Tag Archives: Lao Jie

The Most Important Person You’ll Meet at Tunxi Ancient Street

Before we ate the hairy tofu with chinese mini escargot, we’d already filled our stomachs a few times as we we were walking down Tunxi Ancient Street.

At the crossroad in the middle of the street, we saw this guy with a very simple stall. He seems to have become a roundabout for the crossroad for electric motorbikes were whizzing past and around him all the time.

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Even though his stall is so simple that he could just carry the entire restaurant home when he’s done for the day, there was a queue for his food. I suppose the location helps, but then again, other shops in the area were completely devoid of customers.

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Most of his customers are families who live in Tunxi itself, while most of the families who live in Tunxi run shops that caters to foreign tourists.

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Even though he makes his food by hand, it is very hygienic for he refuses to touch anything that could contaminate. His customers place their payment into a neatly arranged money box and remove the change on their own.
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He used to serve his wonton in cheap plastic bowls, but a VIP who visited suggested that he uses better quality bowls.

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This sparked in him a lot of marketing ideas. He printed his own bowls that brands himself as the famous Tunxi wonton stall and his own plastic spoons that he gives away as souvenirs. That way, customers could bring home the spoon and tell their friends.

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The men were so impressed by this marketing genius, they insisted on taking a photo with him.

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I too was gobsmacked when I discovered, the wonton seller at Tunxi is a blogger too!

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He’s upgrading his stall to a solid restaurant with walls. If you’d like to know where he’s moving to, click to visit his blog.

Since we had planned to climb Mount Huangshan the next day, we headed back for the Huangshan hostel early to rest.