He is one of 600 buyers vying for a share of the 10 million blooms up for sale each day in this part of Yunnan province, with each lot decided in less than three seconds.
The competition is intense in the smoke-filled auction room.
“When prices rise, the whole hall is on fire,” Wang said.
That’s because Dounan is the capital of China’s flower trade, an industry flourishing thanks to the country’s growing middle class and rising overseas demand.
In just three decades, the town has expanded from a rural backwater into Asia’s biggest flower market, supplying over three-quarters of the country’s cut blooms and exporting throughout the region.
It has ambitions to be the biggest player in the world but while it rivals major international exporter the Netherlands in terms of volume it still has one great leap forward to make to become a real global greenhouse powerhouse.