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New Mexico Exports Chopsticks Business America, April 29, 1985 v8 p23(1) New Mexico. (State Export Series) New Mexico's leading manufactured exports are nonelectric machinery, manufactured food products, and electric/electronic equipment. However, a group of smaller industries that produce manufactures such as jewelry, silverware, and plated ware accounted for the highest value of foreign sales in 1981 (see table). New Mexico's exports of manufactures totaled $64 million in 1981, an increase of 73 percent over 1977. These exports rose faster than the 61 percent increase in the state's manufacturing production from 1977 to 1981. An estimated 300 jobs were directly related to producing manufactured exports in 1981. About 1,300 additional jobs were required to produce materials and parts for incorporation in products exported from the 50 states. Another 7,900 jobs were generated in nonmanufacturing industries that supply materials and services supporting manufactured exports. Total employment related to manufactured exports amounted to 9,500. New Mexico's farm employment related to exports in 1982 amounted to about one of every seven farmers. The state's share of U.S. agricultural exports totaled $65 million in fiscal year 1982. Cotton, meat, and hides and skins were the principal farm products sold abroad. In 1981, New Mexico was the leading potash exporter, with overseas shipments valued at $60 million. Its bituminous coal exports amounted to $23 million. New Mexico Wood Products, Inc., of Velarde, N.M., sells chopsticks to the Orient, but does not sell in the United States. The firm makes blank disposable chopsticks in a 23-employee factory. The blanks are sent to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea for grading and finishing. Wylie Homesley, founder of the 1 1/2-year-old firm, explains that all of the firm's chopsticks are sold to Japan. "We need an affluent market like Japan,' he says. Did he have trouble gaining access to the Japanese market? Not at the outset, Homesley says. Then after he had made a few sales to Japan, the Japanese imposed an import duty. The import duty did not foreclose sales to Japan. However, in January, the high dollar forced him to halt production. He hopes to resume operations when the dollar declines in value. Homesley says another option is to start marketing operations in the United States! Japanese buy USA chopsticks USA Today; Oct 13, 1987 Folks in Hibbing, Minn., may not eat sushi, but a new business in town has whetted their appetites. Lakewood Industries Inc. today sends 12 million pairs of disposable chopsticks to Japan. It's the first shipment of what Ian Ward, president of Lakewood's Canadian parent, hopes will be a $15 million-a-year business. Ward says his is the only USA company exporting chopsticks to the Orient. He expects to produce 7 million pairs of aspen wood chopsticks a day. Says plant manager Scott Karppinen: ``At this point, they're willing to take anything we can produce.'' Japan's scarce timber and high labor costs, along with rising affluence and fear of communicable diseases, have led to a shortage of disposable chopsticks there, Ward says.Another factor: ``The Japanese have been looking for innocuous products to import.'' Chopstick Factory Closes After Picking Up Big Debt Wall Street Journal Jul 20, 1989 HIBBING, Minn. -- A chopsticks factory, praised as a bold, bootstraps effort to compete with the Japanese and boost the depressed economy of Minnesota's Iron Range, closed here after piling up more than $7 million in debt but few chopsticks. The plant's owner, Lakewood Forest Products Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada, blamed balky machinery and lack of cash for the closure Tuesday, but called it temporary. "The story of our demise is a little premature," said Ian Ward, Lakewood's president. He said the company is seeking $1 million from investors to reopen, but that promised backing from a Japanese investor had fallen through. The plant drew widespread attention when it opened three years ago. But it never came close to producing the seven million pairs of chopsticks a day that its backers promised would produce a profit and 120 jobs. Project supporters said the plant could revitalize the Iron Range economy, which lost thousands of jobs because of the steel industry's slump. Critics ridiculed the idea, calling it a pork-barrel project for Hibbing -- Gov. Rudy Perpich's home town. Lakewood raised nearly $4.5 million from state and local industrial revenue bonds and loans. Embarrassed state officials said they planned to launch an investigation into the plant's operations. Disposable Chopsticks 2003 IBPC OSAKA NETWORK CENTER Japanese Market News
A Chop Off the Old Block by Carol Boese Saskatchewan Business Oct 1985 Regina Mayor Larry Schneider says it's like selling coal to Newcastle. Others talk about sand to Arabs or ice to Eskimos. But, Regina businessman Wang Park doesn't find anything strange about operating the only chopsticks manufacturing plant in North America or the fact that his major market is Korea. Park admits that a lot of people do find it strange. "A lot of people don't believe it. But actually, it is very simple to manufacture here. We have very good raw material and that is the most important thing." That raw material is northern Saskatchewan aspen. Considered a weed by northern loggers, the tight-grained, white hardwood is perfect for chopsticks. Park buys the aspen from several northern suppliers and has it shipped to his Western General Trading factory in Regina's industrial area. At the small factory, the wood is cut into nine-inch lengths, steamed, debarked, peeled, chopped, dried and trimmed into chopsticks. Each