Leader of the Pack Is Black and White And Sought All Over
Tang Jian recently settled in for a night on the pavement. Seated on a small folding chair, she was one of a dozen people on a city sidewalk here besieging a state-run tobacco store 12 hours before it opened. The prize was one of China's most exclusive products: Panda cigarettes.
Ms. Tang doesn't smoke, but the 49-year-old said she hoped to offer Pandas to contacts to "help my son get a good job." In the end, she failed to secure even a single pack.
Panda-mania is spreading in Shanghai, as people line up overnight to pay nearly $10 for a hard-to-get pack of 20 cigarettes. State-run tobacco shops report that their stock routinely sells out, even though it's 60 times as expensive as some of China's 100-plus domestic brands.
Raising Panda fever is the product's close association with the man who brought capitalism to communist China: the late leader Deng Xiaoping. Mr. Deng smoked heavily and Panda was his brand. He was rarely photographed without a cigarette between his fingers. He is said to have gone on lighting up until shortly before his death from Parkinson's disease in 1997 at the age of 92.
"It's the cigarette of presidents," said Li, a man lining up for Pandas who wouldn't reveal his first name. (Mr. Deng never was president, but rather was known as paramount leader.)
Pandas are taking off in a country with a huge appetite for cigarettes and a growing taste for luxury goods amid a booming economy. The World Health Organization says the nation accounts for 30% of the 5.5 trillion cigarettes consumed daily world-wide.
Few Panda buyers smoke the cigarettes they acquire. They prefer to give them to friends or to superiors and officials whom they wish to influence or thank. One Shanghai internist says he regularly receives gifts of Panda cigarettes from grateful patients, even though he is a nonsmoker.
"It's for the boss," says a customer waiting to buy Pandas, as others nod in agreement. Another would-be buyer says he plans to resell his packs at a premium and declares: "Before only the government could smoke it. Now even common people can."
Pandas first appeared in 1956 and became the exclusive property of China's political and military élite. Chairman Mao smoked Pandas. Army generals developed a taste for them. Mr. Deng became the most high-profile customer.
After Mr. Deng's death in 1997, Shanghai Tobacco (Group) Corp., which makes Pandas, began to release small quantities of the product at exorbitant prices. A decorative box offered last year, containing two packs of Pandas, was priced at the equivalent of $102. Today, the same box can cost twice that.
On May 1, Shanghai Tobacco, which also makes other brands, embarked on a marketing campaign to extend Pandas' reach. The package has been redesigned with a pair of pandas against a background of imperial yellow, and posters advertising the brand are prominently displayed in tobacco shops. New-look Pandas come in a round-edged box and feature six anticounterfeiting measures, including a logo that appears on the filter when the cigarette is lit and colors on the box that change under infrared light.
Shanghai Tobacco says it will be shipping Pandas to other big cities in China within the next few months. That wider availability will roughly coincide with the 100th anniversary of Mr. Deng's birth on Aug. 22, although officials here won't say the timing is intentional.
For most of the life of the brand, Panda was "the most exclusive cigarette in the world," said a vice-director at Shanghai Tobacco. "We produced only hundreds of packs a year." In an effort to heighten the allure, the manufacturer won't say how many Pandas it produces each year or even where the tobacco in them is grown.
The cigarettes' scarcity has ignited a fast-developing black market. Sellers call themselves huang niu, meaning "yellow cow," the local argot for scalper. On a recent morning in Shanghai's fashionable Nanjing Road, a 48-year-old woman named Zhang, who declined to give her first name, said she makes a profit of $6 for every carton she resells privately.
"I don't smoke, I eat," she said.
Cigarette connoisseurs outside China question the brand's appeal. One is Max Irving, managing director of U.K.-based Chancellor Tobacco Co., which produces Treasurer, an aluminum-filtered, $30-a-pack cigarette. Panda is a vanity brand that Chinese generals buy "to show off on the desk," said Mr. Irving -- though he said he has a pack in his own office.
