Quote Originally Posted by Botanic View Post
木井方 - mujingfang
Botanic: many thanks! All the information you posted is very useful.

Thanks also to the others who have commented. As a general point about going to cookshops/woodworking tool suppliers etc, or getting to know chefs/woodworkers: as most people with decent experience in China know, people with significant expertise and finesse in these kinds of fields are very difficult to find, even if they are there. And even if you find them, don't expect them to give up information for no reason. I would use this approach in a western country, but in China I'm not even going to try. I'm here for five months this time, which is nowhere near long enough for that kind of project.

I'm not going to underestimate Taobao, my guess is that there are a lot of decent stones in China where the suppliers find it difficult to get to a market that understands what they have, and selling on taobao is a good way for these guys to try to sell what they have.

I will investigate and post reports!