Live, on the scene from Northern China, Barbara Garwood revels her love of Chinese food, and her plans for 12 brand new jewelry designs.
Barbara Garwood Live From China – Part 1
Barbara Garwood Live From China – Part 2
Transcript:
Phil Downs: Hello Barbara. How are you this morning?
Barbara Garwood: Okay. Well, it’s nighttime here. It’s 10:00 at night. I’m in China!
Phil Downs: Here on the east coast it’s 9:00 in the morning, so we’re 13 hours different. Wow.
Barbara Garwood: Yeah.
Phil Downs: So how is the food there?
Barbara Garwood: Well, it’s; I’m getting to have my favorite food. I had wonderful Peking duck last night.
Phil Downs: Excellent.
Barbara Garwood: Yep, and I had; it’s really neat, I ate at this restaurant, it’s one of my favorite restaurants here, its 600 years old.
Phil Downs: Wow.
Barbara Garwood: So you know it’s survived quite a few recessions and depressions, right?
Phil Downs: Yes.
Barbara Garwood: And one of the other foods I got to try for the first time, this is probably going to freak a few people out, but I had fried duck tongue.
Phil Downs: Fried duck?
Barbara Garwood: Fried duck tongues.
Phil Downs: Fried duck tongues. So how big is a duck tongue anyway?
Barbara Garwood: Maybe about two inches long.
Phil Downs: Really?
Barbara Garwood: Yeah, it actually has a little; I guess because they take it all the way from back down in the throat, but its got a little bone attached to it that you kind of crunch on, so I know I’m probably sickening a few people out who are listening to this. And yesterday for lunch I had fried fish, which were kind of like the size of a smelt and head and all, head and all.
Phil Downs: Of course.
Barbara Garwood: Yeah. And then the other day I had hot pot which is one of my favorite, favorite foods here, which is a special pot of water that’s boiling and it has some vegetables in it and then they bring up really thinly sliced rolled goat and you drop it in there and it boils it and then you get it out with your chopsticks and dip it into a bean dip that they have that’s absolutely delicious.
I think if they had a hot pot restaurant in the United States, it’d be very popular. So that’s one of my favorite foods too.
Tomorrow, I’m going out to the village and another one of my favorite foods out there is fried goat.
Phil Downs: Fried goat?
Barbara Garwood: Yes. Come on Phil, you know everybody calls me Indiana Joan, that’s why, right?
Phil Downs: Well, I enjoy goat every once in a while at an Indian place, but I’ve never had fried goat before.
Barbara Garwood: It’s really delicious. Think of a fried turkey, right?
Phil Downs: Okay.
Barbara Garwood: Yeah, very tasty, and you get to eat a lot of wild vegetables out there.
Phil Downs: Excellent. Well, it sounds like a lot of fun. Now, this is your annual trip to China and Mongolia and in addition to eating some great food, you’re working on the jewelry correct?
Barbara Garwood: Yeah, working on a lot of new designs. I’m having a great time. I’m working with Fong. She’s my manager here. She takes all my designs and translates everything, all my drawings, and then she’ll take it out to the village. We’ll take a bunch of stuff out there tomorrow and we go over a lot of things and try to improve the quality while we’re out there; talk about things that have occurred during the year that maybe we need to improve, and also send them some new ideas.
I’m taking some vintage ceramic pieces and vintage designs from the 1930s and 40s, and I’m doing some new designs around that. Just like last year, I had the vintage copper.
Phil Downs: Right.
Barbara Garwood: So I’m taking more of that out there and more copper to do more things. On top of that, one of the styles that’s in fashion now, the long sleeve earrings you’ll see the movie stars using. We’re not doing them that long, but I’m doing some new themes and shapes and styles of these long, dangly theme earrings. So, that’s going to be fun. And some new bracelets and working on some different kinds of stones I haven’t done in a while of iolite and some more teal topaz and doing earrings and things with more than one stone; like two or three different colored stones and adding some pearls into some themes also to coordinate with our pearls.
Phil Downs: Now, I heard there’s a fantastic pearl market in that area. Is that true?
Barbara Garwood: Yeah. The famous pearl market and we’ve been there twice already. I have designed four new pearl combinations with some gemstones in to compliment some of the stones that we have and particularly Rhodocrosite, which I hadn’t done any pearl combinations for that, so I have a new combination with that and it’s really beautiful.
I have already eight different pearl combinations I’ve designed and now I’m adding four to bring that to a dozen.
Phil Downs: Fantastic. Well, that’s really exciting to hear about all those new plans. How long are we going to have to wait before we actually see them out of production?
Barbara Garwood: Well you know, I don’t know, if you can hear in the background, can you hear the fireworks? It’s Chinese New Year here, so the windows are open. Even though it’s winter, my room’s a little warm.
Phil Downs: Okay.
Barbara Garwood: But the fireworks are going off continually all day long and all night and tomorrow is the last day for Chinese New Year and we’re going to have major, major, major, major firework celebration all over the city, so no one is really working too much now because they’re still on holiday.
Phil Downs: Right.
Barbara Garwood: So, to answer your question, it’s going to be probably another 4-6 weeks before we get some samples and then once we get approval, we’ll go into production at that point in time. So another four weeks after that. So probably 2 ½ months.
Phil Downs: Before the first pieces start coming through.
Barbara Garwood: Yeah.
Phil Downs: And it’s the very end of February, so that will take us through March, April, and well into May, so we’ll be waiting with bated breath to see all the new designs.
Barbara Garwood: Yeah, exactly. So this is the usual process and it’s great. I get to tell everybody straight from China what I’m working on this time, so it’s great.
Phil Downs: Absolutely. Well, you get some sleep tonight, despite the fireworks okay?
Barbara Garwood: I will. I’ll be home next week, so we’ll be following up with you then.
Phil Downs: Excellent. Hey, e-mail us some photos when you get a chance.
Barbara Garwood: Okay, yeah. I’ve been taking some photos of me eating, of course.
Phil Downs: Of course. Of course. Well, thanks so much for spending a few minutes with us Barbara and continue to have a safe and productive trip.
Barbara Garwood: Okay, thanks.
Phil Downs: Okay, bye now.
Barbara Garwood: Okay, bye bye.