The Panda price is "ridiculous," says Jeffrey Han, a 29-year-old Taiwanese-American living in Beijing who makes a living selling cigarettes, lighters and other items over the Internet. Yet he acknowledges that some of his customers in the U.S. are willing to pay high prices for hard-to-find products. "We get a lot of Chinese people in the West who miss their [Chinese] cigarettes," he says.
Shanghai Tobacco agrees that its customers tend to have a "VIP complex." But the vice-director, who spoke on condition that he wouldn't be named, says that what sells Panda are top-quality materials and the product's "very, very light" taste. The company says Mr. Deng smoked the same cigarettes, apart from a "very small difference" that the maker won't discuss.
Write to James T. Areddy at
james.areddy@dowjones.com Corrections & Amplifications:
The World Health Organization says that China accounts for 30% of the 5.5 trillion cigarettes consumed annually world-wide. This article incorrectly gave the time period as daily.
昔日“御用香烟”, 今日市场宠儿
唐健（音译）刚刚在人行道上安顿下来，她要在这里呆一整夜。坐在小马扎上的唐健和其他很多人在一家国营烟草商店第二天早晨开门前连夜包围了这里。如此辛苦所为何来？中国顶级产品之一──熊猫香烟。
唐自己不抽烟，但她排队等待抢购的这种商品却因产量稀少及其崇高的声望成了馈赠和送礼佳品。今年49岁的唐健说，她买熊猫香烟就是为了送礼，好请人帮她的儿子找个好工作。最后，由于人多烟少，唐被一大早就赶来的人群推挤到一边，连一盒也没能买到。
熊猫香烟身价不菲，仅仅20根就买将近10美元。但人们的狂热需求却又一次证明，在中国这个全球最大的烟草市场，尼古丁还是许多人的最爱。此外，将资本主义带入社会主义中国的前国家领导人邓小平与熊猫香烟备受青睐也不无关系。
邓小平烟酷爱吸烟，而熊猫正是他最喜爱的牌子。在他的照片上，你很少会看到他没有夹著一支熊猫烟。据说，直到1997年因帕金森症去世之前不久，92岁高龄的邓小平还一直吸烟。这种与著名政治人物的密切联系是中国人对熊猫香烟趋之若鹜的一个重要原因，而且似乎每个人对此都了然于心。
和唐健一道抢购熊猫香烟的李先生说，“这是主席抽的烟。”（邓小平从未担任中国国家主席，但实际上是中国的最高领导人。）
现在，上海烟草（集团）公司(Shanghai Tobacco (Group) Corp.)悄然展开了一场熊猫牌香烟的营销活动。公司重新设计了外包装，广告海报也贴到了国家烟草专卖局(State Tobacco Monopoly Administration)销售商店的显著位置。几个月之内，熊猫牌香烟的生产商上海烟草就将向中国其他一些大城市发运这种香烟，时机正好和邓小平8月22日的100周年诞辰纪念日相差无几，但上海烟草的管理人士不愿承认这是故意的安排。
