture that Da Vinci sells in China was produced and imported from Italy."

    Da Vinci's four-story shop in Beijing exhibits furniture from more than 100 brands, nearly 60 percent of them Italian. The 20-square-meter showroom for Cappelletti is on the third floor. One 2-meter-wide bed is priced at 408,659 yuan after a 20 percent discount. The label states that the bed, a model called Emotion, was made in Italy of briarwood.

    Zhao Ying, the store's sales manager, said on the CCTV report that all of the bed's sophisticated carvings are handwork. On Tuesday, a saleswoman told China Daily that's not entirely true - parts of some designs are too intricate for hand-carving. She said she didn't want to be identified for fear of losing her job.

       Previous Page 1 2 Next Page  

    精品久久久无码中文字幕| 无码人妻少妇伦在线电影| 特级小箩利无码毛片| 佐佐木明希一区二区中文字幕| 无码乱人伦一区二区亚洲一 | 亚洲AV无码第一区二区三区 | 亚洲综合日韩中文字幕v在线| 波多野结AV衣东京热无码专区| 中文字幕无码不卡在线| 最近高清中文字幕无吗免费看 | 久久久久久国产精品无码下载 | 日日摸夜夜添无码AVA片| 亚洲AV永久无码精品一区二区 | 亚洲av无码国产精品夜色午夜 | 亚洲AV永久纯肉无码精品动漫| √天堂中文www官网| 潮喷无码正在播放| 无码囯产精品一区二区免费| 国产成人无码一区二区三区在线| 中文字幕你懂得| 亚洲AV中文无码字幕色三| 精品无码人妻久久久久久| 免费无码毛片一区二区APP| 亚洲中文字幕无码日韩| 免费精品久久久久久中文字幕| 中文字幕人妻色偷偷久久| 日韩精品无码永久免费网站| 88久久精品无码一区二区毛片 | 久久ZYZ资源站无码中文动漫| 超清无码熟妇人妻AV在线电影| 中文字幕欧美日本亚洲| 亚洲中文无韩国r级电影| 久久精品aⅴ无码中文字字幕重口| 中文字幕无码人妻AAA片| 中文字字幕在线中文乱码不卡| 在线看福利中文影院| 中文字幕Av一区乱码| 久久亚洲春色中文字幕久久久| 最近中文字幕mv免费高清视频8| 最近最新高清免费中文字幕 | √天堂中文www官网在线|