Sheer Tenacity

Did you ever see Ice Age? Yes the cartoon. The funniest and most memorable character in there is the squirrel with the acorn. I saw a recent short of this squirrel before the showing of Madagascar, where he got his tongue frozen on to the bottom of an ice cliff over hanging miles of freefall, and he tried to pull himself up by his tongue. Not an easy feat in the cartoon case as his tongue had stretch to be double his body length and his paws couldn't even reach the ice shelf over head to get some additional grip. Clutching my aching stomach from laughing while I watch the squirrel in his sheer determination to get where he's going by swing on his tongue and finally getting a toe hold on the bottom of the ice shelf. I won't desribe the entire scene for you but this reminds me greatly of the sheer tenacity of the businessmen/women that have achieved success in China, despsite all the obstacles of policy, language, education, capital. I read a great story recently of Ms. Jiang Gui Lan, who exemplifies this tenacity that I've seen over and over in the small/medium businesses in china, in particular manufacturing. The story linked is in Chinese but I'll write my translation here:

Jiang Gui Lan attracted people's attention early this year. At that time, Zhejiangtai Province customs published 2004's import/export information, heading up the plastics mold industry is Wenlinsong Fulin Plastics Ltd. Jiang Gui Lan, is this company's founder. A local reporter interviewed this farming woman, the report is very moving. In May I was teaching at Zhejiang University, and read Jiang Gui Lan's story for the first time in a magazine that a friend gave me. In June I was in Tai Province on business, so I went to visit Songmen City and filled out the details to the Jiang Gui Lan story.

Even the beginning of the story is moving. "In March 1991, 28 year old Jiang Gui Lan borrowed 200,000 RMB high interest loans to start her own plastics mold factory. At the time, not only others, even she herself had no idea how living expenses was going to occur from here on out. Her circumstances are not great: parents were local farmers, she had no capital funding, no technology know-how and no connections; She was already married for 6 years and also had a 6 year old child to raise. The only thing that made her happy was that her fate was finally in her own hands."

She started with 3 used plastic molding machines, the earliest products being coolers used by sea fishermen. Manufactured products need to be sold, if you can't move it it needs to changed; if it's difficult to sell even after changes, then you throw the mold away and start over. 1995, Jiang Gui Lan had absolutely no eligibility to attend the trade show as a vendor, but stubbornly she "grinded" her way into the tradeshow floor. She dragged her samples, and talked to every single vendor there to beg them to allow her to "display". When she got to #125, a Ningbo Export's salesman from the same hometown was finally moved to say yes. He gave her 1/6 of the booth for 40,000 RMB. That tradeshow, Jiang Gui Lan closed two deals. The money she made just barely covered the expenses to attend the tradeshow.

Jiang Gui Lan gave out ten or so business cards to the importers who visited her booth. A few months later, a fax from North America came to Fulin Plastics, inquiring whether or not they can manufacture plastic knives, forks, and spoons. Jiang Gui Lan replied "yes". After sending the fax, she immediately started to develop the molds, create samples and very quickly snet products out to the US. Jiang Gui Lang had no idea that the plastics utensils she was making was supplied for use at KFC , and the US company that was ordering the products themselves were a supplier for KFC. Because they faced cost pressures, they were trying the road of outsourcing -- Fulin manufacture the products, ship to US factory, then shipped to KFC together with the Made in US utensils.

KFC found that in the boxes from the utensil supplier, some were neatly packaged and some were a bit more messy. The end of the investigation found that the neatly packaged utensils came from China Fulin. Then the Beijing KFC got a memo from US Headquarters to send specialists to Fulin Plastics to inspect the factory. Jiang Gui Lan told me, they did not pass the first inspection because they had no idea manufacturing plastic utensils needed to pass so many inspections. Jiang Gui Lan asked to be given one week's time. After 7 days, Fulin Plastics passed complete inspection including environment disinfecting, pest control etc 6 major categories and 59 individual regulations. Each item passed with over 80% score. KFC was satisfied because this kind of score is even better than US suppliers in the same industry.

At the end of 2003, the first trial delivery of 12 containers were sent to the US. After headquarter approval, KVC sent Jiang Gui Lan a $12M USD order -- Fulin Plastics formally started to supply products to KFC. Jiang Gui Lan laughed, "we pretty much spent all of the 2004 on this single order, we sent a total of 600 containers." This one year, Fulin Plastics formally became KFC's only Chinese supplier. At the same time, Fulin also started providing utensils to large corporations like Disney. In 2004, Fulin's product revenue surpassed 100M RMB, and became the large plastics molding company in Tai Province.

Getting into the international market has also forced JIang Gui Lan to pick up her high school English books. At that first tradeshow, "I relied on the person who gave me the space to discuss business, that's when I thought I have to learn English." After she got home, she bough <>and started self learning. She pulls it out everywhere she goes to read a few sentences. Her husband is very shocked: "you can't even speak Mandarin well and you plan to speak English!" In 2002, Jiang Gui Lan went to Shanghai to attend a English class, at the time she was 39. The year after Wenlin Export Group went to US to attend a tradeshow, unfortunately outside of Jiang Gui Lan herself, everyone else including the translator was unable to get a visa to the US. Jiang Gui Lan went to the Las Vegas tradeshow on her own, without a translator, and relying only on the few sentence of English she self taugh and closed hundred thousand dollar orders.

Jiang Gui Lan is only one of a large number of businessmen from Zhejiang. But, this farming woman's story of growing into an international supplier brought me, an economist, a lot of inspirations. First of all, is that the entrepenurial spirit is very important. What I mean by entrepenurial spirit is never being satisfied with the present; even through mountains of obstacles still determined to find a market opportunity that meets a need and realizes your own dreams. When she started, Jiang Gui Lan already had 10 years of working experience and also had the abilities to make a living. But she was not satisfied, and she had to take on the risk of the 200,000 RMB high interest loan to make a run for it in the market. In comparison, business planning was the less importat ingredient, because the entrepenurial spirit drives business planning's creation, correction, persistence and elevation. Without an abundant entrepenurial spirit, you cannot develop a market.

...

I didn't translate the rest of the article as it goes more into the writer's point of view on the circumstances for economics a little more.

I was personally very moved by this article and she is not a stand out. I've read tons of stories while I was in China about people exactly like her who went through obstacles that I cannot even imagine for more years that I've ever devoted to a single venture, especially a difficult one. This is why even with the less favorable business conditions in China, businesses will continue to be created and thrive. This is why the world market is being flooded with Made in China goods. This is also why I no longer get annoyed with the extremely persistent t-shirt salesmen along the Great Wall. Now what I see is a country's and a people's sheer determination to make something of themselves.