上海烟草一位不愿透露姓名的管理人士说，这个品牌从开创到现在的大部分时间里，熊猫香烟一直都是全世界最高级的香烟。他说，上海烟草每年只生产数百盒熊猫香烟。
熊猫牌香烟诞生于1956年，成为军政两界显要人物的专有品牌。中国人家喻户晓的政治家毛泽东也喜爱熊猫牌香烟，他在1976年去世前一直担任党中央主席。部队高级将领们也逐渐对熊猫产生了偏爱之心。不过，不管怎么说，邓小平永远都是熊猫香烟最显赫的顾客。
在邓小平1997年去世后，上海烟草开始向社会发售很少量的熊猫香烟，但价格极为昂贵。举例来说，上海烟草去年推出的一种包装豪华的礼盒，内装两盒熊猫香烟，售价相当于102美元。如果你现在还能找到，估计售价已经是当时的两倍了。
目前，上海烟草已经下调了熊猫香烟的价格，但即便如此，仍然是多数国内品牌的60倍（中国国内的香烟品牌超过了100种）。即使相对于万宝路(Marlboro)等进口品牌，熊猫香烟也比它们贵5倍。
为了增加吸引力，上海烟草从不公布熊猫香烟的年产量，甚至连所用烟草的产地都讳莫如深。中国绝大多数的烟草都产于南部的云南省。国家烟草专卖局在上海的两家商店的员工说，熊猫香烟总是销售一空。但他们对每天摆上货架的熊猫香烟到底有多少却故作神秘。
像彻夜排队等著花钱的唐健一样，买熊猫香烟的人很少会自己抽。一般都是馈赠亲友，或者送给上级和政府官员，以此来表达谢意或者希望能打动他们。上海一位不吸烟的内科专家就常常收到病人为表达感激之情而赠送的熊猫香烟。
一位苦苦等待购买熊猫香烟的顾客说，“这是给老板买的。”周围的人也都点头表示理解。旁边一位吞云吐雾的人也在等待购买熊猫香烟，他抽的是工薪族常见的红双喜，每盒1.20美元。
一位姓黄的下岗工人说，过去只有政府官员才有可能抽熊猫香烟，而现在普通人也可以了。他说，他准备私下里将自己买到的熊猫香烟以更高的价格再卖出去。
国外一些烟草专家对熊猫香烟的非凡魅力提出了质疑。售价30美元的Treasurer牌香烟的生产商、英国Chancellor Tobacco Co.董事总经理欧文(Max Irving)就是其中之一。欧文说，熊猫香烟徒有虚名，中国老百姓买来就是为了摆在桌子上以示炫耀。不过他也承认自己办公室里就摆著一盒。
29岁的台湾裔美国人Jeffrey Han住在北京，主要靠在互联网上出售香烟和打火机等物品为生。他说，熊猫香烟的价格实在是离谱！但他也承认，一些美国客户愿意为不容易找到的商品支付高价。Han还说，有许多西方的华人非常怀念中国香烟。
上海烟草也承认其顾客群体的确身份显赫，但该公司的那位管理人士说，熊猫香烟真正的卖点实际是其质量首屈一指的生产材料以及“非常非常淡”的味道。该公司表示，除了一点非常微小的差别之外，现在的熊猫香烟和当时邓小平抽的完全一样。该公司不愿讨论具体的差别是在哪里。
中国人的嗜烟习俗让一些公共卫生官员感到担心。世界卫生组织(The World Health Organization)称，在全球每天消耗的5.5万亿支香烟中，有30%都是中国人抽掉的，这意味著吸烟带来的各种健康问题在中国也非常突出。美国癌症学会(American Cancer Society)就指出，中国现在正流行“烟草瘟疫”。
但是，吸烟已经成了中国人生活的一部分。新包装的熊猫香烟烟盒边角圆滑，还有6种防伪措施。和中国其他所有供不应求的产品一样，熊猫香烟也有被假冒的危险。为了防止出现这种情况，上海烟草在他们生产的熊猫香烟的过滤嘴上设计了一个标志，香烟被点燃时这个标志就会出现。另外，烟盒的颜色在红外线照射下也会发生变化。熊猫香烟烟盒的图案是一对中国特有的大熊猫，背景是过去皇家专用的黄色。
上海烟草的市场营销计划看来已见成效。在唐健排队等待商店开门的那个早上，上海繁华的南京路上这家烟草商店周围挤满了等待购买熊猫香烟的人群。
焦急等待的人们撕下了所有遵守秩序的面具，拥堵在商店入口。早上9点钟商店大门刚打开，十几个人就冲了进去。
在纵横交错四处飞舞的手臂之林中，店员不得不把香烟藏在胳膊下面，退进了里屋。为了平息混乱局面，一位商店经理大声喊道，在这么混乱的情况下不会卖货。
但疯狂的人群并没有被吓退。李先生解释说，邓小平抽的就是“熊猫”。
