- [Sasha] Welcome to another video
- [Winston] Right behind me is where the Silver Play buttons are made.
I'm bringing my Silver Play button back to the factory where it came from.
Where do Silver Play buttons come from?
I think I know. I'm gonna go find out and we're gonna go together
and we're gonna try and find the factory here in China
where they're made.
[tape inserting into recorder]
[button click]
So this journey starts in Hong Kong.
[oriental electronic music starts]
[music fades]
[whoosh]
So guys, this is a momentous occasion for me. Take a look.
This has just arrived for me in Hong Kong.
I've come over the border to get it. Let's take a look and let's see.
Oooo.
You've just done something very few YouTubers creator's accomplished. Blah, blah, blah.
Nice.
Oooo.
Ta-da.
SerpentZA.
That's...
That's freaking awesome. Thanks guys for making this happen.
Seriously.
Thank you and stay awesome.
So now that I have my Silver Play button,
how am I going to find out where it comes from?
Well...
the package was D.H.L.'d to my friends place in Hong Kong.
That's why I had to go there
and on the package it actually has an originating address
and what caught my eye about the originating address.
In fact, they they gave me a commercial invoice which is kind of interesting
ah.
It says that it originates from Dōngguǎn (东莞)
which is very well known, sort of, "Factory" town here
or "Factory" city, I should say, in the south of China
and it's only about an hour and a half, two hours drive from where I live.
So you know, what's stopping me
just hopping in a car and going to this factory since...
Although the address is in English, which it's a bit of a problem because of course
all Chinese addresses are, in China... are in Chinese
but you know my Chinese is good enough that I should be able to
translate it and we should be able to figure out exactly where this Factory is
But... rather than just hopping in a car and going all the way there
and pitching up unannounced,
I noticed that there's also a contact number on the invoice.
So I'm going to phone them, I'm gonna ask them if it's okay for me to just
go to the factory tomorrow and check it out.
If they say "No", I'm just gonna go pitch up at the gates anyway,
so you guys can see where these silver play buttons are made.
But if they say "Yes",
who knows, maybe we can actually get a look inside the factory.
That could be pretty cool, huh?
[cell phone beeps]
So the gist of this conversation was that... I managed to figure out that it was actually
them that made the silver play button. So she said that it was her factory that makes it,
but she couldn't really understand why I wanted to come there. I tried to explain
I wanted to see how they were made, but she asked me if I could send an email to her
explaining exactly what it is I wanted to do.
But I decided that I just asked her if I could send her a text message instead.
So basically what I said there was "Hello."
ah.
"I'm a YouTuber. I live in Shenzhen."
"I am China's first you... the first person to make YouTube videos...
in China"
"If it's okay, I want to come and look at you... how you make the Silver Play buttons"
ah.
You have already sent me...
ah.
my play button and my YouTube is... Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, so the bad news.
I contacted the factory last week and this week I sent another message asking my contact there
"Hey you know, has your boss approved?"
"Is it okay for me to come through it... like to come through today?"
and she sent me a message saying "Sorry" that her boss did not approve of my visit so in other words "No".
So now you know the whole point of this video is I'm not trying to get anyone into trouble.
I'm not trying to "dox" the factory. Although you know,
they've given their address on this commercial invoice.
um.
But you know, the whole point is to show you guys where the Silver...
Silver Play buttons actually come from so I'm not giving up. I'm going to go to the factory.
I'm gonna drive there.
But now comes the difficult part and that is that I actually have
to decipher the address and I'll explain to you
why it's difficult. Just give me a second.
Mmm.
Okay, now the reason why it's difficult is when you write Chinese addresses
and, you know, if you write Chinese in Pinyin which is basically when you write it in sort of English letters,
it can mean a whole host of things. One word like for instance,
I'll give you an example to make this easy.
"Táng", you know T-A-N-G, "Táng", or you...
Maybe you see it on written down,
you'll say "Tang", okay but, "Táng"
actually has several meanings for instance it can mean... it can have several different characters
so it can mean "soup". It can mean "hot", you know, like hot to the touch.
It can also mean "sugar" or "candy". So you know, the thing is... it's one of those...
uh.
situations where you can read something that's being written down in Chinese,
but it doesn't necessarily not mean that you know where it is.
but...
I can probably figure it out.
So what we first have to do is we can't use Google Maps because Google Maps these days doesn't have
You know very good China coverage since it's been blocked for ages and
a lot of new businesses haven't been added so
what we do is to go to maps dot... Oh, give me a second here.
maps.baidu.com
Which is of course.... ah.
You'll find out if you try... if you type
"translate.baidu.com" there's also... [chuckles]
should "baidu translate"... you know they just basically copied Google in every way
so...
anyway...
Now addresses in China work the other way like opposite to the west.
I know in the west we start small we say like "22 Main Street".
and then we'll say the city, you know, so 22 Main Street, Chicago
And then we'll maybe say the state and then we say the country so it goes from small to big.
But in China goes from big to small, so you start with the country. So you'll say "China",
province, city, town, village, street.
Okay, so we're gonna start with the city, and of course. I'm gonna have to type it in Chinese characters.
Dongguan-Shì (东莞市). That means uh... "Dongguan" city.
Okay, so let's go to Dongguan. All right. Boom.
Now...
Dongguan is about two hours away from where I live.
So...
depending on the traffic and exactly where 'cuz Dongguan's huge. It's not a small place so.
um.
