CEO Fireworks Co

---

I left Yangshou in the morning to go back to Guilin so I would be able to catch the night train to Changsha. Changsha was just a large city with a park that I never saw, Lonely Planet even said you would be disappointed if you went there. Thankfully my real destination was not Changsha it was a small city about two hours away from Changsha called Liuyang. This is the fireworks capital of the world. Since I knew I was going to China I wanted to see a fireworks factory, actually well before I even thought of going to China I wanted to see one of these places. I figured what better place than the fireworks capital of the world. I decided I better email some of these places to see if they would take me on a tour since it doesn't appear that anyone actually goes to this city I figured it was not tourist friendly. My first reply back was from a company saying that I could not go on a tour of their factory because they were not in the tourist industry. I decided to change tactics and received one other reply saying that I was welcome to come see the factory. I actually misread the email since it was in changlish, but it gave me the motivation to make my way to the city. From the email I concluded that these people might actually think that I am trying to buy fireworks and that I'm not just some tourist, because well, my wording implied that is what I was doing. I then found a FAQ page on the internet about fireworks, and a fireworks forum. I spent about 15 min researching the fireworks industry. The next day I go to the city of Liuyang. I had no idea where anything was, but on the bus ride in, the bus passed by the Fireworks Exhibition Center, so I figured I would start there. The company that replied saying I could see their factory was located inside, I went up and no one was around. It was really just a big sign of the name of the company. I then walked around and just walked into another company's office. I was sat down at a table and then I asked the sales manager if I could tour the factory, she asked me what country I was from and then agreed. An hour later I left to see the factory. It wasn't where they actually made the powder, I guess that was too dangerous and it was very far away. I did see a lot and they even demonstrated a lot of the fireworks they made, it was day time, but that didn't really see to matter to them. I didn't take any pictures because I figured that wouldn't be what professional fireworks importers do, so that was disappointing. When we got back to the company, I knew they wanted to sit down and talk business, I really wanted to pay the driver and the girl who took me any amount of money so that I could just leave, but decided to play this out until the end. I was shown the conference room. It had a large table with about twelve seats made out. There was a girl cutting watermelon and giving me coke, food, and all sorts of stuff. They gave me about 8 years worth of product books and anything else I would need to order fireworks from them. I was really beginning to feel bad. I spoke with the sales manager and used all my knowledge of the fireworks industry in about 10min. Then she started asking me questions. I'm pretty sure she thought I was the worst businessman or some tourist off the street. I eventually concluded that if I were to order through her company I would have to purchase larger quantities than I could handle. I then quickly made my escape, jumped in a taxi to go to the bus station and left town.

---