A Journey to China

In November our president, Jay Paschall, and Thomas O'Brien took off on a voyage to China to present Thomas' collection of furniture to our retail partners and designers there. After a "quick" 18 hour flight, Jay, Thomas, Thomas' partner Dan Fink made it to the Middle Kingdom where they explored the beautiful cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Chendu and presented to avid design fans in each city.

The main purpose of the trip was to share the Thomas O'Brien for Century Collection with customers in China. Thomas shared his story-from the creation of Aero Studios to his design projects with Ralph Lauren and Georgio Armani to the creation of his furniture collection with Century. Jay and Thomas were fortunate enough to have Robert Zhang, one of our sales representatives translate Thomas' presentation into Chinese, and they even had the chance for a Q&A session at the end of each presentation.

This was Thomas' first trip to China, therefore the obligatory tourist site seeing was a must! In addition to seeing the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City, the group visited the Panda Park in Chengdu, rode a high-speed train from Shanghai to Nanjing (over 200 miles per hour), and ate some delicious, authentic Chinese food.

Jay, Dan, & Thomas at The Great Wall of China

Thomas and Dan at The Forbidden City

Jay and Thomas at C&U International Furniture Flagship Store

Jay and Thomas in front of the C&U Event Poster

C&U Presentation

Thomas, Dan, Robert Zhang, and Nikki of Antek on The Bund in Shanghai

Thomas and Dan sampling Chinese tea.

Thomas demonstrating floral arranging with customers at Weimei
Furniture Trading Co. Ltd. in Chendu

Group posing with floral arrangements.

It was a fantastic trip and experience for Jay, Thomas and Dan, and we hope our customers enjoyed the visit just as much as the Century team did.

Thank you China for being such gracious hosts and treating our Century team like royalty!