Posted by: keyenfarrell on: January 5, 2011
The other weekend, I was reading the travel section of The New York Times and came across a great article about Chongqing, a city of 32 million residents in inland China. It reminded me of my visit to Chongqing in 2007. We boarded a ship in Chongqing to take us down the Yangtze River for [...]
Posted by: keyenfarrell on: April 5, 2010
How many times have you had an idea for the next big thing in your head and wondered what could happen if the product could appear on your doorstep? Thanks to some enterprising folks in China, now it can, in 12 short weeks. Keyen Farrell made visited a pretty unusual factory in China. For a few hundred dollars, plus or minus, the company will manufacture prototypes of your invention. Then if you choose, they will produce it at scale. As I walked through the various rooms, I thought I was walking through an even more bizarre version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Huge vats bubbling with who knows what, workers pulling plastic out of molds, and my favorite, quality assurance. In the quality assurance room, some sort of doll was being tested for durability that day; a lead weight on a pendulum would slam into the doll at regular intervals. The workers seemed satisfied that the doll was tough enough. Products of every description were rolling off the production line: from a metal rake for removing roofing shingles, to a laser for whitening teeth.
Posted by: keyenfarrell on: March 24, 2010
On my last day in Hong Kong, I paid a visit to the Chungking Mansions. Contrary to the name, there is nothing luxe about the Chungking Mansions. Situated across the harbor in Kownloon, it’s a bustling marketplace selling everything in Hong Kong that can’t be eaten. Want a new computer? Why buy a fancy Lenovo when you can hire a dude waiting outside who will buy a motherboard, disk drive and other parts, and assemble your computer. It even comes with a complementary ten-minute warranty. If the religion of Hong Kong is commerce, the Mansions are its temple. It’s a labyrinth of shops housed in an enormous and frighteningly dilapidated building. This place is the worst nightmare for sufferers of even mild claustrophobia and contains enough combustibles to make the Hindenburg look up-to-code.
Posted by: keyenfarrell on: March 17, 2010
Not too long ago, I was fortunate enough to visit Huangshan in China’s Anhui Province. It was my second trip to Huangshan, and it was every bit as spectacular as the first. Also known as the Yellow Mountain, it’s hands down the coolest place I’ve ever been. If you’ve ever seen a traditional Chinese painting with granite peaks obscured by mist, or twisted pine trees clinging to rock, you’ve seen Mount Huangshan. The warm, moist air from the Yangtze River collides with the cold mountain air to create a fog that permeates literally everything. Most of the time you can’t see more than 10 feet in front of your face – then all of a sudden a breeze will come and blow the clouds away to reveal some of most incredible vistas imaginable. A few seconds later, the fog will swallow the mountains as the process starts anew.
Posted by: keyenfarrell on: February 28, 2010
Since joining Google in 2007 as an Account Strategist, Keyen Farrell has worked in Google’s Media & Entertainment Vertical. As Account Strategist, Keyen is directly responsible for a paid search portfolio consisting of several top Media & Entertainment advertisers. Since January of 2009, Keyen’s work has been focused on the Big Three Television Networks. He [...]
