One Bad Product, A Close Call

The new Yintian hotel in Liuyang is another steal. Great room, way up near the top, super view of Liuyang, with an honest-to-Buddha pagoda all lit up on top of a little hill across the river from me, overlooking the town and the river. The room comes with not one, but two free breakfasts, every day. You wanna bring a friend to breakfast? No problem; it’s on the house.

And what a breakfast. Everything imaginable from regular ole Western eggs and suchlike, to a huge variety of fruits and Chinese food.  Matt steers me over to the dim sum, little steamed packets of orgasmic stuff of every shape and taste imaginable. I’ve had ‘em back home, but believe me; the stuff that passes for Chinese food in the US is NOT!

Hey, I have to fess up: I didn’t come over here to look at fireworks. I came here to do some serious eating. And when even the hotel food is incredible, you know you’re in the right place. If you come to Liuyang in Hunan, be forewarned, it can be hot schtuff, as you will see.

After chewing the fireworks fat over dim sum and coffee, Matt and I headed next door to his office. While he met with his staff, I got to work checking packaging and labels, and testing the samples they had gathered for me of each different product in my current order, as well as some first-pass prototypes. Most of this was stuff like sparklers and poppers, so I just tested right there in the office with a window open to get rid of the smoke.

You need to understand Liuyang is a Fireworks Town. People test anything, anywhere. It’s the way it’s done. Nobody complains. It ain’t like where we live. Nosireebob.

I found some problems. Some with product performance, some with packaging, and one product I just don’t like the look of. Not one bit. I make notes, take photos, decide what changes have to be made.

For some of the items, all I have to do is give Matt a list of changes, and they will get done without any further work on my part. Other changes cannot be made this time. We’ll have to make the changes next time; production is too far along, and we definitely want my container to ship around the end of the month. But we find a couple of problems and opportunities that we really need to go to the factories to work through.

So, Matt, Annie-our funny and fabulous translator, and I head off to visit factories. Now, some of the products I’m buying are fireworks, but many are not. And, in some cases, I’m not going tell you exactly what we were looking at, because, frankly I don’t want my competitors knowing about these new products before we get them. The first stop is for one of my secret products.

Matt had gotten some samples from one factory for this product. To me, everything about them was wrong. The packaging sucked. The product didn’t look good. They didn’t work consistently. Basically, they were just made sloppily, and obviously without any love.

They were so crappy, I told Matt I wouldn’t take them. Not only have I rejected the product, but I think it’s so bad, that I don’t even want to get the manufacturer to try and fix it. It’s that bad. Two weeks to go before my container ships, and I have just rejected 25% of what goes into it. This is a big deal.

So, now we’ve arrived at a restaurant out in the country to have lunch with the woman who owns another factory that makes this product. (I have high hopes their quality is superior.) Now, I could write a whole blog post just about any one of the meals we get here. The locals laughed at me taking lots of pictures of what to them is commonplace and ordinary. But there’s one from lunch that you need to see: steamed fish completely covered in a nice crust of crushed red pepper. Also swimming in about half an inch of red pepper and chili oil. I think they only left the head and eyes alone we’d know who we were eating.

This is how you meet the people you’re going to buy from—over eye and mouth-watering firecracker fish and tea. It’s very much part of the process over here. They meet you and they feed you.

Annie handles a slew of questions I have for the factory owner. I get good vibes. The owner, a woman, looks me in the eye when she talks. She’s straight, no b/s. I think I see integrity. Auspicious. I really want the product her factory makes. In a big way. This one visit is the most important one of the trip for me.

We leave the restaurant and drive over to her factory. We get a tour of the production areas. I snap millions of pictures, to the eternal glee of the (mostly) women there doing the work. This product has a lot of parts, some of them very small. I see a lot of attention to detail. I see people looking at the parts carefully, checking how they fit together, clipping and trimming off stray bits. Best of all, I see big boxes and bags of rejects, at every workstation. That is a very good sign.

I see the product finally assembled, and look at them. Carefully. I know this product already; so I know what it should look like when done well and finished. This product is done well.

The owner lady takes us to the testing area with a big box of products. Cups of tea come, and big plate of pomelo sections. Always food and tea. Always. The samples come in a lotta colors and configurations. We test them all. Matt has never actually seen one these work they way they are ‘sposed to. I wait with bated breath for the first one to be lit. Hoping. Hoping it’ll work right.

It lights, it does its thing, and it is absolutely flawless!

And we light one after another, and they all perform perfectly. I am happy. Really happy. More than any of the products in our order this time, I have come half way around the world to get this particular one right. Four hours ago, I had rejected our order for the product completely. Now, we have an excellent product and, after some haggling and compromise, a promise from the owners that they can get my order for 200 cases finished by the end of the month! In time for our scheduled shipment.

