Unless you have been living as a mountain hermit, you have probably heard that business with Pacific Rim market is hot as hell. What they don't tell you is that it is also crazy as hell. I was in Beijing, on an exhausting reconnaissance mission for Wing Lam Enterprises to seek out new products for all of you. My gracious hosts, our WLE Chinese connection, had been leading me through the blistering Beijing heat and hustle for days. While a buying expedition in China may sound like the martial artist's dream come true, it can really a nightmare.
China is full of treasures, but it is buried under tons of dirt.
The dirt of more than one billion people, to be precise. Beyond this tiresome task of sifting through literally thousands of unmarketable products, the real challenge of Pacific Rim business lies within the cultural differences between China and the West. The first problem is how the West perceives the Chinese market. For example, take the only product that we had found during our first few days of shopping, our new telescopic straight swords . One big problem lies within how westerners perceive telescopic swords.