nine-inch length yields about 1,000 chopsticks and by-products like wood shavings which Park is looking to find a market for. Some of the chopsticks are further trimmed, finished and packaged for the North American market, but most, about 95 per cent, are left semi-finished for export to Korea. Ironically, the Koreans then finish the chopsticks and export them to North America, a market Park hopes to make advances in in the future. Park, an agrologist who also owns two Regina confectionaries, got the idea to export to Korea following the downing of Korean Airliner 007 by the Soviets in 1983. That put an end to diplomatic relations between the two countries and cut off the supply of Soviet raw materials to make Korean chopsticks manufacturers. First he toyed with the idea of exporting raw Saskatchewan aspen but soon ran into problems with the transportation system. Park says, "This is a typical problem in western Canada . . . the problem with freight. Freight is too expensive. Seventy to 75 per cent of the total cost was freight. It was impossible to make a deal." So, he decided to make the semi-finished chopsticks here and, by using ocean containers, economically ship the chopsticks to Korea. Most of the six million pairs of chopsticks produced in the factory's first two months of operation were shipped to Korea, but some went to New York, Seattle and other North American markets. Park hopes to increase his domestic market, but it means expansion and more advanced equipment. Presently his operation is very labor intensive. The factory employs 22 people, 10 of which were hired through the Department of Social Services but that program expired in July. In addition, Park has a contract with the Saskatchewan Abilities Council for the manual packaging and packing of the finished chopsticks for sale in North America. But to expand into that market, he needs to increase production of a fully finished product and that means more equipment. "It's a matter of production volume. In order to develop the North American market, I have to supply a finished product. To do that I need a finishing machine, and a more advanced packing system. That's all done by hand now. My target is to have more finished product and a semi-automatic packing machine by the end of the year," says Park. Park has been working closely with the provincial government. The department of Economic Development and Trade cost-shared the $30,000 feasibility study prior to start up and the Department of Tourism and Small Business staged his official opening and consulted with him throughout. In addition, Park has applied for, but not yet been given approval for, programs under the government's "Aid to Trade" and others. Dale Mitchell, regional business representative with Small Business is extremely pleased a use has been found for Saskatchewan aspen. "He [Park] is recognizing that aspen shouldn't be just a weed. He was fortunate in identifying and exploiting a product." Despite the fact that his is the first chopsticks plant in North America and the fact that he has sunk his life savings into a project that many consider to be unusual, Park doesn't really consider himself to be a pioneer. "If my business contributes something to this country or this community, then I can be proud of that. I didn't do this just to be first. I don't feel any kind of heroism. I would like to see Canada develop some kind of relationship with Korea, because we have so many kinds of raw materials here. But, I'm not a hero. I'm a businessman. If I can make some money that's fine. But, if what I do can contribute socially or economically, that's good enough for me." Billions of chopsticks for Asia's tables: A Vancover Firm Leads World in Prodution of Throw-Away Waribashi by John Kirkwood. BC Business 17(2):33-- (Feb 1989) Most people would say that selling chopsticks to Japan from a base in North America is akin to the proverbial carrying of coals to Newcastle. Not Ian Ward, Vancouver entrepreneur extraordinaire. He saw the idea as a novel challenge that he's now meeting and is confident he will best. The idea is not new, of course. Four western Canadian companies--three in British Columbia and one in Saskatchewan--have tried the venture in recent years, with limited success or failure. And the reason he will succeed when the others have faltered, Ward confidently maintains, is because his $15 million Lakewood Forest Products high technology plant in Hibbing, Minn., will be using an all-new (and top-secret) process rather than relying on slightly modified traditional Asian machinery and techniques. "No one else in the world has the technology we have," he says, with not a little pride. "We're two or three years ahead of anyone else. Understandably, that's why our plant security is so tight. No one has ever built an automated factory of this kind." Why is an English-born and bred businessman in Vancouver going to be doing a multi-million-dollar trade in chopsticks with Japan through a plant in the American state of Minnesota? A good question. Ian Ward, stout and a bit balding at age 45, answers it with a wave of the hand and a quick smile as he gazes at the spectacular harbor view from his hi-tech office on the North Vancouver waterfront. It all came about, indirectly, he explains, because of the ferocious war between Iran and Iraq. When the conflict started, in 1980, Ward was running Ward, Bedas (Canada) Ltd., an export trading company that sold (among other goods) specialty British Columbia forest products to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The Middle East, in particular, was a big market. "When the Iran-Iraq war broke out, we were just decimated," he says. "That, plus the '82 recession, made us consolidate and seek new markets--all and any