This has made my whole trip worth it. I know this product. I know how much people like it. And I know how to sell a lot of them. And as far as I know, nobody else in the US has them. So, if I can get my hands on this first 200 cases, I can do what I like to do best in this business—marketing. I know who wants the product, how to reach them, and how to sell them. It’s just getting a good, solid product that remains. And it looks good in that respect. It’s never a sure thing over here, of course. Something can still go wrong. But at least we have all the pieces in place.

So, after many smiles, hand-shakes, and thank-you’s, off we go to visit a new sparkler factory.

Here’s a puzzle for you.  It has two parts: What do you think the red things are, and what are they doing? First person to post a comment with the right answer to both parts wins a ????? I’ll give you the answer next time.

Harry Gilliam
Chief Cook & Bottle Washer

Mao’s Alarm Clock

On the Ground in Hunan Province

Signs here are often in Chinese and English.  That can be a good thing.  Especially, like me, if you don’t understand the language and are cursed with an innate fear of abandonment at all airports.  (Hey, it’s happened to me!)

For instance, as I entered the Shenzhen airport yesterday, I was immediately put at ease by this reassuring brass sign posted right over the front door.

Even the Chinese have their problems with terrorists.  So, it’s good to know that the Shenzhen airport was not one where you have to worry about such things.

There was, of course, a little glitch with the plane, but they managed to put me and about 120 of my Chinese friends on a spare one they had lying around out on the pavement.  Bused us all to it.  I got on, and because the flight from Shenzhen to Changsha is only an hour, the flight attendants scrambled to get us all something to munch on.  I was happy to receive a drink of something claimed to be tea, and a pack prominently labeled in big-lettered, easy-to-read English:  “Aviation Food.”

Again, that was comforting to me.  I was definitely glad they didn’t send any of the other kinds of food along on my flight.  I want the real stuff.  Good, wholesome aviation food—manna in heaven (although some call it rice cake).

Landed late in the day in Changsha.  Weather was cool, but not really cold, and for the first time in three trips in as many years, I actually saw the sun for the first time.  What strikes one immediately here, is the amount of air-pollution.  I have never seen blue skies in China.  Not once in a total of six weeks of travel. 

So, seeing the sun setting in Changsha was an event.

As usual, too much to take in on my ride through town.  I did however, appreciate the big neon sign archway over the entrance to “Business Street” so I would know what they do on that particular street. 

Got to the hotel, a stupendous place.  My absolutely luxurious 18th floor room cost about what some Super 8s in the US do.  Had yet another great Chinese dinner (check out the desert rice/sugar/spice thingy) and headed up to my room early.  Around 9, the doorbell rang, and two pretty girls were there to wish me good night with a complementary basket of fruit and cocktail tomatoes.  Wonderful hotel.  About 80 bucks.  Back home, it’d run you $300-$500 in any big American city.

Caught up some email and did some real work before turning in.  Around 3 AM, the clock radio went off.  I reached for it, but there wasn’t any clock radio.  But Chinese flute music was playing.  Loud.  From outside! 

At 3 AM.  In the street…moving down the street.  From a loudspeaker on a car or truck.  Weird, Chinese flute music being played on the street, while everything else was quiet as a church mouse.  Well, thank God it was heading down the street, and fading.  What the hell was THAT about?  Tried to drift back to sleep.

Zzzzzz…. That FLUTE again!  Coming back.  What IS this?  At 3 o’clock in the morning.  This went on for 10 minutes, back and forth up the street, then finally stopped.

Zzzzzz…. Took two hours to finally get back to sleep. I never did figure out what it was about.  Maybe a holdover from the days when Mao figured out a way to keep people from sleeping in too late for work.

You know what?  It works!  I was fully awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, pecking away writing this post at 3:15 AM.  That Mao.  He knew.  He knew.

Which birds’ nest for supper?

Well, it’s morning here in Hong Kong.  As I look out my window here, the harbor is buzzing.  A cruise ship is docked at the pier out front.  Another one being pushed into the dock by a tug.  The funny looking, old-timey Star Ferry running it’s ten minute trips back and forth between Kowloon and Hong Kong.  The turbo jet ferries heading down the coast to Zhu Hai and Shenzhen.  Freighters, tugs, junks (still!), and container ships going back and forth.  It really looks like a busy street out there, there’s so much ocean traffic.  All with the magnificent backdrop of the sun just touching the tips of the skyscrapers with the peak in the back of them.  Past couple of days had nothing to do with actual fireworks; more about being a tourist and an antiques addict.

