(organization)
Hello ,
Greetings from China, where Chinese New Year is definitely over. Yiwu (where we have our office and warehouse) has filled up almost overnight. One day empty streets the next a heaving metropolis. It was just International Womens Day in China.. just ahead of Mother's Day in the UK.
The migrant workers (ie everyone) come back from their home towns and villages, full of excitement and ambition having spent a month swapping success stories and comparing pay rates with friends and family. This week is is hard bargaining week and the Yiwu bosses are all trying to look like the humble nice guy boss you'd like to work for. It's not unusual for the boss to literally set up stall outside his or her factory signing up workers with all sorts of promises and perks. Wages are low by western standards, but increasing at a rapid rate, and your average worker is no slouch at negotiating. My experience is it is the ladies who are the toughest negotiators.
I'm off to Jakarta tomorrow, there is a rare trade show there.. I'm hoping to find out what the rest of indonesia has to offer.. Currently we buy from only two Islands.. there 922 inhabited islands. So who knows what we'll find:)
Last week I was telling you about Drugs & Dragons in India.. you canread it here.. you will learn about the back-story to the Yin Dragon Incense from India.
Following in the theme of back stories, I thought I'd update you on another product.. Teak Bowls.. from East Java. An ideal gift for Mother's Day (too late to stock up now), they have lots of character, everyone different, a few lines and cracks here and there, add to the product, very useful around the home, they age well, just oil them up occasionally to bring out the best. Now calm down, I'm talking about the bowls not the Mothers :)
In Udud, where our office / warehouse is there are lots of traders selling teak root products. As you know teak is very hard, and the oil in it allows a little movement which means cracking is not a big issue. The big problem is whenever I ask about sustainability of the teak supplies, I get blank looks. So Ringo (our Balinese agent) and I started to do some rooting around to find out how the teak-wood business works here. The first thing we learnt is there are no commercial teak forests on Bali, or teak artisans. The teak is trucked in from Java roughly carved but not finished, the artisans stain and varnish the pieces to suit the customers. So it seems the teak trader middlemen don't verify the source of the wood, it's all a cash business.
A lady in one of the wood carving markets gave us the name of a town where she thought the teak came from. A quick bit of googling revealed the place. It didn't seem so far away, just a ferry to East Java and and a hop over the mountains. We decided to branch out and make the trip. All I can say is don't trust google maps estimation of driving time in Indonesia! It was a long way, mostly spent going up and down steep hills though thick jungle stuck behind trucks crawling along at snails pace.
The ferry to East Java drops you at the foot of a jungle clad volcano right out of National Geographic, the road after a couple of hours enters the vast teak forest. Now Ringo tells that this road is home to bandits who roll rocks out of the forest at night, when a car or truck hits one in the night they come to "assist" you and take money or goods for their help. These same forest folk probably illegally take teak wood which finds it's way to the dodgy traders. It's known as the bad lands of Java.
Eventually we made it to a small coastal sugar cane town. The industry was devolved by the Dutch who built cute narrow-gauge railways running through the plantations bringing the sugar cane to the port. Some parts of it still working. There has been a half-hearted attempt to make a tourist industry here. It's certainly beautiful, stunning mountains, mangrove swamps and white sand beaches. But no tourists, Ringo and I hired the two best (teak lined) rooms in a big run down beach road hotel for about £12, there was just one other guest. Ringo said the Muslim call to prayer from the many mosques at four am and lack of alcohol, put many tourists off coming. Sad because the people were lovely and the place stunning.
But there is a thriving handy-craft industry. We found marble carving, shell jewellery, mother of pearl boxes and the like, and teak wood of course. We were taken to workshops practically on the beach where families worked together making lovely stuff. Eventually we found a village with teak wood work-shops, we visited them all.
One guy in a small factory told us he was "just the local chief of police" (pointing to a police station along the road), his wife was the boss, could we come back later.
What we learnt was the the government have cracked down hard on the teak wood trade to ensure the sustainability of supplies. Local artisans can (or should) only buy from the official run logging company, and the police enforce the rules, hence the police presence in the forest.
Teak wood of course is mainly used for furniture and flooring, the roots are a by-product and of less interest to the bad guys because it's more work to dig up. But the most beautiful bowls and plates are made from the random root shapes all slightly different. Yes a little expensive, but will last forever and help support families like this.
We found a few family businesses making teak root products, and eventually settled on the one with a jolly lady boss, whose husband was in the police force, protecting the forests, and she was able to give us certificates of origin for the teak, so we figured it is a legit business. Her son and his wife are part of the business, and now they make a trip to Ubud with a truck load of teak bowls about once a month, I often find them sat on our warehouse floor, busy polishing up and and doing last minute jobs on the stock.