trading opportunities we could find." What Ian Ward found was the lowly chopstick, or more precisely the disposable chopstick, known in Japan as waribashi. In late 1983 a buyer in Korea asked one of Ward's traders if Ward, Bedas could supply aspen logs from Canada to be turned into chopsticks for the Japanese market. Intrigued, Ward studied the facts and figures. He discovered that in both Korea and Japan, and in some other Asian countries, chopstick-making is a relatively small cottage industry with factories scattered throughout the countryside. There is no mass production and the region is running out of timber. He found out also that for a number of reasons, including high labor costs, it wouldn't make economic sense to set up a mass production plant in either Japan or Korea. And he learned that only 40 per cent of each log would be turned into chopsticks, the rest of the timber going to waste. Clearly, it would make more sense to do the manufacturing as close as possible to the source of the resource--ie., a huge grove of aspen trees, preferably in North America. But the statistic that really leaped off the page at Ward was the staggering fact that 130 million pairs of chopsticks are used and then thrown away in Japan every day, seven days a week. Now, he was really intrigued. The logical next steps were to find a large aspen forest and raise the capital to build a chopstick plant next door to it. Ward surveyed the availability of aspen trees in both British Columbia and northern Alberta and also sought funding from the provincial governments and the private sector. Typical of the reaction he got in B.C. were comments such as "A chopstick factory? Here? Impossible!" Alberta was more encouraging but Ward found that the aspen resource there was scattered over too wide an area for his purposes, In B.C., he discovered, there is just no large harvesting of aspen. (And the resource and end product had to be aspen because the wood is light but tough and has no color, odor or taste when dried because it contains little resin. It is aesthetically appealing to the eye and is also prolific and inexpensive in North America.) Says Ward: "We were greeted with a great deal of skepticism in Canada by both government and the private sector. The trouble, I suppose, was that we were pioneering new ground. We couldn't point to any precedents." Ward was looking for these things: a stand of high grade or "veneer quality" aspen that was already being harvested for other purposes and in and accessible area so he could set up his manufacturing plant on the periphery, using the leftover wood. He also needed a reliable and reasonably priced labor force, efficient and economical transportation and, of course, financing. All the key elements came together in the Minnesota community of Hibbing, the birthplace of Bob Dylan and the Greyhound Bus Lines. The area has an abundance of high quality aspen (the supply will never run out because the annual harvest is much less that the annual growth), labor costs were cheaper than in Canada and Ward found it would be cost-efficient to send the finished product to Seattle for shipment to Japan. Not only that. The encouragement, the incentives and much of the financing were there as well. In 1984 Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich, who was attending a convention in San Francisco, flew up to Vancouver to have dinner with Ian Ward and his associates. The governor had heard about the chopstick idea through a forestry consultant in Alberta and was interested. He invited Ward and Lakewood technical director John Grossholz to come to Minnesota. They went, liked what they saw and a deal was struck. Lakewood was in business. The initial budget was $6 million U.S., about $8 million in Canadian funds. Lakewood (which is listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ exchange in the U.S.) hired a B.C. forestry engineer to design the plant. Ward found a manufacturer of popsicle sticks in Denmark who was brought in to develop the machinery. The financing was finalized in 1985, the plant completed in 1986 and in October of 1987 the first commercial quality chopsticks rolled off the assembly line. But there were production problems that had not been foreseen. It was impossible to modify the popsicle-stick technology to properly produce finished chopsticks; the chopsticks were too fuzzy and rough. The popsicle man pulled out and Ian Ward went back to the drawing board. He arranged more financing ($15 million Canadian to date) and brought in ultra-sophisticated equipment such as a custom-built veneer lathe, a fibre optics scanning device for the selection of top grade wood and a color coding system, using video cameras, for efficient sorting of the chopsticks. Sorting had been a major headache because it took too many people too much time to do efficiently. By December 1988, Lakewood had shipped more than 100 million chopsticks to Japan, where they are distributed to restaurants by three of th country's major wholesalers and suppliers. But, says Ward, that is only a hint of what is to come. The plant will be in full production, with all the technological kinks ironed out during the first quarter of 1989, and will be turning out six million pairs of chopsticks per 24-hour day, seven days a week, about two billion pairs a year. Daily production could be pushed up to seven million pairs. As for the future, Ward has nothing but unbridled optimism. In Japan, where the use of disposable chopsticks has long been traditional for sanitary reasons, people are steadily becoming more affluent and therefore are eating out in restaurants more, using (and throwing away) their waribashi. And a growing awareness of the health factor in re-usable wooden chopsticks is spreading