Roadside Businesses in Zhuhai. Gambling in China.

We saw an interesting and mobile business just outside our Zhuhai office yesterday.   Heading out for our meeting our team came across this scene, a computer engineer seated behind a roadside truck.

Returning from our meeting we took a closer look and saw that this business was in fact arranging pigeon races. We found it very interesting that 2 foreign staff from our company were allowed to photograph this scene since pigeon racing is such a big business in China (and so closely related to gambling).

Anybody who does business in China understands the importance of the company chop.  Not only are the birds tracked with high tech GPS, they are also authenticated by a racing chop.  Check out how they are branded below.

This is usually big business with some birds selling for staggering figures.   We learned that the birds near our office sell for RMB 1,000 each on average.  As we sit in our office, looking out over the colossal Sands & Lisboa just over the border in China, the RMB 1000 cost is put into context.

Check out some interesting articles on Pigeon Racing:

• Bloomberg
• Independent
• Xingewang

You might also like to know a little more about company chops and where to pick one up in Zhuhai