Here we have
Guăngzhōu (广州) up here. Dongguan is like here.
Alright, so the next thing I know about this place is that it's in...
a place called Tangxia (塘厦)...
"Tangxia"...
ah...
town.
Now the problem is now Tangxia. I don't know which characters those are gonna be
so I'm just gonna type in the Pinyin here and see what comes up Tangxia Zhèn (塘厦镇).
Now I'm...
It's not gonna be this one for sure.
It's probably this one.
Yeah, ah.
"Zhèn" like a town.
"Tangxia Zhèn".
Yeah, okay.
Let's see if I get some get a hit on that or not.
I do. Okay.
Excellent. So now this whole area here is Tangxia...
town...
All right, it's got a bunch of highlighted crap, and I know that it's in a place called Qinghutou Village (清湖头).
Now...
Qinghutou... I'm guessing means
Clearwater...
Head? Let's see.
And I mean in China... in China you will... in Chinese you will find quite
um.
Sorry... "Clear Lake Head"... You'll often find when they talk about like the source of a river or something
they'll say, you know, the head of something so that's probably correct.
So there, I've got Qinghu (清湖) number 7. "Qinghu".
"Tou" (头) I'm guessing it's "head".
Let's see. Does that bring up any results?
It does.
Okay. This is easy... easier than I thought.
Right. Now it's getting to the part where I have to put in the actual street name
and... ah.
Number.
I guess I can... I guess I can share the street. There's no reason not to.
There's probably... I mean looking at this map
I'm guessing...
Yeah, I'm seeing lots of factory addresses, so this whole area is full of factories.
These are all factories over here... here... here... here...
so.
Um...You know, I don't think I'm gonna be "doxing" them if I give you a street name, so let's look for that.
Street name is "Fènghuáng" (鳳凰). Okay, that's easy.
Is that correct?
There we go Fènghuáng Lù (鳳凰路). Okay.
All righty.
I have...
my street.
So.
It's... the factory is gonna be somewhere on this street,
and now all I need to do is get there.
I...
um.
I guess... I do have the number they did put down the number so I mean it should be easy enough to find it.
And... ah.
Nothing's jumping out at me for the name because the name they say it's like
"Golden Tiger".
"Golden Tiger" something and I'm not seeing anything about a "Jīnhǔ" (金虎), you know, like
a "Golden Tiger". So yeah. Whatever. Wish me luck.
Let's go hit the road. Let's go find this place guys.
This is gonna be exciting.
So I don't really know how to feel about this whole situation to be honest.
I think it's kind of interesting.
I'm on my way to a factory that doesn't want me to go there, but you know I am the original China Vlogger.
I'm here in China. Where everything in the world right now is being made
and the Silver Play buttons are made here.
You know I mean, there's no way I can't go check it out, so I'm going to go check it out.
That's just the way it is.
um.
But yes the whole point of this is not to...
you know, get anyone into trouble or cause any issues for the factory.
So I'm just gonna go there and...
ah.
show you guys
where it is, you know, the actual factory. What it looks like from the outside at least and...
ah.
I'll probably get the drone up so you guys can get a good look at the area,
and... ah. Yeah.
We'll see.
All right guys. I've arrived here in a...
factory town,
and we're right around the corner from where the Silver Play buttons are made.
And... ah.
As you can see, I guess all the workers are currently returning from...
from lunch.
This is a very typical, sort of factory town. You see them
dotted all over Guangdong in sort of the more far-flung areas, you know, outside of the city centers
and this is where pretty much everything in the world is made anyway in these factories that are around me.
And the factory that makes the Silver Play button is literally just around the block
so I guess it's time for us to go
and see where it is.
Right guys. Moment of truth. I have my Silver Play button and I'm looking at the factory where it's made.
See what happens.
Right behind me is where the Silver Play buttons are made.
I'm bringing my Silver Play button back to the factory where it came from.
Let's take a walk past.
Here we are everybody. This is where the Silver Play buttons are made. Ground zero.
[music starts]
[music slowly fades]
Absolutely awesome. So happy to actually have come all the way out here.
Pretty fantastic.
Nǐ hǎo. (你好) [to security guard]
Security guard seemed friendly enough.
Anyway guys, I hope you've enjoyed this little journey of mine to come all the way out here
into the middle of nowhere, into the factory lands.
Deep in the south of China. I'm glad I got to see where they're made. But you know it seems stupid of me,
just to turn all the way up here and just not do anything so I'm actually going to write a little thank-you notes.
Then I'm going to go and give it to the security guards at the front there
and hopefully they'll give it to the person who helped me on the phone.
Obviously I don't want to sound stalker-ish or anything weird like that, so it's just "Dear so-and-so"...
"Thank you for the Silver Play button."
"All YouTubers...
look forward..."
So I'm gonna go and leave this at security, the front gate there, so let's go do that shall we?
Well guys, I hope you found that interesting.
I mean... I certainly did. I'm probably the first YouTuber to ever go to where his Silver Play button was made.
It's so cool to be able to actually see where everything comes from.
So yeah. That's really it for this one.
Thanks a lot. I just want to give a shout out.
Thank you very much to the people at the factory who did try to help me get in there
but of course their boss didn't allow it so...
not their fault.
And... um. Yeah. It's just been an interesting, little adventure.
I can't wait to see you guys in the next video and until then...
you know the drill.
As always...
[music fades in]
Stay Awesome!
[music continues]
[music slowly fades]
[button click]
[tape ejects from recorder]