not only in Asian countries but also in North America. Lakewood has been approached by potential buyers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States. "People have realized that there are all sorts of nasty bugs that can be spread and that it's almost impossible to sanitize a wooden chopstick that has already been used," says Ward. "If you used concentrated dry heat you'd end up with charcoal and if you used wet heat you'd end up with wood pulp. Irradiation is far too costly. So the obvious answer is to use disposable ones." Ward hopes in the future to expand into making another type of chopstick, used on Japanese holidays, and disposable prayer boards which are displayed in Shdinto shrines and then burned, A second plant, to be built in Canada, could be just two or three years down the road. The boss of the world's first and only fully automated chopstick factory, buoyed by the prospects of the future, says: "At one stage I had almost given up. It was a dream that turned into a nightmare that has turned into a dream again." Sticking in a Tough Market By Tony Kryzanowski Logging and Sawmilling Journal, Dec 1996/Jan 1997 Back in 1989, the naysayers scoffed. Give it a year max, they said, and it will fold its tent and go away. They all do. But the Canadian Chopstick Manufacturing Co. Ltd. hasn't folded. Its plant at Fort Nelson in northeastern British Columbia is the largest of its kind in the world. By far. The company has had its setbacks, and it continues to face challenges. But the Canadian Chopstick Manufacturing Co.'s unique value-added plant has bucked the odds, thanks to a patient and understanding ownership and a committed workforce. The labour-intensive operation uses aspen to produce a climbing average of eight million high-quality chopsticks a day for the demanding Japanese market. That word 'quality', incidentally, is often heard around the CCMC in tandem with production. "This plant is a success. It's supplied a large number of people with a reasonable income they hadn't had before by utilizing a non-utilized resource in BC,' points out Tom Gilgan, CCMC's manager - human relations. "But we're in an extremely competitive market. We're seeing more chopsticks coming into the Orient from the states that comprised the USSR.' Chopsticks are the disposable knives and forks of the Orient and represent a massive market of perhaps 90 million per day. To increase market share, you need a superior quality product or produce it at a lower cost,' notes Gilgan. The chopsticks are accepted into the market only if they are made from clear, knot-free, stain-free aspen with no checks or blemishes. And therein lies the source of one of CCMC's enduring problems. When the company was granted its aspen harvesting licence, the forest inventory indicated seven of 10 stems were chopstick-grade material. Experience has shown only two or three make the grade. It's extremely tough to tell from the outside of aspen the quality of fibre inside. It has to be cut first then assessed. The result is a large proportion of residue aspen that can't make the quality standards for chopstick manufacture. But it is fibre that comes with the same harvesting and transportation costs as chopstick grade. The other factor compounding the situation and beyond CCMC's control was that a pulp mill planned for Fort Nelson with an appetite for residue aspen never materialized. There's no compelling demand for high-priced residue aspen,' notes Gilgan wryly. But the company has been successful in marketing some into the BC interior. And CCMC is working with Slocan's OSB plant in Fort Nelson to reach an agreement for supply of residue aspen to its Polar Board plant. We've looked at pelletizing and products like sushi boxes, and even kitty litter,' reports Gilgan, although feline reaction to the latter product was underwhelming. Developing furniture components is also being investigated as a viable product from the residue aspen. "We've come a long way in the last nine months in terms of our chopstick production,'continues Gilgan. The target is to produce 1,800 boxes a day. There's 5,000 chopsticks to a box, which translates to nine million sticks daily. "We've achieved a record production of 1,784 boxes so far,' says Gilgan. CCMC's plant operates one eight-hour shift daily, employing 120 hourly people and 33 staff. "We have some very good people,' says Gilgan. He adds more automation designed into the plant will help relieve repetitive strains and improve workplace ergonomics. "Automation yes, but we can closely maintain the number of people by changing the roles more into quality-control specialists. The person-machine interface is a vital component of automation. It's a long-term initiative.' Chopstick-grade logs entering the mill are in maximum lengths of 7.3 metres, says Gilgan. A wheeled Barko 275 A grapple loader feeds the infeed decks. Logs are fed singly through a 183-cm cut-off saw which essentially bucks for defects. A 76.2-cm Nicholson handles the debarking chores. PLC systems are from Square D. Logs are reduced to short bolts on a slasher deck and because the aspen is frequently frozen delivered into one of two hot ponds for thawing and conditioning. Frozen wood in the plant can crack veneer coils, gives a less smooth finish and creates lost volume. It's also tough on lathe knives. A gas-fired submersible burner maintains the temperature in the 75¡ to 84¡ range. "We're experimenting with that,' says Gilgan. Too high a temperature, for instance, can discolor the aspen. The bolts are kept on the move in the ponds for about a day and a half. A jack ladder recovers the thawed bolts and feeds them to a deck where they are directed to either the south or north end of the mill. The plant has nine automated lathe