When Juan Carlos extended the invitation to me…I said YES and nodded my head. This time I am ready. It’s my turn to be on the swing and fly to reach for the stars. I am ready to participate in a much smaller regional sourcing trip like Yiwu…and hopefully in the future, I will get the chance to go for international sourcing trip to France which I rejected earlier last month :) I hopped on the plane with Juan Carlos, Rufus & Edward. And then, our Yiwu adventure begins :)
Yiwu is famous for its small commodity trade and vibrant free markets and is a regional tourist destination. It is more well known as China's number one producer of fashion jewelry. It is the largest market of petty commodity wholesales in the world where various foreign buyers go to place orders. Yiwu is located 100km south of the city of Hangzhou (a 2 hours car ride), and is famous in China as a commodities center. The city has for 6 consecutive years topped China's 100 top open markets and was for successive years listed as China's civilized open market. It has been named as the banner of China's market economy and with a large variety of quality but cheaper commodities, the market has become a shopping paradise for tourists. The event and exhibition hall was even bigger than the MIFF event which I attended last month at PWTC. It was such an eye-opener for me. As it was a petty general merchandise commodity trade event – we source a lot for stocklot items and came up with many themes for our future Trade Marketing Fair (it's our secret weapon) – What’s New, Flat Price, Stainless Steel Fair, Outdoor Fair etc. So excited for these themes and our planned hit & run strategies. It will surely knock off our competitors. We are back in the business :)
The Chinese are very rich in material, they have luxury infrastructure, they have expensive buildings, they eat lavishly, they dressed in branded clothes and they drive in classy cars. In Yiwu city, everyone drives either a BMW or Audi. Their BMWs consumption are like our local Proton & Myvi cars here. They are cheap & everywhere. I say that this is all the Malaysian government fault for imposing such high taxes on us, which prevent us from buying luxury cars at a lower rate. This is because we need to protect out Proton & Perodua who is incapable to compete at the global market. If Yiwu people are living so richly…so just imagine the Chinese who lives in Shanghai or Beijing where the standard of living there is even more higher. But one thing that turns me off is their mentality & attitude. They still spit everywhere, they still smoke like there is no tomorrow even though they are in an air-condition room that have the No Smoking sign hanging around everywhere, their toilets have improved though; doors are actually installed but they still have no proper toilet hygiene - the ladies do no wrap their sanitary napkins, they just dispose them off just like that; piece by piece, so just imagine; entering the toilet with such a strong stench & seeing blood (so disgusting, i nearly fainted) and they still talk so loud as though they are in a Pasar Malam. No wonder, I never have the interest or the desire to visit China even though I am a Chinese myself. I have never feel the connection. I think its a culture thingy...they still have a long way to go.
It’s still winter over there and it’s cold. We work from morning till evening. We walk all day long. Visiting as many booths as possible as we were chasing time since our schedule was also very tight as well. I didn’t even get to explore the city as a tourist. Half way through, I fell sick. And have been self-medicating my flu + sore throat + cough. Blaming on the horrible cold + windy weather when we were outside and then the warm temperature when we were indoors which we’ve been experiencing.
When I got back to KL, wish I could just stay at home and do nothing but watch movies, catch-up on some reading and eat mum’s porridge, but as usual; I have unavoidable work deadlines, and other meetings which I might as well try to keep if I’m going to pretend that I’m not sick.
Overall this has been a good business trip. I learned lots and I experienced lots :)
I counted my blessings for today, and I was grateful for all that was good in my life :)
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