The following link is a good article on China’s long history of scissor making. http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/business-22160739 .   It’s older than our country and still is not a brand outside China but it looks like they are starting to export more and more.  This covers and interest aspect of import and export and you must know your target market.  These scissors are high quality and have multiple uses but does not meet the needs of the US market for example.  From the article the US prefers longer blades and shorter handles and the Chinese market requires short blades and larger handles.  All of our relatives in China have these Chinese scissors and I think they are great because of the larger handles for my large hands.  They must be durable in the Chinese market because they are used for everything.  It is so interesting that China does not have a global brand but these scissors could be a start.  This is an interesting article and I just may go to visit their factory on my next trip to China and buy me a pair of scissors.  On every trip to China I make it to a factory for a tour and sampling.  I enjoy seeing the real China and how everyone works and how the factories operate.  Often times I get invited to visit a factory just because I am a foreigner and the Chinese know that the US is the largest market in the world and they want to sell to us at every chance.  Even thou I do not have any interest in the product to import to the US they are always offering a show.  For example, my wife’s best friend’s father works at a honey manufacturing plant and invited me to see the process and get free samples.  They asked if I knew anyone who would want to import the honey.  It was an interesting tour and the process was very sanitary but I could not help them find importers.  There is so much more to China than the awesome sites I hope you get an opportunity to see all of China.

Today my wife made Chinese dumplings here in Las Vegas.  They are so good and fresh.  We use pork shoulder chuck and had the butcher in Chinatown ground the meat twice.  We purchased fresh dumpling wraps or call pot sticker wrappers here in Vegas from Louie’s Noodles http://louiesnoodle.com/.  She mixes all the ingredients together and mixes only in one direction.  The Chinese Leaf Lettuce is chopped very tiny and dried and the juice from the lettuce should be used back into the meat mixture.  After all the ingredients are mixed she will start the long process of creating the wonderful dumplings.  She makes a special sauce for me which includes Chinese vinegar, garlic chopped, cilantro, green onions, and spicy chili sauce.  She will pan-fry them for me but she prefers the Chinese way of boiling them.  My westerner taste buds with texture and I prefer the crispy pan-fried dumplings.  I am slowly changing my taste buds but growing up with all the fried food in America has an effect on me that is hard to change.
Ingredients

• Pork Shoulder Chuck – Ground twice by the butcher - mix same direction
• Chinese Leaf Lettuce – Chop very small and dried but use juice and put into the meat.
• Salt, Soy Sauce, Egg
• Ginger – Chopped very small
• Green Onion – Chopped very small
• Chicken bouillon Powder
• Sesame seed oil – Last step
• Dumpling Wraps

Several hours of making a lot of dumplings…

We started to plan our next trip to China for this fall (2013) probably around the September.  We prefer to go in the spring and or fall timeframes because it is not too hot or cold and we avoid the major travelers in the summer time.  We plan on flying from LAX to Beijing and stay several nights in Beijing to visit the Great Wall, Forbidden City and the Tiananmen Square.  We are looking at Chinese hotels on elong.net and ctrip.com sites for the best prices.  After Beijing we plan to take the bullet train from Beijing to Nanjing and then a short car ride to Lishiu (near the Nanjing Airport).  After a week in the Nanjing area we plan on visiting our travel accessories factories in Shenzhen and Cixi (Ningbo area).  We will probably fly from Nanjing to Shenzhen then fly back to Hangzhou to visit Cixi.  We plan on staying for 5 weeks in China.  We had such a positive experience with Air China airlines so we are trying to book with them for our flights.  We were in China for Chinese New Year this year and Air China has new 777 airplanes from LAX to Beijing.  We booked directly on the Air China English version website and reserved our seats which are a major plus for me.  The check-in process was excellent and the outstanding service during the flight cannot be beat for economy seats.

Looks like China will be introducing the new 72 Hour visa free policy later in 2013 which they started this year for Beijing and Shanghai.  This should be an excellent option for travelers coming to the major trade shows in Guangzhou especially the Canton Fair.

The bird flu is back in China and you should not eat poultry even at KFC or western franchises in China.  We always state; eat like a local and the locals are not eating poultry.  Please avoid any live markets with chickens and ducks.  My in-laws and friends in China are not eating poultry so you should not either and they cannot buy them either.

Our thoughts go out to the people in Sichuan province were the earthquake hit last week.  The government and the people of China are responding quickly to the needs of the people.  The outpouring of resources from all over is awesome.  My in-laws and friends are not from that area so everyone we know in China is safe.  My wife’s coworker and friend here in Las Vegas is from Chengdu and all of her family and friends are safe.