lines. Photo cells examine each bolt, determine its diameter and automatically position and centre it in the lathe chucks. The bolts are spun through the lathe knives to produce veneer. The material comes off in coils and short lengths which are separated and fed into choppers. The coil and short choppers are the same machine set up differently with photo cells to determine defective ends and eject core material to a waste conveyor. Quality-control checks and analysis for improperly formed or defective chopsticks kick in with avengeance once the lathes produce veneer. For example, quality is monitored at regular intervals by operators on the choppers and defective material is culled. The dryer is a key component of the production process. "It's a hybrid based on an original veneer dryer concept put together by Salton, but it has a number of modifications and it's specific to us,' explains Gilgan. It's gas-fired with a series of eight cells and a constantly moving deck with the chopsticks piled to about .6 metre depth. The goal is to reduce moisture content from about 40 per cent to 9 per cent. The chopsticks stay in the dryer for up to 1.5 hours at a temperature of about 240¡ F. "We constantly monitor the moisture content and the speed and temperature is sensitive,' he continues. "There's an art to it. If it's too quick the sticks can warp, if too slow they can split. And if they're not dry enough they can develop stain after shipment. The proper operation of that dryer is vital.' Gilgan says CCMC continues to look at how to optimize the dryer's capabilities. "We're basically researching our options and the consequences of each of them.'An associated area of research is developing more surge and storage capacity, both ahead and behind the dryer. Chopsticks exit the dryer for one of six packing lines. Any imperfect sticks remaining are removed. Chopsticks are piled and boxed manually, sealed and marked. A forklift delivers them to one of two sized shipment containers capable of holding about 830 and 960 boxes of chopsticks respectively. The containers are shipped by BC Rail to Vancouver and by sea to China. In two locations there the chopsticks receive a further sorting and grading with the final product packaged and delivered to the customer in Japan. The Korean Community in Anchorage Prospers by Nancy Cain Schmitt Alaska Journal of Commerce and Pacific Rim Reporter Apr 15, 1985 It is estimated that there are 4,000 Koreans living in Anchorage. For most part they've arrived in the last 10 to 15 years, many joining family members who had already set up homes in Alaska. In the past three years the number of Koreans here increased by 3,000 more than 1,000 per year. In 1973 only 50 Koreans lived in Anchorage. They came because the economic opportunities were greater in the United States, and many picked Alaska because the climate closely matches that of their homeland although the seasons are more pronounced in Korea. They didn't come to Alaska seeking a free handout or an easy life. They came to work. Pyong Sun Yi, the past president of the Korean Community of Anchorage and owner of the Tea Leaf Restaurant, said that Koreans operate about 140 different kinds of businesses. Most are small and many are in the service areas mostly because they don't have the business backgound to get into big operations. According to Dick Kim president of the Anchorage-Korean Chamber of Commerce and owner of Kim's Tudor Union 76 service station, there are 75 different Korean-owned businesses in Anchorage who are members of the chamber. Young T. Moon, who works for The Equitable as a financial advisor to the Korean community, and Young Yim, president of Orient Travel Agency, there are about 1,500 Koreans in the Anchorage workforce. The rest own their own businesses, are seniors or don't work, opting to stay home and raise a family. Many of those in the workforce are employed by family-owned businesses. In Fairbanks 22 businesses are owned by Koreans. And in the rest of the state Koreans own businesses in such places as Nome, Kotzebue, Seward, Homer and Barrow. There are "well over 100 members statewide" of the Korean Chamber of Commerce, Kim said. Few Koreans fail in the business world, and Kim, Yi, Moon and Yim accredited this success to a cultural education of hard work, long hours and a strong sense of family. "A family understands the ups and downs of business. A family will put money together . . . the family will invest together," Yi said. In his business he has two brothers, two sisters, his wife and a 65-year-old mother who works 16 hours a day. "Even the children will come in a set up the tables," he said. Most come with degrees in professions, such as engineering, teaching, technical fields and others. Few are able to find work in their fields. In Alaska they own janitorial services, gasoline/service stations, auto body shops, restaurants, laundries, gift shops, a travel agency, wholesale meat business, other wholesale business, and some are in real estate, one is a certified public accountant and another, Moon, is in insurance sales. In addition to his restaurant, Yi is getting involved in an export business, sending logs to Korea to be made into chopsticks for restaurants. Kim came to Alaska 10 years ago. In his native land he worked in construction, drilling test holes. He also was a teacher, and while serving with the Korean Air Force, he learned to be an auto mechanic. Once he arrived in Alaska, Kim went to work as an auto mechanic for the Municipality of Anchorage. Why? He wanted to work, and he, like his other Korean business friends, wasn't afraid of long hours and hard work to make money that they could only dream of in Korea -- and, also, to make a success in their new home and provide for their