“Time is fast when you’re having fun” –
Modern Chinese Proverb from Jay*
*Jay is one of the Chinese students at Suzhou that we made friends
with. He was really nervous to meet us
at first, but we soon learned he had a really joyful spirit and loved having
fun.
Starting Sunday, a second group of students and faculty joined us from
the states, to complete the total number of students at 25. This group included 2 more faculty advisors
and 8 students from the Apparel Studies program at the U of A. This has added
some interesting dynamics to the trip, from a number of angles. Academically, we’ve been doing business
visits that have relevance to both groups. Which means that, amongst learning
about the business aspects of the apparel industry, I’ve gotten an overview
education of what goes into making some of the clothes we wear, from design to
display. From a social perspective, our group almost doubled in size with 12
new faces. So it’s been fun as we start the social mixing process again; and
after this first of two weeks is almost over, we’re really becoming integrated
and having a fun time. The arrival of the second group introduced an
interesting challenge to us business students though. As we draw near to the end of our 2nd
week in the country, we’re close to all out of new clothes. The first week it didn’t really matter, but
now the apparel studies majors are
all here, so the pressure’s on.
Personally, I’m keeping a special outfit in reserve to bring out in case
of any sort of Apparel Studies final exam.
As I mentioned above, we’ve been doing some apparel-oriented business
visits over the last few days in Hong Kong, and one more today in Guangzhou. In
Hong Kong, we had the privilege of visiting Christy’s Group and Li & Fung. Christy’s Group makes costumes of all shapes
and sizes for sale all over the world, with the U.S. and the U.K. being some of
their biggest markets. Li & Fung is a 16+ billion dollar company that does
a ton of stuff, with apparel manufacture, shipping, and distribution being a
big part of their business. That was an especially informative session, and we
got some really good information both about apparel and business. An example from the business side of things
was the new sourcing and logistics issues Li & Fung faces as a result of
increasing manufacturing costs in China. Due to increasing wages in China,
sources are having to be found inland in China and even other countries in
order to maintain cost competitiveness. Those moves bring up a whole new set of
political, logistic, and manufacturing issues. But the trend of increased
manufacturing costs in China doesn’t seem to be one that will be reversing in
the near future. So these kinds of issues, and many others with them, are types
of business issues that our generation will be facing.
Visiting the other business, Christy’s Group (they’re the ones who make
Halloween costumes), was a lot of fun (all treats, no tricks). Actually, this
company designs and manufactures costumes of every type, although Halloween
does account for about 70% of their business. We had the chance to visit their
showroom in Hong Kong, and their offices and manufacturing site in
Guangzhou. It was very cool to hear
about the business aspects behind costume making. For instance, did you know
that costumes are not classified as apparel items? If not apparel, then what,
you ask? The correct answer is that they are… Toys! As any US apparel import
customs official would gladly tell you as he sent you over to the toy line to
get your item approved.
An amazing thing, though, was getting to see Christy’s offices and
manufacturing facility. We got to fly over the production process from product
design, to sampling, to fabric purchasing, to cutting, to sowing, to finishing,
to inspecting, and finally to packaging and shipping. Have you ever seen a time
lapse of a rose going from bud to full bloom? That’s kind of the way I feel
about today’s experience, except switch the rose for a pretty pink dress. We
watched so many complex process going on to bring a single costume design to
sample completion, let along mass production, and also got to see the finished
results. And boy howdy are there
results. The factory we visited today said they completed production of 4,000
pretty pink dress costumes a day
(that’s from fabric to finished dress).
And that was just one of the product lines, among a half dozen others
they also were completing that day in similar quantities. So many costumes.
Wrapping up the section on Christy’s Group, I wanted to make some joke
about how Professor Aloysius should get a Captain Hook costume and Professor
Peters should get a Peter Pan costume to go to classes in to promote the trip
next year. I couldn’t figure out how to
make it make sense for the whole potential audience though. But for those of
you who know Dr. Peters and Dr. Aloysius, just imagine that for a second, and see
if it doesn’t make you laugh.
I’ll leave you with a final thought as a postscript; in case you just
want to stop reading after that last mental image I subjected you to,
haha. Thanks for tuning in again, Z-man
out!
P.S. I had this thought today looking out the bus window: Driving over
a bridge outside Guangzhou on the way to Shenzhen, I have an incredible view of
the surrounding landscape. The sight is
amazing, as we seem to be going over a body of water that may be a lake, or may
be the ocean. The bridge goes on for
miles ahead, and miles behind, much like bridges in Louisiana surrounding New
Orleans. All around the borders (where I
can see them, otherwise the water just stretches on), small mountains rise like
a rough edged bowl. The sky is spread
with a golden orange blanket of light flowing over the boarders of the clouds
and spilling onto the water below as the sun sets. And under it all, though, a sickly white haze
shrouds the ground. It makes what should
be the spectacular views of the distant mountains’ edges indistinct and
blurred, as though one is viewing a landscape artist’s masterpiece through a
clouded window pane. More crudely, I feel as though this is similar to an
allergy medicine commercial. I am thinking of a commercial when they have a
distortion on the lens that makes the surroundings seem unclear and grey, until
the moment when the medicine is supposed to have kicked in. Then, the distortion is removed as if it is
being peeled off like a film, revealing luscious colors and the delightful
brightness of the sun. I wish it were
possible that the haze could be peeled back from this lake, this city, this
country; and reveal the exotic beauty suppressed within the fog.
