Taiwan, Once The World’s Factory, Depends On Tourism to Survive.

Taiwan’s Taipei – A group of about 30 schoolchildren are seated in front of antique sock rings inside one of the many small companies close to Taipei, Taiwan, learning about old-fashioned knitting techniques.

It is how Nai Yang, Andrew Wu’s great-grandfather, made socks when he started the business in 1930s in then-Japanese-occupied Taiwan: with a needle, draw the yarn through the hook, secure it to the ring, and then crank more than 200 times.
One pair of premium socks, a luxury item at the time that cost roughly 4,000 New Taiwan dollars ($135) in today’s money, might take six to eight hours to produce in Nai Yang’s time. However, visitors to Wu’s Wufuyang Socks Museum can knit their own scarves, water bottle holders, plush animals, or socks in just one hour while learning about the history of sock production in Taiwan and seeing how the process is currently carried out using cutting-edge machinery.

In a recent interview, Wu stated, “With our DIY lessons, we teach them how to thread everything.” So they are aware of the time required to produce socks. In turn, people cherish their possessions more.
Wu’s “tourist factory” is a component of a campaign by Taiwan’s Economic Development Bureau to promote regional tourism by allocating cash to already-existing enterprises as infrastructure.

Taiwan, which once had the title of “factory of the world,” hopes that its industrial tourism program would persuade some factories to continue operating there rather than following the global trend of relocating to China or Southeast Asia, where land and labor costs are cheaper.
More than 150 government-approved “tourist factories” and “manufacturing culture centers,” together with up to 100 additional independent instances, are the results of the 20-year initiative. Visitors with an interest in shoes, robots, suitcases, pencils, or even condoms can visit museums and leave with a homemade souvenir.

In an increasingly cutthroat global marketplace, it is hoped that putting more of an emphasis on customer service as opposed to just manufacturing will increase brand loyalty and boost consumer confidence in Taiwanese businesses.

“The idea is sustainable. According to Susan Lin, a professor of museum studies at Fu Jen University, “the [concept of] trip factories is to type of refurbish, not to build up.”

“With tourism factories, you have to inform customers about how your products are made. They learn, for instance, how to preserve food and that doing so is safe and healthful.
Guo Xuemei’s aunt, who worked tirelessly to create the toys for export at the Meinong plant in Taishan, a suburb of New Taipei City, gave her the first Barbie dolls. The other youngsters were envious because Taiwanese people could make Barbie dolls for export but not for local consumption.
Barbies were given to employees by the factory as New Year’s presents. However, factory workers were compelled to take dolls home when they had even the smallest flaws, such as a smeared lip or eye, rather than let them go to waste.
In a subsequent interview, Guo remarked, “I don’t know if the Barbies my aunt brought me were seized or given to her. The rest of her career, however, as a dressmaker and now as a volunteer and instructor for the Taishan Barbie Doll Industry Culture Center, was inspired by those dolls and their exquisite costumes.

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The small town of Taishan was referred to as Taiwan’s “Barbie town” during the time of Guo’s aunt.

At its height, the Meining factory employed over 8,000 people to make half of all Barbies for Mattel. A further third of the city’s residents started working as subcontractors on more intricate jobs, tightening bows and mending slack threads in their homes’ workshops.

We were raised on Barbie, as the Taishan folks used to say, Guo said. Barbie embodies Taishan the best, in my opinion.
Barbie Doll Industry Culture Center in Taishan.