Estava lendo uma conversa no fÓrum da Hyperscale e um sujeito reclamou de não estar encontrando o Whirlwind da Trumpeter, ao que outro respondeu:
I have been living in Beijing for the last three years and found a local shop in the Xicheng District. Reminds me of the hobby shops of my youth. The word about the Whirlwind and this is from the shop owner not Trumpeter is that it is being retooled to correct some of the issues. The shop owner has been on the ball about a lot of the Chinese kit releases, so take this with a grain of salt. The D.H. Hornet may also be delayed for the same reasons. Trumpeter is trying to make builder friendly kits for the Asian markets like Hong Kong with subjects that have some local appeal.
AÍ um terceiro perguntou um monte de coisas sobre como era o modelismo em Beijing, e ele respondeu assim:
Check out this website. It does have an English function.
http://xinshi365.com/html/aboutus.asp
For supplies it's mainly Tamiya. They had Gunze Aqueous/Mr Color but dropped the line due to supply issues. They now carry in it's stead the full line of Vallejo products. They also recently dropped Dragon and picked-up Meng.
Main brands carried are Trumpeter, Hobby Boss, Italeri, Hasegawa, Tamiya,ICM,some Revell Germany and a ton of SciFi stuff I have no clue about.
The hobby market appears to be alive and well in Beijing. The shop is full on the weekends with parents buying kits for their kids along with the standard modeler types. The average modeler in Beijing is a lot younger than in the US. Mostly 20's and 30's.Not very big into research, just building what the manufacturer supplies. The shop has two clubs one for aircraft and one for armor along with some display cases of built kits. Everyone who works at the shop builds something, including the women. This is a young market populated by modelers who really enjoy building, they are not rivet counters, they build and show their friends because it is fun. This may help to explain the accuracy issue always highlighted here. The market they are producing for does not care that much. If it looks like the box top and can be assembled easily than they are happy. Like I was when I was a lot younger.
The wage scale has been increasing an average of between 8%-12% per year,with the locals having more disposable income to spend on their hobbies.Cheap labor in China is now being farmed out to Indonesia and Vietnam. In the next 5 years you will see China moving more of it's goods production to the local markets as they have 1.4 billion customers with cash to spend.
For prices the New Hobby Boss T-35 RMB 305 - $51.66
Trumpeter Westland Whirlwind - RMB 168 - $28.45
Meng Char 2C - RMB 225 - $38.11
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