An Interview With China Joe(TWS Biz对极限之家Joe的专访)

 
前几个月Vans Launch Party期间来上海的TWS Buesiness的记者Adam最近在TWS商业版上发了这篇对上海极限之家老板Joe的一篇专访，有兴趣看看在外国人眼里中国滑板市场什么情况的人就来读读吧，抱歉我实在没有时间翻译了，挺逗的... ...

Joe Eberling has been skating in China longer than you’ve been skating, and selling boards even longer. He lives in Shanghai and owns Wild Rampage and IconX, one of China’s largest distribution/Retail outlets for action sports. Smart brands know him as the go-to guy for breaking into the Orient.

Transworld Business sat him down and asked about the history, Google rewrites, and how the Chinese youth are more tech-savvy than the American youth.

TWB: When did you first arrive in China, and why did you move here?

JE: I moved to China in April 1986, straight out of college. I wanted to have an adventurous life and learn an impossible language, so moving to the world’s largest and oldest country seemed like a good idea. I got off the plane with an English-Chinese dictionary in one hand and my McGill green Jet Plane skateboard in the other. It wasn’t more than a few hours after arriving that I discovered that there wasn’t even a word in Chinese for skateboard! Ever since that day I’ve been teaching people to ride in China…

Can you give me a brief history of skateboarding in China?
I can’t really speak for the whole country, but I can tell you my experiences. Since I’ve never met anybody in China who’s been skating longer than I have, this should have some small value… For a couple years after arriving in 1986 I never met a Chinese skater. Then, around 1990, a few skaters appeared in Beijing. We all hung out at the capital sports stadium, near the zoo, where Sun Hu built China’s first skate ramps. It was a tight halfpipe, pyramid and five-foot-tall wallride with about three feet of vert. GNAR. In the 90’s college kids started skating, with the numbers growing very slowly throughout the decade. After the millennium, skateboarding started to change quite a bit as China’s first generation of single-child, little emperor, “me-me-me” kids hit puberty. All of the sudden I was seeing groups of skaters at the spots that I’d never met before. In the last couple years, if you stand on a corner long enough, you can see kids passing by with skateboards on any main street of any city in China.

Another cool thing that’s happening is that rather than adopting English words for skateboard tricks Chinese kids are starting to develop Chinese words for skateboard tricks. This shows that they’re making skating their own.

When did you first begin working in the Action Sports industry?
Hahaha. Great question. In 1977, when I was 14, I registered a skateboard shop, called the Boarder’s Edge, in my hometown of Tacoma, Washington. I was basically buying stuff wholesale for me and my friends and selling out of my bedroom. The first thing I brought in were a Road Rider 4’s and some Tracker mids. More recently, after leaving my job at Nike China in 1998, I set up Wild Rampage in Shanghai. We did consulting for a few years, then launched Iconx, China’s first snowboard shop with Burton at the Nanshan Snow Resort in 2002. In 2006 we started carrying skateboards, then this year we worked with Santa Cruz Surfboards to introduce surfing in China when we brought Wingnut of Endless Summer II fame to teach China’s first generation of surfers what it’s all about.

Tell Me About Google In China—I heard they had to rewrite the Chinese history?
If you Google “Tiananmen Square” here, you’ll get a picture of a tank. In China, if you do that, you’ll get a picture of happy Chinese people under a huge Mao portrait.

So lots of web sites are blocked?
Yeah, but young people can come up with workarounds faster than the government can put blockers in place.

Has the government become more lenient?
When I worked for CNN as a translator, I got followed. I’d take people into stores to buy a water, and after I come out, two guys would go in and “debrief” the shop owner.

How are you enjoying your trip to California?
I’m loving it.

Would you eventually move here? 
I definitely want my son to grow up here, and I’m not about to have my son grow up without me around. America’s the best country in the world. Americans “get it.”

Joe sounds off about the Chinese market, and how brands can save time and money when they enter it, in an upcoming issue of Transworld Business. Don’t miss it.