Lumenlab Goes to China

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First, I want to thank my peeps for posting some quality stuff while I was gone. I’m Heavy Duty! fans appreciate it!

My brother Grayson and I went to China this past week to meet with a factory that is a new partner for us. We also had the opportunity to meet in person with our rep from another, long-time supplier to Lumenlab.

It’s a long trip from the east coast of the US to inland China (over 24 hours), but it was definitely worth it. I had talked to several companies that import from China and work with manufacturers there and every one of them said “you have to go there.” In person, we were able to quickly get answers to our outstanding questions; get agreement on product details, delivery dates, production capacity; see the factory in action, and much more.

One morning we got a tour of the home appliance market in the Chenghuang district. (See pic below) This area was massive with block after city block filled with very small shops. These shops are primarily wholesale storefronts for various domestic brands of everything electronic, from speakers, to personal media players, to spare parts. It was a strange commercial environment unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the US, sort of an ongoing product expo.

On top of all that our excellent hosts made sure we got to see a lot of what is great about their home town, Chengdu. This major city is known as a “place for relaxing” according to our hosts. Wikipedia has a great page about Chengdu.

One of the non-business highlights was seeing the Sichuan Opera (Chinese language only site, but great pics!). It was less opera than I expected, and more like a variety show with a “cinema and draft” type atmosphere. There were loose chairs and tables with peanuts and non-stop tea. There also were people walking around and performing massages. One of them grabbed Grayson’s shoulders and said “massage-y? massage-y?” G shrugged him off and then he moved over to me. I thought “why not?” and let him proceed to beat the crap out of me while I sat in my bamboo chair. At one point he even had his fingers stuck in my ears and was mashing my head all over the place. To be honest, it was slightly nauseating, but somehow when it was all over I felt great.

It’s a good thing I was loosened up because about an hour into the show these knife throwing jokers came on stage and before I knew it I was drafted to go up there too. The basic set up was that the thrower wasn’t very good so the “target” decided to get someone else from the audience. Even though we were sitting in the middle all the way in the back I had a feeling it would be one of us. We were the only two laowai in the whole joint. So, I get up there and they first let me hold the knives and confirm that they are the real deal. Then, as I lean against the board one of the guys gets right in my face and says to me in his best, clearest english: “Take it easy. Take it easy.” Will do. Then, the thrower says something that I can only guess equated to “One! Two! Thre… Wait a minute, put the hood over his head.” Then, the count off again, quickly followed by the sound of two knives sticking into the board, close to my body. They remove the hood so I can see what happened. This went on a few times as I stood there essentially blindfolded, and the audience roared with laughter.

Then finally, they pulled out a balloon. Well, I knew right away where that would end up. Will it balance on his head? No. Maybe his shoulder? No. I know, let’s put it between his knees. Just when he was ready to throw he tells his partner to move it up a little higher. Oh yeah, put the hood back on. Pow! At this point I’m just glad to have the hood on. They take it off one last time and have me stand back and look at the board. I applaud their work. They each shake hands with me. We three join hands and take a big bow. As I’m walking back to my seat people on the aisles are giving me the thumbs up and clapping like crazy. I get back to my seat and Grayson says “you know what was going on, right?” “Uh, no. What?” “The thrower would count and his partner would just stick the knives in the board on cue.” “Oh, right.” It was fun, and one guy even came up to shake my hand in the street after the show. “You are a star!” he said, I think.

Have some tea, play mahjong or cards with some friends, and relax. You’re in Chengdu. (Grayson getting his tea buzz on at the Wenshu Monastery.)