Inside the factory, wool fiber flying around, Adonis Yang, dressed in jeans and jean jacket, picks up bundle after bundle of milky white wool and puts it in the combing machine. First the wool is combed and loosened, then flattened. Then it comes out onto a high rack, where the thin wool is folded and refolded to the appropriate thickness.

Cotton cloth (for a cover) is then placed on the folded wool, and the excess wool cut away. Yang, an old hand at this, then neatly steps on an electrical footswitch to turn on the sewing machine, which faultlessly sews up the sides of the cover around the wool. And thus is a warm woolen quilt finished under Yang's watch.

Adonis Yang, vice chairman of the Hwa Hsia Society of New Zealand, usually is seen dressed in a suit, handling office business in his capable manner. He doesn't give one the impression that he also has this kind of skill on the factory floor. This skill is the key reason why he has been able to make a success of manufacturing in New Zealand's overseas Chinese society, in which "everybody is part of the leisure class."

It's a start

Yang formerly worked for the Ret-Ser Engineering Agency, and was stationed in Saudi Arabia. In 1989, thinking about emigrating to New Zealand, he came to have a look. At that time he decided he would open an auto repair shop. But when he finally did move to New Zealand in 1994, imports of second-hand Japanese automobiles had been liberalized, and repair shops were also second-hand car dealers, requiring an investment many times larger than he had originally anticipated.

Friends who emigrated with him adopted a wait-and-see attitude for a long time, unable to decide what they should do. Yang, on the other hand, reasoned that it didn't really matter what he did-the important thing was to make the first step. First he thought about making styrofoam lunchboxes and plastic bags, but the New Zealand government requires that the products of any newly established plastics factories must naturally degrade within 14 years. "The costs of that are several times higher than for the old factories, so there was no point in joining the game."

Eventually Yang realized that it would be better to use local resources-like forest or animal husbandry products-and make processed goods for export. He did a little market research, and found that wool quilts would be a good choice. First, this business wouldn't require a large initial investment. Second, with air conditioning increasingly common in Asia, more and more people use quilts even in summer. Finally, wool quilts fit in with the growing emphasis on natural products, so there should be a market for them.

After deciding, Yang-who studied mechanical engineering and took a course in "industrial fibers" in college-returned to Taiwan to check out a CETRA exhibition to find machinery. In Taiwan he bought machines designed for combing and laying out cotton, as well as an automated sewing machine. He sent everything over to New Zealand, and altered those parts that were not suited for wool.

When the machines arrived, a technician from Taiwan, local workers, and Yang himself assembled them. He worked two whole months laying out a production process. With constant improvements over time, today the factory requires only seven workers, while monthly production (taking last November for example) has been as high as 3,300 quilts. Using high quality Merino sheep's wool from New Zealand and high-grade cotton cloth imported from mainland China and India, quilt after quilt is sewed up.

The dust of New Zealand

There were already three wool quilt factories in New Zealand, with firm territories. "Therefore we adopted the strategy of 'surrounding the cities from the countryside,' rather than contesting the local market with the others." Yang targeted overseas markets, mainly Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Now he has begun producing thin quilts for export to Thailand, and the next target is Saudi Arabia.

"I had heard Chang Kuo-an say 'just do it.' You have to do something to know what kinds of things you are likely to run into. When you get on a horse, you can cover the ground with sponge and carry a staff in your hand, but you're still going to fall off."

It is indeed impossible not to fall off in the process, but when you fall this time, next time you'll know better. For example, the first time Yang bought his cardboard packages from Taiwan-6,000 in all, taking up a whole shipping container. But he found he couldn't use so many at once, so that his costs were just sunk. Now he has the packages made locally in New Zealand, 500 at a shot. Though the unit price is slightly higher, he retains greater flexibility. "At first, I was still emotionally tied to home, and bought everything-even sewing machine needles-from Taiwan," says Yang, half in explanation and half chuckling at himself. "But after the first box of needles was used up, what could I do? Eventually I figured out that local needles are also very good."

Because he is adding value to a special New Zealand product, Yang has found acceptance from local residents.

New Zealand has strict limits on factory emissions of dust, and there are often complaints about the factory next door that makes sailboat masts. But the neighbors around Yang's wool factory never complain: "Sheep's wool is a New Zealand thing, and this is New Zealand dust, so we can live with it.

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Michael Yang brought a cotton machine to New Zealand to process wool for export back to East Asia. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)