One-of-a-kind business plan

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This article was published 08/08/2024 (758 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Junyue (Grace) Zhao couldn’t find what she was looking for. So, she shipped her beloved Japanese ceramics — hand-painted teacups and bowls — from her Beijing home to her new mainstay in Winnipeg.

And she wondered: what if others in Canada sought the same goods?

Zhao decided to find out. Now, her shop, Wutong Tree, is navigating its first summer in business.

“Maybe we can just explore this area and bring … the (Asian) culture to Canada,” Zhao said.

She’s covered the walls of 565 Academy Rd. with rows of Japanese vases, plates and cups. A dragon-handled teapot sits near a patchwork of tea sets, where items are decorated with gold herons and blue flowers.

Each dish or set is one-of-a-kind, Zhao touts: “When it’s gone, then it’s gone. We will never have it (again).”

The pieces come from Japan, her go-to vacation country. She has a friend in the east who finds decades-old ceramics and purchases them for Wutong Tree, she said.

Sets are shipped across the ocean, finding their way to Academy Road.

It’s a guessing game, choosing what customers might take interest in, Zhao relayed. She doesn’t quite know the market, so she’s putting everything out and seeing what sells.

She runs the business with her husband Steven Liu. They’re offering personalized engraving to draw traffic, Zhao said.

It’s not the couple’s first experience with entrepreneurship. In China, Liu operates a luxury car marketing business.

Zhao, 38, worked in marketing for a different company in Beijing. Often, she would travel to Japan and purchase Japanese ceramics. Bowls caught her eye first.

Around six years ago, the couple wanted to move to Canada. They have two sons. Zhao wanted the boys to have an education filled with free time and room “to play and to grow.”

She was also tired of big-city life. She and Liu pondered Toronto and Vancouver until a friend mentioned Winnipeg — more of a “small town” appeal. Zhao and Liu visited for a month in the summer. “We (thought) it was perfect,” Zhao recalled.

When they moved, winter was a shock but the boys have made friends — the family is staying.

Zhao looked for Japanese-style tableware around the city and found little. She discussed starting a shop with her husband but at the time she was an international student in supply chain management and Liu was only in Winnipeg half the year. He spent the other half at work in China.

Recently, Liu has extended his annual stay in Winnipeg; Zhao is no longer a student.

“We think, ‘OK, maybe this is the time when we’re gonna try it,’” Zhao said.

The couple found the Academy Road site and renovated, wallpapering and reflooring the former art school. Wutong Tree opened in May. Now, Zhao plans to offer ceramics lessons in the outlet. It’s an idea borne from customer demand.

“It’s a long process,” Kaile Wang said of ceramics creation.

Wang will teach students in the shop, possibly on the second floor. She was an art teacher in China and has become a friend of Zhao’s.

Cups, frogs and squirrel-handled teapots are part of her ceramics repertoire. Creating one cup may require 20 steps, Wang explained. “You look (at a cup) — it (seems) very easy and very cheap but you learn it and do it, it’s hard.”

She and Zhao are still brainstorming how to structure lessons. They envision weekend mornings with a handful of pupils. And tea — Zhao is always serving her customers tea.

“We hope we can provide the useful learning … and let some people know the Asian culture as well,” Zhao said.

New retailers like Wutong Tree are welcome, said Jeff Kowerchuk, who recently relocated his own shop nearby.

“Whenever you see a new business opening up that’s local, that’s always a good thing,” the Creative Audio owner said. “We all have to sort of stick together.”

Customers he’s seen seem to “appreciate local, and they appreciate something unique,” he added.

Japanese pottery dates as far back as, tentatively, 10,500 to 300 BCE. Zhao said she’s working to show patrons the ceramics’ importance in Asian cultures.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com