family here and those that would follow them. In Korea, Kim said, he would make $2 an hour for the same job he'd be paid $10 per hour for in the United States. "Most of the Koreans in our country have the training, the higher education, but when they came to the United States they had to start at base again," Yi added. As an example, he referred to an immigrant that might have an electrical engineering degree. In order to get work in that field in the United States, he or she would have to go back to school to get a new certificate, and "there's no time, so he has to take another job." When most Americans wouldn't consider washing dishes if they have a degree in accounting, a Korean immigrant might do that menial job and end up owning the restaurant. Or they will mop floors and after having saved some money, open their own janitorial service. Kim, like other Koreans who come to this country to work, found that language was a huge barrier that caused misunderstandings and problems in his business dealings. He found it difficult to understand the American way of doing business and discovered that banks and the Internal Revenue Service were operations that were difficult to understand. Moon explained that although Koreans learn English as part of their regular schooling, it's only book-knowledge and few have had the chance at conversation. The Korean Chamber of Commerce was formed to offer help in these areas, Kim said -in unfamiliar tax laws and banking services. "I've lived 10 years in the United States, and I still have a lot of problems with the language," Kim said. To help make things easier for him in the business world he Americanized his name from Dae Mo Kim to Dick M. Kim. That's helped a lot, he said. "I had to make a more simple name," he explained. "Any businessman wants success, and a name is important." Other Koreans have done the same thing, he said. Included are his four brothers in Anchorage who are also in business -one has a fur factory, one is a general contractor, another has a janitorial service (Q -- 1 with about 80 employees) and the fourth is a real estate broker. Two were already in Anchorage when Dick Kim arrived. Yi came to the United States as a student. Most of those who are able to immigrate come from middle or upper middle or the higher classes in Korea, Yi said. He had plans to go back to Korea. However, at the time, salaries in Korea, were not comparable to those in the United States. Until recently Korea was considered a very poor country. Even if a person had a master's degree or a doctorate, the wages in Korea were much lower for the same jobs in the United States. Yi stayed for "economic reasons." He married a Caucasian while he was in college, and he said that at that time there were a lot of reasons -- political and economic -not to go back. He had come to the United States to study urban planning and then return to Korea to help in that area, to help develop the cities in Korea as cities are developed in the United States and Europe. But even with a degree, it was difficult to find a good job in Korea, he said. A third of the country's population lives in the cities, and "it's hard there," he said. Yet it's the very nature of life in Korea that has given its people the drive for success. "Koreans work hard. In our country we have had war, we've had Japanese occupation. If you don't work hard, then you don't make it. Yi has made it in the United States through hard work, by (bringing other members of his family from Korea to Alaska to help out. "Anyone who works 16 hours, seven days a week, or six days a week, will be a success, and with wife and kids (and also brothers and sisters) to help, they'll be a success," Kim said. The first Tea Leaf restaurant was opened in Tacoma, purchased little by little from a friend whose family was tired of operating it. The restaurtant became very successful, Yi said. It was during a time that China was popular and Chinese food was a hot menu item. At the invitation of a friend to visit Alaska, Yi arrived with two suitcases and a pair of skis and just never left. He found a lot of support from his Korean business friends here, and he also discovered the importance of being organized. "I wanted to open a restaurant, and they (the Korean businessmen) gave me the information that I needed. They gave me the information on how to begin." When Koreans get together to help each other, they speak Korean because, Yi said, "it's much easier to talk in Korean than English, it's faster to understand." In Korea Moon worked as a teller at the Seoul branch of the Bank of America. He went to Vietnam as a civilian contractor with an engineering firm. When that contract ran out, he decided to visit the United States -- with the intention of staying. He lived in Honolulu where, with a $10,000 investment, he opened a body repair shop. He sold that in a year and got his real estate license. With 5,000 Koreans in Honolulu in the early 1970s (there are now 15,000), Moon found enough clients. But in the tradition of the Korean work drive, he drove a taxi in his spare time. "Koreans usually have two jobs in their first years here because they like to become financially independent quickly," Moon said. He moved to California in 1977, but found the real estate business to be very slow, so he established a limo service. When a friend in Alaska told him that there were good opportunities here, he decided to come. He worked for a fishing company before joining The Equitable in 1981. At the time he came to Alaska -- 1980 -- Moon said there were only about 10 Korean businesses in Anchorage. Now a directory of Korean businesses numbers about 120. Today there are enough Koreans in the business world that Moon has an insurance brochure written in