from Hacker News

The Chinese Lingerie Venders of Egypt

by nichtich on 8/6/15, 2:17 AM with 25 comments

• by brc on 8/6/15, 5:00 AM

  "While Lin and Chen were building their small lingerie empire, they noticed that there was a lot of garbage sitting in open piles around Asyut. They were not the first people to make this observation. But they were the first to respond by importing a polyethylene-terephthalate bottle-flake washing production line, which is manufactured in Jiangsu province, and which allows an entrepreneur to grind up plastic bottles, wash and dry the regrind at high temperatures, and sell it as recycled material.

  “I saw that it was just lying around, so I decided that I could recycle it and make money,” Lin told me. He and his wife had no experience in the industry, but in 2007 they established the first plastic-bottle recycling facility in Upper Egypt. Their plant is in a small industrial zone in the desert west of Asyut, where it currently employs thirty people and grinds up about four tons of plastic every day. Lin and Chen sell the processed material to Chinese people in Cairo, who use it to manufacture thread. This thread is then sold to entrepreneurs in the Egyptian garment industry, including a number of Chinese. It’s possible that a bottle tossed onto the side of the road in Asyut will pass through three stages of Chinese processing before returning to town in the form of lingerie, also to be sold by Chinese."

  Heh. Awesome.

  One thing I always notice when you see documentaries of travels in under-developed countries, that there's always a lot of rubbish sitting around, and also a lot of people sitting around. I always wonder why they don't just start by picking up their trash? I don't pretend to understand the dynamics of a place through a TV show, but keeping your own area tidy would seem to be a simple thing to do to improve your own quality of life, and it can cost virtually nothing.

• by mrwilliamchang on 8/6/15, 8:08 AM

  Made me see the world a little differently. “The Chinese will sell people anything they like. They don’t ask any questions. They don’t care what you do with what they sell you. They won’t ask whether the Egyptians are going to hold elections, or repress people, or throw journalists into jail. They don’t care. The Americans think, If everybody is like me, they’re less likely to attack me. The Chinese don’t think like that. They don’t try to make the world be like them. Their strategy is to make economic linkages, so if you break these economic linkages it’s going to hurt you as much as it hurts them.”

• by codezero on 8/6/15, 5:12 AM

  "The most important word in the lingerie dialect is arusa, or “bride.” The Chinese pronounce it alusa, and they use it constantly; in many Cairo neighborhoods, there are Chinese who go door-to-door with sacks of dresses and underwear, calling out “Alusa! Alusa!” In Chinese shops, owners use it as a form of address for any potential customer. To locals, it sounds flattering and a little funny: “Beautiful blide! Look at this, blide! What do you want, blide?”"

  really? Is this stereotype actually true, or is this embellished? This just seems over the top.

• by jpatokal on 8/6/15, 5:37 AM

  Peter Hessler is the author of (among other things) "Country Driving", whose insipid title hides a fascinating story of China's evolution viewed from the ground level.

  http://www.amazon.com/Country-Driving-Chinese-Road-Trip/dp/0...

• by arjn on 8/6/15, 5:29 AM

  I feel Egypt's "Zabbaleen" should be mentioned here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabbaleen

  There was an excellent documentary on them a few years ago :

  http://www.garbagedreams.com/

• by jscheel on 8/6/15, 1:16 PM

  My wife and I just visited Egypt for two weeks. It was quite interesting to walk down a street in Cairo and look at hijab/niqab shops right next to seriously raunchy lingerie shops. We though it might be a cosmopolitan thing, but we noticed it even in the more conservative towns we visited.

• by lming on 8/6/15, 7:00 PM

  It's a fascinating read! I released my app a while ago and found most users are Arab. I am eager to learn more about my customers and this article provides great insights.

• by mud_dauber on 8/6/15, 3:56 AM

  Great read. Now I know not to try a manufacturing business in Egypt. Unfortunately.

• by msie on 8/6/15, 3:50 AM

  Such a riveting read!