I am still amazed that I can order a custom made PCB from China. But it seems this that this has a long tradition:
> Seventeenth-century merchants fanned the ardor for porcelain through the East India trade that brought Asian wares to Europe. As a result, if one could wait three years, one could have any pattern made in fine porcelain.
Also came with the challenges of translation:
> I have seen a Swedish plate in which the European designer's words of instruction were faithfully replicated in classic, cobalt-blue underglaze—the potters in China had treated the instructions as the pattern.
> Seventeenth-century merchants fanned the ardor for porcelain through the East India trade that brought Asian wares to Europe. As a result, if one could wait three years, one could have any pattern made in fine porcelain.
Also came with the challenges of translation:
> I have seen a Swedish plate in which the European designer's words of instruction were faithfully replicated in classic, cobalt-blue underglaze—the potters in China had treated the instructions as the pattern.