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Chinese Wisdom
The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, ----Sun Zi
China Fortune Story: Chopstick Revolution
Mr. Che is an electrical maintenance worker in Da Qing city(one city located in North-east of China). Once he was impressed by a TV program. The program said that in China,45 billion chopsticks are consumed each year, that means ten million trees are consumed each year and 300 million RMB is thrown away. Usually a chopstick is 24cm long, but only the front part (about 7cm) is polluted. SO the rest two-third of the whole chopstick is wasted. If the 7cm front part of a chopstick can be changed, then the rest can be made by other materials and so the wood on 2/3 of a chopstick will be saved. One day, he found this kind of patch-up chopsticks. He bought all at once. 
Unfortunately, not long after he bought those patch-up chopsticks, he was advised that the material used on that fixed part(back-end of the chopstick) was poisonous to people's health. Che had to destroy all the chopstick. This made him lost all his savings. But he didn't give up. With the help of his friends, he found a kind of healthy material. In the meantime local newspaper reported his story(they have one column special for those who start business from nothing),and helped him to find an investor. Next step was to find a manufacturer, but none of the chopstick manufacturer would like to be his supplier. At that time those chopstick manufacturers made good profit, and they had to improve their equipments if changing to make Che's chopstick. Most chopstick manufacturers locate near DA XING AN LING, a big mountain in North-east of China. Che spent half a year in the forest to ask those manufacturers to help him but failed at last. At this time, his patent application for his patch-up environmental protection chopstick was approved. He was greatly encouraged. One of his friends introduced a manufacturer to him. Plus his approved patent, Che's chopstick was finally made out. But how to promote them to the market? 
Che is only a maintenance worker and never learned how to sell something. He tried to promote to the hotels. His chopstick is RMB0.024/pair while other one-time-wood chopstick is RMB0.05/pair. But managers in hotels didn't want his chopstick. They asked Che how much Che would give themselves. They have their own pale rules in restaurant industrial. At last, he asked people to just put his chopsticks in hotels for free use. This method brought him opportunity. One day a hotel manager came to visit him and asked to be as the agent of his chopstick. The manager said he saw the free-use chopsticks and was interested in it. They got the agreement at once. Within three months, Che's chopsticks sold to 700 hotels in his city. From April 2006,China's government began to impose consumption tax on one-time-wood chopstick. This made Che's chopsticks in demand exceeding supply. Now Che's patch-up environmental protection chopstick's sales revenue got to RMB1.1billion every year.
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