Korean. Yim, who is president of the Anchorage/Korean Lions Club, came to the United States in 1976. He has been in politics and was a television newscaster in Korea. He came first to Chicago and New York. In Los Angeles he had his own travel agency, but he decided to move to Alaska when the opportunities seemed greater here. Yim said that at his travel agency his clientle is probably 70 percent Caucasian and 30 percent Oriental. It is the only travel agency in Anchorage owned by an Oriental. Just as Kim and Yi, Moon and Yim see language as the major barrier that the small Korean businessman must face. But the Korean business community is taking care of itself. The Korean businessman feels a trust for the United States and is willing to put the work into making a business a success. As one commented, "The United States fought for our country." Most Korean businesspeople are young, first generation immigrants. They try to pass on their standards and culture to their children who'll be the second generation Korean/Americans in business here. Korean businessmen gain assistance from their own organizations, and at least two banks have Korean women working for them -- one a teller. This makes banking easier. A Korean CPA, Sol Moon Shin, helps, too. The Korean community has also established its own churches and social organizations. There is special programming on Multi Visions just for the Korean community, and this includes business tips as well as the news from Korea and other special programming in Korean. They want to belong, but most of all they want to succeed. "In Korea it's not possible for a small business to grow into a big business," Yi said. "I can be a big business here." But, he admitted, that it's still hard "because we don't know the American system. We still have to continue to learn." "It's still hard because we don't know the American system. We still have to learn," Kim said. Moon said that the Korean businessman's philosophy is "to try to make money, to be financially independent. They want the second generation to go to school, so they're buying insurance to get a college fund started . . . We're a very educated-oriented people." "Korean people, they want to make the money first," Yim said. "After the Korean War, until about 10 years ago, the country was really poor. "But all of that has changed. Korea is becoming more western. A lot of the Korean businesspeople here are sending money back to Korea to help out families still there, he said. Although there are still ties to Korea, the businessperson who is making it in Alaska is here to stay. They want to become part of the the community, and they see themselves as part of Alaska. "I'm a Korean Alaskan," said Yi. CCMC Furthering Aspen as a Commercial Species in BC: CCMC is a pioneering company making exclusive use of high-quality aspen By Jim Stirling Logging and Sawmilling Journal, Dec 1996/Jan 1997 A gradually increasing number of forest companies in the region are using aspen as the sole furnish or as a mix in their wood processing plants. But the aspen is not a conifer. "What you've learned about conifers, leave it at home when it comes to aspen,'' recommends Rob Hall, woodlands superintendent for the Canadian Chopstick Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in Fort Nelson, BC. Managing forests for aspen requires a different attitude and philosophy that incorporates techniques recognizing the species' specific biological and regeneration characteristics, he believes. CCMC is a pioneering company making exclusive use of high-quality aspen for the manufacture of disposable chopsticks. "We have to be innovative because of the nature of the aspen and the uniqueness of the operation," adds Frank Senko, CCMC's woodlands manager. The operational experience of forest management techniques dedicated to aspen is limited in northeastern BC, unlike in other parts of western Canada. The tree types and conditions there mean companies like CCMC and the provincial forest service are on a learning curve. But it really sticks in the corporate craw when aspen is given little credence as a viable commercial species. Understandable, for the aspen is essential to CCMC's survival. The company has a deciduous forest licence to harvest 69,384 m3 of aspen annually in the Fort Nelson TSA, the largest supply block in BC. Its charter harvesting areas are in the Fort Nelson and Liard River drainages. Less than 10 per cent of the company's volume is in spruce and cottonwood. The resource is distributed throughout valley bottoms to upland regions in amoeba-shaped areas ranging from two to 2,000 hectares in size. Only the highest-quality aspen about 30 per cent can provide the clean, bright, unblemished chopsticks mandated by the Japanese market. Finding a fair and reasonably priced market for the remaining residue aspen is an ongoing challenge. "It takes a lot of field work to try to identify chopstick-grade aspen. You can get a feel but you don't know for sure until you cut it down,''explains Hall. CCMC's cruisers use destructive sampling methods to determine the recoverable volume of chopstick-grade material in a given aspen stand. And while it's not always possible, the company tries to avoid areas where the indicated grade volume is 90 cubic metres/ hectare and less. "It's our belief soil moisture contributes to the degree of stain and rot in a clonal species like aspen,'' continues Hall. Aspen in higher elevations seem less prone to stain and rot. CCMC has conducted yeoman silvicultural trial work and planting with aspen. The company grew its first aspen from seed on a trial basis in 1990 and continues to garner good-quality seed from the best clones. Survival rate in aspen from CCMC's own seed has climbed to a 95 per-cent rate in the last two years. The company planted 150,000 aspen in 1995 and 140,000 in 1996. Site preparation is not usually required. The aspen respond best to an open planting site. Promising Future for Wooden Chopsticks by Li Yi, 2001 www.chinaproducts.comChopsticks is a world-famous invention of China. It has a history of over 3000 years. It is seen as one of the quintessence of Chinese culture by foreigners. China is the main producer, consumer and exporter of wooden chopsticks in the world. chopsticks is made by wood or by bamboo. Bamboo chopsticks is mainly manufactured in South China with little production, and this article is focused on wooden chopsticks. 