Quangzhou China Pearl Fair

One wonders what Pearl Quangzhou Fair as it is today, with advances in technology and with China playing such a major role on the world stage. Back in the 1970's and 1980's, my late wife and I were in the West very few who travel to China and do business with vendors pearls, jewels and art and crafts. In 1988, one hundred and fifty pearls importers were invited by the China National Arts and Crafts and Jewelry Pearl Branch to attend the Fair in the summer of Pearl Quangzhou (Canton) and bid for lots of fresh water pearls and sea water. 1988 is sad for us - we had zero winning bid.
Since 1978, my wife and I enjoy negotiating with Pearl Branch in Shanghai. Days spent sifting through heavy canvas sacks, each filled with hundreds of strands of beautiful freshwater pearls. Our collection has been enhanced with rare baroques and button shaped, flat plain, and an extraordinary bundle of rice in various sizes and colors.
With the new controls over the distribution of pearls are created by Beijing 1988, we are now asked to attend the Fair to get our pearls. The site was the seventh floor of the Liu Hua Hotel in Quangzhou. In the large ballroom, more than fifty tables stacked with a large collection of sample groups and small groups that exist. They are from a variety of pearl farms and branches across China, presented at the fair for the tender offer, or bid, the pearl buyers. Supply system which involved writing a lot on a piece of pink paper, with your company name and your offer, the U.S. dollar, and dropped it near the bid box.
The first day is bidding for loose pearls, by pounds. The second day is for the pearl drilled and hung with offerings by strand - many thousands of strands is not unusual. On the third day, the individual branches are allowed to negotiate directly with the buyer for items that may not have bid on, or where the bid is too low to be accepted by the seller.
Special group of individuals pearl rare and expensive, closely monitored by staff members, a separate. We sort through them, wrapped them in paper cage, and can offer to them, pearls with pearls.
Small handful of American, British and the Aussies are friendly, compare notes and discuss other buyers and business in general. Importer of pearls from nearby Hong Kong is very competitive against each other, keep to themselves and prepare a strategy more especially interesting from the pearl. They never spoke near a lot or show a clear interest, trying to keep secret many of them plan to bid on. The Japanese pearl of central Kobe, Japan, hoping to fill their inventory, up by ecological problems. Unlike their usual clothes black suit and white shirt, they are present in short sleeves and open-necked shirt, knit even, in the summer South China. India-Japan looking for a larger pearls are expensive, Headquarters (blister pearls), while the India-India cliqued and trying to push out the competition. They will usually be many bids as a group and then share a lot when they win. Favorites especially those big mounds of pearls cheapest and kilos of many undrilled, sorted, pearls at low prices. They have a home of cheap labor for sorting, drill and this string a lot.
Everyone stuffed themselves when invited to dinner traditionally brings people out to lunch instead of the old-style buffet supper sat.
Fair Pearl attractive, and our accommodation at the world famous Swan Hotel while out on a peninsula bordering the Pearl River is as good as any we had stayed in. the central atrium with a large waterfall that was bordered with a half-dozen fine restaurants.
We came away empty-handed from a year Fair because of low prices of goods are sad and can not be used, go to bid as low as $ 1.00 a strand. The smooth, pearl strands are more unusual, we gather and perform at our shop, is a way of bid over our heads. One good result, however, is that our existing stock yard-long pieces were priced well below the new rate will appear in the case of jewelry 'later that year. We wonder, though, what will we do for next year's sales.
Ho hum, we thought. We just might have to go back to China and talked turkey for the pearls of our friends in Shanghai. Maybe we'll go north to Dalien, or south to Hainan Island, or perhaps as far away as East Malaysia, or Ambon in the Moluccas of Indonesia. If necessary, we can travel to Broome in Western Australia coast, and spend time on a fifty-mile beach. This 'treasure-hunt' for the pearls may only require a few months touring Asia and South Pacific. Tough duty!