Hello ,
Greetings from Yiwu, China
Last week I was telling you about some blatant corruption in Hanoi, Vietnam - you can read about it here.
Since then we returned to China and to the city of Yiwu.
Regular readers will know about Yiwu (check out this amazing city here) and that we have a warehouse, soy wax candle factory and sourcing office here.
Yiwu is changing so fast I can barely believe it, only five years ago it was a wild west city, ten years ago traders were working from street stalls and some of the roads were mud tracks.
Today downtown Yiwu resembles Shanghai with swish shops smart boutique and international hotels, and several shopping malls with all the international brands Zara etc. They are cleaning up the air, today I can see blue sky, and parks and trees line every street.
It's a modern miracle, even the traffic has improved beyond believe, someone even stopped to let me cross a zebra crossing today. It's also an almost cash-less city, no one uses cash, when it's easier to pay with Alipay from your mobile. Every business down to the farmer selling fruit on the street corner (even beggars I'm told) accept Alipay. The most amazing thing to me is the level of trust.. buying fruit and veg in a local market, the trader shouts out how much it is to his customers, and turns to serve the next customer. You scan the QR code stuck conveniently around the stall, type in the amount and click send. The trader doesn't check his phone, to make sure you have paid, he's on to the next customer. I asked how can it work? I get a shrug of shoulders, nobody cheats apparently.
Alipay, part of Alibaba you heard it of right? I can remember discovering Alibaba back in the early days of the internet, using Alibaba I found an Indian incense company in 2002 and imported a container of incense sticks - Joie Incense, we dealt with them for many years.
Out of Alibaba many companies grew, making the founder and local god: Jack Ma one of the richest people on the planet.
It's not an understatement to say that the trading technology of Alibaba enabled and revolutionized the trading City of Yiwu more than any other city helping thousands of businesses grow.
Jack Ma is from Hangzhou, a big city an hour from here, it's the HQ of Alibaba and a major digital hub. But Jack Ma is also a philosopher and inspirational coach, in the airport lounge his words of wisdom were on loop.
But it wasn't always that way. Rejected by dozens of companies and famously even KFC turned down his job application. So he figured he had no choice but to work for himself. He is fond of telling you, he was a guy with nothing but a good idea, rejected by everyone, but still made good in the end. When he started, he called all his friends together to explain his big idea, of 24 people, 23 told him to forget it, it was a bad idea for a variety of reasons, only one said give it a go.