1.Situation of Production and Export of Wooden Chopsticks in ChinaNow, China is the biggest producer and exporter of wooden chopsticks in the world. The annual production is nearly 10 million standard cases (5000 pairs in each case), which means that China produces totally 50 billion pairs of chopsticks every year. The production areas locate in Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, and Dalian is the biggest base for processing and export. Export from Dalian occupies 99.63% of the total export. The materials for chopsticks are birch and poplar, and some high-quality chopsticks uses Korean pine. The export of year 2000 is 4.4 million cases, which is over 22 billion pairs, earning 95. 61 million US dollars. The main destination is Japan and South Korea. The export to Japan is 3.7 million cases, occupying 84% of the total, with earnings of 86.1 million US dollars; export to South Korea is 0.56 million cases, occupying 13% of the total, with earnings of 6.8 million US dollars. Export enterprises reaches 218,of which 105 are joint ventures. Export quantity of joint ventures is 2.74 million cases, occupying 62% of the total quantity, and earnings of joint ventures is 63.62 million US dollars, occupying 67% of the total earnings. The joint ventures are the backbone of the trade. Export Statistics of Wooden Chopsticks from 1998 to July of 2001
Export areas of Wooden Chopsticks in 2000 Unit: cases, dollars
Top five Imaporters of Chopsticks in 2000 Unit: cases, dollars
2. Resource for Manufacturing Wooden ChopsticksThe materials for making wooden chopsiticks are birch and poplar with diameter of 16-22cm. The growing period for birch is 15-20 years, and only 8 years for poplar. These are low-value wood in the view of forest department, and only used for firewood in the past. Especially birch, according to the rule of "Sunlight Cut" and "Interval Cut", was cut off in great amount, but burned as firewood. Moreover, the core of the birch will be rotten without any value if the growth period exceeds 30 years. In mid-80s, one cubic meter of birch was sold only at RMB60-100 with little attention. After the production of chopsticks, birch and poplar wer found usable, and they have made high benefits. Afterwards toothpick, tongue-push plate, ice cream stick were developed, making the prices for birch and poplar rise to RMB300-500, bringing added value to the forest areas. The wood used for the production of chopsticks is 1 million cubic meters each year, with two-thirds of birch and one-third of poplar. According to the results of the fourth general investigation of forest resources, adult wood storage is 78.94 million cubic meters for birch and 236.61 million cubic meters for poplar. The wood for chipstick production only amounts to 0.317% of the total storage. The total limitation of wood-cutting (including bamboo) for the year of 2001 is 220 million cubic meters, and the materials for chopstick production only occupies 0.45%. Calculated to the production, one cubic of wood produces 10 cases of chopsticks with the volume of 0.58 cubic meters for each case. That means the production rate of one cubic meter of wood is 58% . What's more, the core of wood can be produced as brush handle, ice cream stick, and the skin of wood can be used ad fuel. So, the comprehensive utilization rate reaches over 75%, which highly exceeds over other woooden products. Some high-rate enterprises, such as Heilongjiang Yuanbaoshan Wooden products Co., Ltd, with the production of over 0.4 million cases each year, has the comprehensive utilization rate of over 85%. 3. Specification, Added Value and Profits of Wooden ChopsticksBecause the processing technology for chopstick is very simple, there is not much difference in the quality of products between private factories and state-owned factoris. The low quality products are used in normal dinners accountiong over 90% of the total production an high-quality products made with elm or pine are produced only in small quantity and used in high-grade banquets. Production of chopsticks brings some economic profits to forest areas and to enterprises. According to the average standard, one cubiv meter of birch is RMB350, with production of 10 cases of chopsticks, including 3 cases of first grade with USD9 for each case, 2 cases of second grade with USD16 for each case, 3 case of third grade with USD15 for each case, 2 cased of off grade products wiht RMB60 for each case. The total production value is RMB1232, with added value of 3.5 times. For poplar one cubic meter is RMB300, production value is RMB1300, with added value of 4.3 times. 4. Main Enterprises of Chopsticks in ChinaAccording to the custom statistics, China has 218 enterprises exporting chopsticks in 2000. The top ten are:
The total export of the ten companies exported over 88,000 cases last year accounting for 39% of the total. The number of enterproses exporting to Japan reaches 154, The top ten are:
The ten companies exported to Japan over 86,000 cases last year accountiong for 40% of the total export to Japan. |
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