Stacey's Story: Stacey Chen grew up in Zhejiang province which is located in South East China just under Shanghai. She attended school until she was 16, however, the schooling she was offered wasn't all that great so she decided to quit after senior middle school. At age 16, she moved to Beijing virtually alone. Some others girls from her town also went but they were all of very young as well. She had connections with another pearl vendor and began working for them making the jewelry and learning the trade. She worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day for six years. The living conditions were pretty "basic" and each year she would only get half a month (2 weeks off) to visit her family in Zhejiang (Most likely 20 plus hours away by train). Last year, her family pooled enough money for her to open her own shop. Her family came to Beijing to live with her and now the girls in her shop who work for her are her cousins (family). So really, the pearls and stones you purchase are hand made by her very own family. Her parents are very proud of her and support her in the business. She's been pretty successful so far and enjoys this kind of work.

I soon realized during my many array of journeys all over South East Asia the amount of beauty and wonder in both the people and the hand-made arts they were able to create.  I began my visiting the many local markets and researching exactly what each minority group in China was known for.  While living in Guizhou Province, I came across the minority markets of the Miao, Buyi and Li people where they used there talents of weaving to produce the most amazing baby carriers and clothes I have ever seen.  What surprised me the most is that their art was slowly being lost and they were being forced to shine shoes for a living making dollars a day in order to support their families.  It was then I realized I needed to take these products to the West and provide for them a market.  This market would in turn give them a steady income and a way to continue on with their unique forms of art.  As I began this journey of reaching the village people and working alongside them to create designs suitable for the Western World, I soon discovered this journey would take much longer than I anticipated.  The language barrier, customs and pace of life is much different in the East then the West which caused me to search out for other markets.  Hence where the vision for Wang Li got started.