A Friend in Town

This past week, a friend of a friend made a trip out to Guizhou. Abby, a current Fulbright scholar studying renewable energy at Tsinghua University, wanted to conduct some research in rural China. As such, with the help of Stone, we undertook to see whether we could jump onto a student trip that was heading to San Yuan (3 元）, one of the poorer villages in the region.

Sounds simple right?

Not really. As it turns out, doing investigative work is quite difficult in China, and as a foreigner, there are many different hoops one must jump through before the government will grant you permission to do much of anything. Long story short, we were barely allowed to go on the trip, and this wasn’t without some severe restrictions placed upon us. With a bit of cunning, however, we were able to get around the most severe restrictions- I’ll blog more about this in a subsequent entry.

Anyways- I have to admit- I really wasn’t expecting much coming into the trip. After having already spent a decent amount of time in the countryside, I really wasn't sure what more to expect. In the end, however, the experience was positively delightful.



The area was gorgeous, the college students were down-to-earth and welcoming, and the kids… oh.. the kids. Let's just say- before this trip, I thought I was light years away from wanting to have my own- but now, it may no longer be such a stretch...




(Abby with two of the college students)

Since we weren’t allowed to do investigations, Abby and I taught English to the youth.




(Note that its mostly girls in class- the boys just go off and do their own thing)

Probably the highlight of our trip- our intrepid student leader, Xiao Ping, was constantly bugging us to come up with a performance. We were under the assumption that in accordance with local customs, we would be doing some small song-and-dance in front of some villagers and perhaps a gov't official or two. We brainstormed a few ideas- perhaps a skit on American historical events, or maybe a simple Bollywood dance. Eventually, Xiaoping let us know that the local government officials were requesting that we sing in Chinese. This is when I started to figure that this wouldn't be some ordinary fireside gathering. Being the music prodigy that she is, Xiao Ping then embarked to teach us a Chinese folk song called "茉莉花" or “Jasmine Flower.”


(Getting my makeup on with some of the dudes)


(Practicing)


(With some of the local girls who performed)

As it turns out, it really wasn’t some small-village performance. In fact, it was a pretty big deal - the County's first-ever county-wide cultural exhibition festival. Many of the local government officials were in attendance and despite the rain, nearly 1,000 people turned up to watch the show. To make things even more interesting, we were even interviewed by the provincial television station. Click the link below and scroll to around the 2/3rd mark...

Rob and Abby On Guizhou TV!
http://www.longli.gov.cn/shipin_0727.asp






(Afterwards, with Xiao Ping)

On balance, this was definitely one of the most memorable experiences of my trip thus far. The culture in the region is so rich, and the people exceedingly warm. I definitely hope to come back to the region at some point. I also learned a lot about what it means to build Guangxi ("relations") at the local government level. Stay tuned for a deeper analysis on this topic.

So Now What?

Last week, I left for a trip to Guizhou’s countryside. The purpose: to find a compelling story in the region that would entice consumers of organic products in the United States to a buy Guizhou- produced organic tea. The results of the trip are as follows:

a) Guizhou’s countryside is gorgeous (see pictures)
b) The farmers and tea companies are poorly organized
c) The farmers were a bit better off than I expected- while not rich by any means, not entirely destitute either
d) The indigenous minority cultures were not really involved in the tea-growing process (a hopeful CSR angle)
e) The tea is of good quality, with special health attributes (natural Zinc and Selenium), but has little name recognition, even in China
f) The tea companies in the region are more concerned with building market share in China than exporting to the rest of the world.



The conclusion was that there wasn’t a clear cut-and-dry CSR story that I could use to build a brand around. In other words, for Guizhou organic tea to be competitive, it needed to stand mostly on its own merits.

As such, I can’t say I blame the locals for wanting to stay domestic. After all, when considering that the initial investment costs for exporting to a foreign market, from obtaining international certifications to finding a domestic partner, are prohibitively expensive, it makes it highly unlikely that a loosely-organized and resource- poor band of farmers and tea companies could hope to make a dent in the rapidly developing US market.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but feel that the region is missing out on a great opportunity, which would also allow them to also avoid intense domestic competition from the more established Chinese brands from Yunnan, Zhejiang, Guangdong, etc. During my research phase, I found that the market for US tea (dollar-wise) is surprisingly(!) not significantly smaller than that of the China market. While the China market is growing faster than the US market, the US market is still in heavy development mode, with more and more consumers slowly shifting toward healthy products, and knowledge of the health benefits of tea quickly developing.



Therefore, my revised goal is to help the farmers, tea companies, and government to collaborate and form co-operatives in order to achieve a more cohesive market approach. While co-operatives have the advantage of saving on input costs through group purchases, I believe their biggest advantage lies in their ability to devise a unified marketing image and message which it can promote to the masses. The branding of Guizhou tea as a uniquely different, high-quality, great-tasting drink laden with special health attributes will be the key differentiator in whether or not they can export to other markets.

We will see how effective these efforts will be. After all, getting organizations to work together with minimal government interference is difficult in a country whose governing body, for the last 5,000 years or so of history, can loosely be described as ‘hierarchical’ and ‘bureaucratic.’

God help me.

Update from the Countryside

After 10 hours of crazy driving in Guiyang, I'm currently in Fenggang County, visiting various agricultural farms in the region. I must say, it's pretty awesome being here. The air is clean and beautiful, and its very scenic. I must say though, the farmers here are fairly well off compared to other counties (which I have yet to see, btw). There is a lot of eco-tourism that takes place here, so combined with the various tea farms are very decent lodging that would definitely garner a place in a China Lonely Planet.

Anyways- our days are usually packed pretty full (lots of conversation, eating, meetings, etc.) I'll add pictures and movies later.

In the meantime- below is a video of what its like to watch the World Cup at the school I'm staying at. Since most students don't have TV's in their rooms, a bunch crowd into the cafeteria to watch the games. I find it interesting how students clap to show their support for good plays, even though they're not rooting for any particular team. The excitement in the air is generally very palpable, unfortunately this game (Arg v Ger) was a blowout, so it wasn't particularly exciting: