Yilida, you'll recall, is the mysterious homeland of a genre of AA batteries that power an spinning, light-emitting, and seminally entertaining toy called a "meteor storm". It's a toy that graced the boxes of the 19 Minutes Playroom for months until the batteries finally ran down, at which point we opened the battery compartment to find two AA batteries labeled:
Made in Yilida
We wrote about this enigmatic place, and the exotic images conjured up by its self-described distinction, "Town of the Wire Nettings".
But lo these many months later, we still had not been able to pinpoint an exact location for Yilida on the official 19 Minutes globe. Fortunately, our previous post was able to provide the missing puzzle piece for a fellow Yilidaphile, who related the following e-mail correspondence with the makers of the Meteor Storm:
Having learned the NAME of my toy loaded with batteries from the global superpower motherland of Yilida, I Googled "'meteor storm' toy" and found a toy store selling it that identified it as a product of Schylling Toys.
Schylling has contact info so I wrote an email with the results we all longed for.
From the web page Ms. Goodwin sent me, I googled "Tanjiang Highway 325"
It led me to pages referring to this road near a city named Kaiping, which is part of Yilida's full company name. Fairly safe to assume then that Yalida is somewhere near Kaiping in Guangdong province about midway between Guangzhou and YangJiang along National Highway 325, the gray line connecting those two cities. (http://www.maps-of-china.com/guangdong-s-ow.shtml)
From: William Jacobs
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 10:17 AM
To: info@schylling.com
Subject: "Meteor Storm" batteries
Dear Schylling Toys,
I hope you can help clear up a mystery for us.
A Schylling Toys "Meteor Storm" LED toy of ours ran out of battery power and the original "Wanshifa" batteries shipped with the toys are labeled "Made in Yilida"
Can you possibly tell me where Yalida is. There is growing interest in the too-much-time-on-our-hands community.
Bill Jacobs
www.athensproject.com
On 8/22/06, Jennifer Goodwin wrote:
Thank you for your inquiry - the batteries should be labeled Made at Yilida; that is the name of the manufacturer, as can be found at http://www.yilida-battery.com/english/gongsi.htm . I hope this closes the case for you, and I hope you enjoy the English translations on their website as much as I have.
Thank you again for choosing Schylling,
Jennifer Goodwin, Customer Service
Schylling Associates
www.schylling.com www.tintoys.com
It turns out our correspondent is actually running for County Council in the former 19 Minutes stomping grounds of Montgomery County, Maryland. We'd be tempted to endorse his candidacy, except that:
a) We're reluctant to throw out the years of objectivity 19 Minutes has worked so hard to maintain, and
b) We're worried he'll use politics as a stepping-stone to land the Yilidan Ambassadorship before we can secure it.
1 comment:
Thanks, I just pulled one out of a cheap multimeter and was wondering.
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