During Rick's 1986 tour an engineer at the Beijing Glass Ware Factory in Chongwen district commented that they had stopped making glass beads:

"She explained that the factory no longer makes beads because plastic beads have replaced the glass ones in brilliance and cost."

Recalling Valerie Hector's article about Chinese bead curtains, could this have been the major Chinese market for the hand-wound glass beads?

Everyone talks about the beads exported throughout Southeast Asia, but it seems likelier that the Chinese factory was making beads because it had ready buyers closer to hand for its products.