Jinjiang puts its best foot forward

People may not have heard of a place called Chendai, but they at least know something about the Hong Kong pop singer Jolin Tsai, the world's No 1 tennis player Jelena Jankovic, the NBA basketball star Shane Battier.

The celebrity list can go much longer, and they all endorse sneakers from Chendai, the obscure small town that's a three-hour drive from Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern Fujian province.

With an area of only 38.8 square kilometers, the town is the home of hundreds of shoe-making enterprises. It is the center of Jinjiang, a city with 107 brand names and more than 3,000 shoe manufacturers. It is said that for every five pairs of sports shoes in the world, two of them are made in Jinjiang.