A "specialist" furniture industry professionals blog, with valuable insights & comments for furniture dealers, buyers agents, factories and buyers of manufactured furniture, case goods, lighting, antique furniture or ethnic home furnishings. (muebles chinos antiguos, mobilia cinese antica, Chinois - chinesische Möbel der Antike) Antiques and Reproducties, gerestoreerde, herwerkte,

26 November 2007

Brits Get Rich In China!

Posted by Roger under: Business in China; Humorous; Bad Suppliers .

“Hilarious. Absolutely Brilliant. And a dead-on accurate depiction of what REALLY occurs in China.”

As China develops (well, some parts of China anyways) and Starbucks Coffee keeps putting up more coffee shops (Did you know there are already 55 in Beijing alone?), its easy to forget what really lays just beneath the surface. For all the talk of the “fast pace of development” once you leave Starbucks, nothing really has changed very much. And unfortunately, since ACF China does not deal in Frappuccinos, these are exactly the kind of antics we face with everyday. Heck, any one of these guys could be our vendors! Which is why this documentary which aired in the UK on Channel 4, sometime back in May, is just absolutely brilliant (I stumbled upon it on the “lostlaowai” blog) and worth taking a look at.

The story follows the mishaps, bumps and setbacks of three British businessmen as they set out to do business in China. From the “trash-talking Vance,” who can’t seem to get a word out without some amount of profanity slipped in, to “Tony” the king of cushions this program really… well, actually it almost leaves me speechless - because (I kid you not) it really is this way doing business here.

If you want to see what ACF goes through to get product to our dear & wonderful customers (yes, we are talking about you), then take a look - you will enjoy it - you will laugh your head off - and MAYBE even next time there is that ever so small little ding on that cabinet in your latest container.. .. well maybe
you even cut us a little slack

Some kind fellow has broken the documentary into 7 parts and posted on youtube. In case they embedded videos are not loading here, I have added the links to each of the 7 parts here separately.

Enjoy!