Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [91]
“Chaozhou has long been known for porcelain and other ceramics,” Patty adds, “because the area is full of good kaolin clay. That’s why we built the factory here for our Calabash pottery. Would you like to visit the plant this afternoon?”
“Let us freshen up,” Cheryl replies, “and we’ll be ready to roll.”
Ziggy drives the four of us, and Simin follows on her motor scooter to act as an interpreter. As soon as we arrive, Ziggy jumps into a routine that becomes common over the next few days, immediately brewing and serving Iron Buddha tea to the group as a ceremonial welcoming gesture. Calabash makes mostly landscaping ceramics, both slip-cast and jiggered pieces. Many of them are flower and plant pots of various sizes and styles, glazed and unglazed, designed to specification for American clients such as Lowe’s and Kmart’s Martha Stewart Enterprises line. In showing us some examples, John says, “Martha’s buyers ordered these for the next season. No photos, sketches, or descriptions of any kind are allowed until they reach stores in the spring of 2006.”
Parts of the production process are automated, but much of the tooling is still done by hand, often by couples working together, with the man handling the heavier labor and the wife doing the trimming. Lacking piped natural gas, the Olivers truck in huge tanks of propane to fuel their two kilns, one configured for specialized situations and the other a large, fully mechanized device that moves pottery through different temperatures over a nine-hour period.
“Many Chaozhou factories,” Patty tells us, “house migrant workers in dormitories at the plant, but that violates good labor practices so we don’t do it. We do feed our employees, however. I’ll show you the kitchen.” As immaculate as the rest of the operation, it features industrial-dimension woks, about three feet in diameter, and a rice cooker the size of a bathroom Jacuzzi. The company chefs, who prepare two meals a day for eighty people, are currently stir-frying chicken with loads of garlic and red chile over leaping flames.
“That looks tasty,” Bill said.
“Want to come back for lunch on Monday?” John asks.
“It’s a date,” Cheryl answers, unaware yet that all of us will be eating elsewhere.
“Speaking of food, let’s go see a Chinese version of a megastore,” Patty says. “When Wal-Mart started opening outlets in China several years ago, they inspired local clones, like our Fu-Mart.” She decides to ride with Simin on the back of the motor scooter, against John’s objections, and the rest of us pile into the car with Ziggy.
On the way there, John tells us, “Locals dismissed this place at first because they’re used to shopping on a day-to-day basis in small quantities. Then they came in on particularly hot days to take advantage of the air-conditioning, still rare in the city. They liked the constant music the store plays and also the discounted specials. Now it’s busy all the time.”
Several stories high, Fu-Mart stocks a range of goods, from auto parts to mattresses, but the grocery section is enormous. Patty guides us up a moving ramp walkway connecting floors, lined on both sides with bins bulging with bags of potato chips for impulse buying. Upstairs, a wall of packaged teas extends at least seventy-five feet and large baskets nearby hold twenty-five varieties of loose floral and herbal tea leaves. Banks of tanks display live fish and seafood, and rows of tables parade fresh produce of all kinds, including shiitake mushrooms for forty cents a pound and porcinis for even less. An aisle of soy sauces offers the various kinds in gas-can-size containers, and the shelves of MSG boast a hoard of the seasoning sufficient to supply every Chinese buffet restaurant in the United States for a year. In-store bakers make Western breads and pastries, previously rare in Chaozhou; Simin admits to liking some of the cookies, but even the baguettes and doughnuts look decent. The wine department carries