The Old Shanghai… fireworks… what?
Glen James, one of the original founders of the Old Shanghai Firecracker Factory, is a travelling man. Over the past twenty years or so, he has visited more exotic locations than Cher has had face lifts. He’s been to India and Nepal, Tibet and Russia, Morocco and Algeria, Brazil and Argentina, the Far East, the middle East, the West, the North and the South.
One such visit was to China. Having walked on the Great Wall, visited the tomb of the clay warriors and various other things people do in China, he found there had been a mix-up with his accommodation and instead of being put up in a nice hotel, he was taken to an old disused building with a large Chinese sign on its door. This was no problem to a man who had slept in, amongst other things, a mud hut on the banks of Amazon. And so he spent the night there, sleeping alongside various assorted domestic animals including pigs, chickens and ducks, who used it as shelter from the various elements.
Next day, having the inquisitive mind that all great creatives share in common, he asked a local who could speak a modicum of English what the sign said. His answer sounded very much like, “The Old Shanghai Firecracker Factory.” The rest, as they say, is history.
