Hello, I’m wondering where one could purchase a Chinese made kaya board? The ones from the official factory in Kunming look nice, especially the 6cm ones but it seems as a US consumer I can’t really find a Chinese board online to buy. I already have Japanese and Korean made boards and I’m looking for a Chinese made board to better fit the dimensions of my flat yunzi stones.
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Official? 
I guess I visited this same place years ago. If you have contact did you ask them for shipping? I liked their goban too.
Besides having friends in China, what I suggest is:
- Check Chinese Online selling sites
- Get your hand on a weiqi tandis magazine which may contains ads for weiqi companies
I can’t help more as being back now.
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Ah, I need to make some friends in mainland China then. I am just learning Mandarin so I doubt I’d be able to read much of Weiqi Tiandi and it seems obtaining a subscription is rather pricey from what I’ve read. Still, thank you for the advice. Websites I wouldn’t know where to start, with Taobao I seemingly need a Chinese phone number/account to use and other sites haven’t satisfied my searches. I have no idea why there isn’t a distributor for Chinese kaya boards in the US, they’d be able to undercut a lot of the Japanese boards in competitive pricing ( many of which source their Kaya they use for boards from China too, understandably so given the woods scarcity in places and price).
Weiqi Tiendi was like 1$ each there but yeah I dunno about receiving it by mail. I am sure they were ads inside with address/phone.
For translation (like for taobao) google is not that bad (but I agree not perfect). As of today you even can take a pic of a text and get it translated (I used Yandex for that)
It’s bit difficult to get info in China unless you are from a place you know. If I am on Chengdu I may have an idea where are the small shops with weiqi materials. There is no phone repertory. Even for a local Chinese he will have a vague idea where to go. (whole sales market, small sport shops around the stadium…) But he may ask his son’s teacher, or remember a weiqi event happening somewhere… Today the biggest part of selling is on taobao, quality varies a lot too but you find all what you have in China more and less.
Payment is still a difficulty especially for individuals, you know how many things are exported so it’s not like impossible but then I dunno exactly what is the best way to manage this side.
I guess the way is to contact a weiqi company like on Kunming or on Baochan (this one most famous for luxury stones) some may have already the practice to send overseas (not granted as they have a big market inside already) If so shouldn’t be too difficult.
You may ask import companies for a bit of infos (not a big problem if they don’t have what you search)
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They sell a lot of Go/Weiqi stuff also on Aliexpress.