Even managed to snag a bunch of dragon eyes to munch on and had ‘em for breakfast this morning.  You can’t get good dragon eyes in Round Hill, Virginia.  Just peel a good dragon eye, and pop it in your mouth.  Doesn’t get any better than this.

You see the damnedest things in Hong Kong. Like the street with all the birds’ nest shops.  Dozens of them.  Open Sunday, even.  Guys sitting right inside the doorway, waiting for somebody to come by and get a nice birds nest for supper.

I can just hear it now:  ‘Oh, and honey?’  my little woman chirps.

‘Yeah?’  says I, on the way out the door to run a couple of errands.

‘Honey, would you pick up some birds’ nests on the way home?’

‘Sure, babe. Not a problem. What kind you want this time?’ ever the doting, caring husband, chimes I.

‘mmmm’  we had crows’ nests last week.  Let’s do swallows.’  She’s such a great kid, sometimes.  She knows swallows are my favorite.

‘Okey dokey.  52 swallows’ nests, coming right up.’  And I am out the door, heading down the hill to get the dry cleaning, and hit the money machine.  I’m finished in record time, and jag left up a side street.  There it is, the swallows’ nest shop.

My pal, Sue Choi, is sitting just inside the door picking feathers and stuff out of a pale white, translucent nest.  Takes her about a half an hour per nest.  But when she’s finished, they’re clean as a whistle.  That’s why I shop here.  I think they have the cleanest nests on the street. 

Cheap, they ain’t.  Oh, I can get cheaper ones, the nests that still have the little baby bird down in them. 

And my brother-in-law’s uncle’s cousin says you can’t taste the difference.

Bull.  Those feathers have that little-birdy taste.  And who the hell wants little baby bird down fluffing up the top of their soup?  Not I, said the fly.  Nope.  I’ll pay twice as much to get Sue Choi’s handpicked nests any day.

And those nests are just like consumer fireworks.  You probly think that we just drive up to the big ole fireworks Costco here in China, point at what we want, and then they ship it back to the good ole US of A, whereupon we mark it up 200 times and foist it off on you.

Not quite.  Other than marking it up that much, it ain’t that easy.  Nosireebob.

(By the way, in less time than it took me to write what you’ve read so far, two whole cruise ships have parked themselves at the dock out front. 

Look.   Hey, I never knew it takes 10 or 12 guys and a tug boat to tie up a big ship.  And they can do it in about 5 minutes.)

Nope.  Somebody has to make sure that every single little detail is looked after.  Little things like making sure the tips of the finished sparklers are dipped in a black powder slurry prime so they’ll light easier. 

But’s an extra step.  It costs.  And somebody has to make sure the factory does it. 

Which is why ‘brands’ of fireworks are a good thing.  Brands are something you can rely on.  Because, whether you know it or not, somebody is picking at all the little details to make sure every single type of firework is done right.

And you cannot imagine the work that goes into making just one kind of firework thing, one fountain, for instance, and getting it all the way to you, safely and legally.  It is amazing.  And what’s more amazing to me is that they are so cheap, even after we mark them up 600 times.

And like the feathery birds’ nests, you definitely can get cheaper fireworks than the branded variety. But, you can also depend on the cheaper ones having more problems, performing less reliably, and not looking as good.

Now, I doubt if I took this whole trip to describe all the things that go into making one type of consumer firework, I doubt if I could do justice to describing everything that goes into that one’all the people, effort, R&D, testing, compliance, packaging, shipping, etc.  But I will give you a shot of some of it, as we go along together.

I’m leaving Hong Kong today, and going into Hunan, the province with more fireworks factories than any other place on the planet.  I’ll meet up with Matt Palaszynski, who picks the feathers out of the fireworks that Skylighter imports.  He’s an Americano, married to a Chinese lady he met when he worked over here for GE. 

Now, he’s another fireworks man.

I used to buy from one of the big brands.  They make great fireworks.  But now I get everything through Matt, because he gives me really personal service, and helps me get all the weird and wonderful things that fireworks makers want.  He manages the whole process for me, and is a terrific host when I’m in Liuyang, to boot.  And Matt and I have fun doing this.  We’re both fireworks nuts (how could you be in this crazy business and not be?)  And we like working on getting new stuff made and into your hot little hands.

God willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll post another one of these tomorrow (internet connections are painfully slow here).  Maybe tell you about how good dragon eyes taste.

By the way, there’s free potassium nitrate at Skylighter again. Click here to check it out.

Harry Gilliam
Chief Cook & Bottle Washer