China Business

Everything is made in China. The other day we went to a home improvement center, where manufacturers reps show all the different brands of paint, kitchens, bathroom fixtures, hardaware, and flooring. My friend Ed Salatka and his brother own a company that sources these products and packs them into containers to ship to the US for people who are building homes or remodeling. It's amazing how much money you can save sourcing these products in China, even if they have Italian, German, or Japanese brand names. We saw Toto toilets, Kohler fixtures, Grohe faucets -- everything they have in Home Depot, and everything you seen in the upscale design magazines, too. I have decided to give myself a Eurokitchen and a new bathroom in my California house. I'm impressed by China...

We have also been to the Bund, where Tom Cruise is hanging out while shooting Mission Impossible 3 in Shanghai. And we went to a fabric mart, where everything from linen to cashmere is sold, and you can have a designer dress handmade (knocked off) in under twenty-four hours. I can remember doing this in Hong Kong twenty years ago, but the scale of it in Shanghai, especially in this one market, is amazing.

It appears that there's a themed mart for everything. On another day, we went to the electronics mart, where I saw floors and floors of cell phones, and binoculars, once again assembled in China.