Once a year I travel to Asia to visit some of the suppliers that make our books.
The Asian printers we use are the best in the world at producing our type of high-quality novelty books. Their factories are fantastic – modern and equipped with the latest technology, and the people have great knowledge and are wonderful to work with. The incredible ports of Hong Kong and Singapore enable us to ship Priddy books all over the world
Anyway with that in mind, here are some pictures below from my last trip. I was lucky to have my eldest son Sam travelling with me, and before visiting the factories, we spent some time walking around the fresh food markets of Hong Kong which is always great fun. There are wonderful vegetables everywhere and the fish is so fresh that it quite literally leaps into your basket. You might even see the odd bag of live frogs for sale!
It was then up into Southern China where many of our printers’ factories are located. The next few days were spent checking the quality of the books being printed and discussing new ideas, both ours and theirs. As my son was with me, we had a tour around each of the printers’ factories. Even though I have seen all of this on several occasions before, there are still two things that blow me away. First are the hand assembly lines, where thousands of people add the novelty elements to our books with such skill, and secondly the canteens. These have to serve 4 to 5,000 people, three times a day. At each meal there will be 5 or 6 dishes on offer, each from a different part of the country. This is because the workers come from the many different regions of China, where culinary tastes can vary as much as they do between different countries in Europe. The food is really good by the way.
Following the customary photographs with our hosts and a cup of tea (some things are the same all over the world) it is back home to the cold.
