Conquering the 'minute repeater'

One day in 2007, Zhang Youxu said to Zhao, "I have a great task for you—to conquer the 'minute repeater'."

The minute repeater is a very complicated timekeeping movement that uses different sounds to strike the hours, quarters and minutes. It has existed abroad for a long time, but no one in China could make it.

Zhang Youxu gave him an old Swiss minute repeater. The old masters in the factory were all against dismantling it, because no one could reassemble it.

With that old pocket watch and a digital camera, Zhao recorded each stage of disassembly. At first, it took him a week to dismantle and assemble the watch. The second time, he did not use the camera. A month later, he had dismantled and assembled it dozens of times and mastered all its internal structures. Then, he started making his own minute repeater.

One and a half years later, Zhao showed China's first minute repeater at the Baselworld Watch and Jewelry Show. In 2013, Zhao unveiled the "Wu Ji" tri-axial tourbillon movement, a milestone in Chinese watches, and the first of its kind in the world.

Now, Zhao worries about the lack of technicians to carry on the craft in China, rather than the gap between Chinese and international technology. "Time goes too fast now, while making mechanical watches is too slow. Sometimes, it takes more than a year to make a watch. Many young people won't want to," says Zhao. He wishes China would cultivate more watch-makers so more Chinese "movements" can reach the world.