For a long time, the Chinese middle class and young professionals have been dressing in European clothes, wearing European leather shoes, strapping on European watches and driving European cars as essentials of a trendy lifestyle.
Turning that logic on its head, two young Dutch men challenged the perception that Chinese brands are not worthy of top-tier consideration by taking a 20,000 km, three-month journey, during which they used only Chinese products.
On their 11-country Silk Road pilgrimage from Shanghai to their hometown of Rotterdam, urban planner Maren Striker, 29, and marketer Rogier Bikker, 27, drove a Chinese car, named the Chinesemobile, dressed in Chinese clothes down to their underwear and, of course, wore Chinese sunglasses. They dubbed their journey Brand New China.
On the day they wrapped up their 98-day journey on Oct 31, they were welcomed by the Chinese auto company BYD, the Rotterdam government and their families.
"We are extremely happy finishing this adventure with the support of Chinese brands," Striker says. "We have proven that China is not just a global factory."
They say that after their BYD car was hit by another vehicle on Iran's bumpy roads, it proved the car's toughness. "We finally drove it home safely," Striker said when they arrived.
The car was adorned with the names of all the sponsors whose products the two young men used and a map of the journey. It attracted quite a bit of attention from passers-by when it arrived in front of the city hall of Rotterdam. Bags of clothes and daily necessities were heaped in the backseat.
In addition to BYD providing a car, Huawei provided mobile phones and Lenovo equipped them with laptops. They shot pictures with a Chinese camera.
"We even bought packs of underwear in China to use along the way, though the brand is not on our sponsorship list," says Striker.
They divided their three-month journey into three parts: one month in China, one month in the rest of Asia and one month in Europe. They say they met remarkable Chinese people in each of the 11 countries they traveled in.
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