Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 49 - 47 Yanlu Shoe Machine

Grandpa:

Answer=>

The Thrift and Frugality Award must have been the most bizarre award in our high school.

Probably only a weirdo like me could have won such an award.

To be able to receive this award in high school, I first have to thank CCTV, MTV, thank my parents, and thank my junior high...

Uh, I can’t keep thanking anymore~

During those years in junior high, I was particularly targeted and it escaladed to the point where anything I did was wrong.

It got so bad that even something as trivial as what clothes I wore became an issue; if I dressed nicely, I was called frivolous, and if I dressed simply, I was called dowdy.

No matter what, I would be judged.

Later, when the school issued uniforms, I was surprised to discover that once I wore one, nobody commented on my attire anymore.

By the time we reached high school, our school only required us to wear uniforms for the flag-raising ceremony on Mondays.

Perhaps because of the psychological scars from middle school, I felt a sense of relief going to school only when I wore a uniform daily.

The homeroom teacher was aware of my family’s situation.

In the freshman year of high school, when it wasn’t a uniform day, the girls had already begun to dress up.

But at that time, my most important thought each day was that I couldn’t be someone "who stands out."

With my utter lack of a competitive spirit, I diligently and modestly went to class wearing a school uniform every day.

Teacher Ge thus genuinely felt that I was an exceptionally thrifty and frugal person.

Every year she would grant me this peculiar award.

In truth, I was rejecting it in my heart, and I felt undeserving of it.

Question=>

I heard that the investment banking departments at UBS and Barclays have a lot of beauties; when you were looking for a job in the United States, did you specifically submit your resume to places with more attractive women?

.........

After returning to China, Yan Yan’s parents also came from overseas to celebrate the New Year with her.

Yan Yan’s parents were the founders of Wenzhou Yanlu Shoe Machinery.

Yan Yan’s father’s name was not Yan Lu but Yan Dabang, and the company’s name came from Yan Yan’s mother’s surname, Lu.

Yanlu Shoe Machinery was established in 1991. freёweɓnovel.com

Speaking of where shoes are produced in China, people usually think of two places—Wenzhou leather shoes and Jinjiang athletic shoes.

As for China’s footwear brands, people would more or less think of Aokang, Kangnai, ANTA, 361.

For average consumers, simply knowing these brands and their origins is considered quite "well-informed."

No one would ask a consumer: Do you know how the pair of leather shoes you just bought was made? Through which shoe-making equipment, what kind of production line, and after how many processes?

Modern shoe factories couldn’t possibly make shoes with workers just using scissors and hammers, sewing each stitch by hand.

Even so-called handcrafted Haute Couture collections by luxury brands couldn’t possibly be completely free from modern machinery.

Furthermore, the real money-makers for luxury brands aren’t the high but few Haute Couture series.

What supported the growth of the Wenzhou and Jinjiang footwear industry since the nineties were the strong local shoe machinery manufacturing industries.

Wenzhou is the largest production base for shoe machinery in the entire country.

When Qi Yi asked Yan Yan whether she came from an affluent family, Yan Yan didn’t answer directly.

Yan Yan wasn’t deliberately avoiding anything; it was just that the question was indeed a bit difficult to answer.

Yanlu Shoe Machine, when it was first established, was called Wenzhou Yanlu Shoe Machine Factory. Later, it changed its name to Wenzhou Yanlu Shoe Machine Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and in the past two years, it became Wenzhou Yanlu Machinery Co., Ltd.

In the 1990s, when Yanlu Shoe Machine was newly established, it could only produce very basic shoe machines.

Yan Yan’s family’s factory was one of those ubiquitous "shabby little factories" in Wenzhou at that time.

However, by 2011, when Qi Yi and Yan Yan reconnected, Yanlu Shoe Machine had become a high-tech machinery manufacturing company with over forty national invention patents and a staff of more than three thousand people.

In addition to single shoe machines like skiving machines, eyelet machines, studding machines, folding machines, riveting machines, edging machines, glue applicators, and laser cutting machines, it also had high-tech complete sets of equipment such as vertical and horizontal machining centers.

Even though people in the company still liked to call it Yanlu Shoe Machine, the machinery that Yan Yan’s family produced, apart from being used for shoemaking, was also widely used in related industries such as apparel, luggage, and leather goods.

Yan Yan’s father, Yan Dabang, was a mechanical technology enthusiast. At the beginning of his entrepreneurship, he only wanted to use his mechanical manufacturing skills to provide for his family.

After the factory slowly grew, he embraced the concept of "prospering the country through industrial development."

Under this philosophy, Yanlu Shoe Machine, more than a decade ago, was no longer just a domestic trade company that sold machinery to small local shoe factories.

It had started engaging in machinery foreign trade quite early on.

When Yanlu Shoe Machine first began with foreign trade, like most other machinery exporters in China, it could only sell products to undeveloped regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the mid-1990s, Yan Dabang started recruiting mechanical engineers with high salaries from famous national universities with mechanical specialties.

At this moment, Yanlu Shoe Machine had long been exporting its machinery to industrially developed regions of Europe.

Among Yanlu Machinery’s customers, there were even many renowned Italian shoewear and leather goods manufacturing enterprises.

At this point, the Yan Yan family ought to be considered a very wealthy household.

But in reality, Yan Yan’s family wasn’t considered particularly rich in Wenzhou.

This had to do with the nature of the industrial business. When shoe factories needed to expand production or update equipment, they came to Yanlu Machinery to purchase entire production lines.

Such large purchases were seldom paid for in full at once, hence Yanlu Machinery had accounts receivable amounting to hundreds of millions of yuan every year.

By the end of each year, Yan Yan’s parents would be as busy as "grandsons."

In these times, those who owed money were the masters, while those who were owed money were the ’grandsons.’

Before the New Year was the best time to collect debts; otherwise, if it passed, beginning the New Year by asking for money in Wenzhou would be frowned upon.

For this reason, if the money wasn’t collected by the end of the year, they would have to wait a long time after the New Year.

Since Yan Yan started university in 2007, the economic environment hadn’t been very good, with many shoe and apparel factories in China closing down.

With factories closing, where would the money come to settle the outstanding accounts?

The situation for domestic trade was not optimistic; although most foreign trades were backed by letters of credit, the speed of capital recovery was not fast enough.

Many large machinery manufacturing plants would use letters of credit to obtain bank loans or find bridging funds.

In short, you might have made a lot of money, but not only was the money not in your hands, but you also ended up in debt to the banks.

So, in recent years, the lives of industrial businessmen have been tough, with many who had made money switching to real estate and finance.

When there was no financial crisis, those who switched made a fortune.

But as soon as the financial crisis hit, those involved in real estate and finance were usually the first to collapse.

Desolation was everywhere.

Fortunately, Yan Dabang had no interest in anything but machinery.

Still, when it came to cash, there really wasn’t much at Yan Yan’s house.

Conversely, not having cash didn’t mean Yan Yan’s family was poor. Leaving aside the accounts receivable, the financial reserves of industrial families were usually very substantial.