Hello. I think I can answer your questions for you as I have taught in Kunming in the past. First of all, yes there are clothing stores, duh. What do you think they wear there, rags? You also mentioned fakes, in case you haven't done any research on China before, the country is full of fake items.
Also, of course you are going to notice a wide range of perspectives of living in China. It's an opinion. Some people may hate it and others love it. It's whatever you make out of it. There maybe some venting going on in the blogs about bad things and frustrating things. It's all true, it's China. It operates in no way like what you are probably used to. When I taught there we didn't even know our school schedule until about 2 days before. Finals schedule was pretty much undetermined until the last mintue, just like everything else in China, backwards.