It seems to me that some bright iPhone programmer could develop a location-aware app called “Designers in China”. Designers register at Core77 and leave your GPS activated while traveling in China. You could pull up the app on your phone and see which pub or KTV lounge the design crowd is populating that night.
That would be great. When I was in Hong Kong it was a revolving door of US designers coming through. Since many designer head straight into China now the number must be huge.
That would be awesome. Sorta like foursquare for designers. I always like to play the “which brand are those guys from?” game trying to guess based on look, shoes, language, etc.
Btw, my awesome powers of deduction were correct. Met the NB group last nite. It was a pretty easy call. 5 Americans, two pairs of NB, one pair of PFs and a guy with a redsox hat
I was there two weeks ago and stayed at the “Depo Hotel”. It was nothing spectacular but, what do you really expect in Fuzhou / Putian? All you can hope for is a good breakfast buffet and a non smoking room.
but pronounce it like “shan-gureela” or your taximan will be doing circles for hours.
80usd per night i think, opposite concert hall and near enough to the main drag, stores and a few nice coffee bars with wifi. gym is not too bad either.
I agree this should be a keeper… but in the “Footwear & Softgoods” section?
Some of us non-shoe guys might not find it except when it pops-up on the home page. I wonder if there is a better way for Core77 to do this. An online calendar with names/locations so you don’t have to read the whole thread to see who is where - when. I would use it when I’m in Shenzhen or Shanghai.
I guess I figured the thread would be more specific to footwear people in China, given they would likely all be around the same places (ie. Dongguan/Houjie, or Fuzhou/Putian) or even in the same ftys…
Though I can see that others may also go to China and want to connect. The difficulty is that once it is opened-up, you also need to include other places in the world, and it would get unmanageable quickly unless there was a thread for every single country.
I think that perhaps the footwear travel is somewhat more location/interest focused, it might be best to keep it where it’s at. If enough other demand for other industries/locations, we could explore it. That or link to another service like Tripit, etc.
I’m open though if there are other ideas. My basic thought is not that footwear is particularly special, or necessarily needs to be treated differently, just that it is a more focused group with more things than in common than perhaps other ID sub-genres/travel places so treating it different is easier implemented.
Ha I just got back from China about two weeks ago. The brazilian bbq at the royal lagoon is a must hit spot at least once a trip. what are you working on while your there?
as an aside, have you been running into ‘worker shortage’ problems?
BBQ at Royal Lagoon is quite good. I was working on development of a new brand at a top fty in the area that also makes Adidas, Puma, Ecco, etc. Would prefer not to share the fty name, but most probably are familiar with it.
I haven’t directly been affected by the labor shortage, though did hear of the issues from the fty manager. From what I saw in not peak season, the fty was doing alright, still at about 80% capacity with 7 of 9 lines currently running (I think).
Hi… Will be hitting Dongguan 14th April… Staying at Haiyatt Garden in Downtown DG… (NOT IN HOIUJE… yuk!)
Check out the Golden Spoon - Taiwanese restaurant - Good Clean (no oil) food.
Also Saigon in Hoiuje - Vietnamese…
Yeah I was talking to a few people different fty managers, trading co. guys etc. they all seemed to say they were having worker shortages everywhere. From what I could get out of it, it has to do with govt stimulus building roads trains and then ftys moving inland to capture cheaper land. Some of them were doing about 50% outsource stitching in N. China, and then the lasting/assembly in DG.
Most of the places I went to had capacity around 70%, but I assumed labor situation must be a little worse because delivery dates kept getting pushed further back. I talked to a guy from Vietnam said the same thing, plenty of orders, but nobody can hit delivery dates. It just seemed to be the issue on everybody’s mind didn’t matter what type of fty (vulc, mold shop, eva, sneaker, sandal etc.). But yes, I was mostly in DG this trip.
Hope your trip is going well and that you travel safely.