A timeline of my attempt to avoid the "Made in China" label

Made In China
A timeline of my attempt to avoid the "Made in China" label

 

 This looks like a fun place to work!

 

 The Hanjin Sponge Bob Factory (probably). I wonder what these people think of us?

 Almost 400 years ago Dutch settlers suckered the native Americans into selling them Manhattan for about $11 worth of beads. Well, leave it to the Peoples Republic of China to one-up those wily businessmen from the Netherlands. The Chinese are going to buy the whole United States for a few pallets full of bobblehead dolls and key chains. 

Editor’s Note: I’ve become obsessed. Even as I type the familiar sans serif  “MADE IN CHINA”  text in the headline of this article, I feel the meaning of the words themselves slowly choking me. 

Just this morning in the paper, there was an article about milk products being recalled from China because of a toxic chemical found in the product that causes liver failure. This was not a leading story mind you; and it was not referring to the milk by the gallon we all drink every day—rather the canned and dried versions—but its just so easy to glance over another (ho hum) “recalled from china” article without a blip on our radar screens. I probably wouldn’t have even read it if I was not (as stated above) obsessed. 

How about the constant stream of toy recalls over the past few years? Toothpaste? Clothing? Lamps? Remote controls? Baby seats? Items recalled for poor wiring, lead content, hazardous chemicals, bursting into flames, safety defects, poisons...remember the pet food scandal of April 2007? It permeates every aspect of our lives and we are barely aware. 

We have become so accustomed to getting “it” cheaper, that we have lost all perspective on whether or not we even need “it” much less where or how “it” got to the shelves of every store you walk into. Should we have to worry about dying of liver failure from every product we purchase? 

Since I am now “awake” on this topic, I plan to research extensively and see just what I might find out.  What i do know so far, is that is is a complex issue, far beyond cheap toys and this has not happened overnight.

In the meantime, enjoy this piece--we are well aware this is not a typical “SCM” article but you know us, once we decide to learn about something, we just have to share...

--Janet M. Hoffer

Made In China

Trinkets – I’m not a fan. The kid toys from the Dollar General, the holiday knick-knacks, the plastic flashlight that only works once, the thermometer that doesn’t even work the first time you take it out of the box. You know what I’m talking about – the almost useless plastic junk that we Americans have become addicted to.

And it’s all made in China. (Most of it anyway.)

As we were driving north for Thanksgiving I went on another of my rants about it. I came to the conclusion that nothing good comes from us (Americans) buying all this crap from China. Nothing.

It’s bad for our country, our economy and our environment. It’s bad for our country because we’re sending way, way too much money to China. It’s bad for our economy because we’re squeezing out American manufacturing by buying this garbage and it’s bad for our environment because all this crap just ends up in the landfill – not to mention the pollution created by the factories that roll out millions and millions of plastic trinkets every day.

I insisted that we all need to stop. Just stop. Don’t buy this Chinese crap. Janet countered that it would be very hard to do, but I figured that it would be no harder for us than it was for our parents. Why? Because they didn’t buy this kind of wasteful crap! They didn’t buy those plastic red cups. (Which, by the way, are made in America, but still...?) They never bought us Happy Meals. There were no gift bags to take home from birthday parties when I was six. My parents never bought disposable anything.

So we decided to stop. We’d spend the holidays buying nothing from China. It proved to be a challenge. What follows is our “No Chinese Crap” calendar.

November 25 – Easy. We shopped for a few items on the day before Thanksgiving, but just food. Thankfully, Yuengling is still brewed in America. (Even though it has a vaguely Chinese-sounding name.)

November 26 – Thanksgiving. We bought nothing.

November 27 – Our first test. We took the family to the Maryland Science Center. It was pretty much understood that we wouldn’t be able to buy anything from the gift shop, but who cares? It’s just full of stupid trinkets that the kids will be bored of within 24 hours anyway. We saved $12.95 of our hard-earned money by not walking in there. We did get coffee and Doritos from the food court. The cups said “Made in the USA” but the Doritos weren’t so clear. The package said Illinois, but is that just the Doritos factory? Do they buy 50 gazillion bags from China and just fill them in Illinois?

That evening we went to a discount clothing store. This was tough. I found a cool pair of Adidas sweats for only $12.99, but I couldn’t buy them. Ditto for two different pairs of pants. Janet found three hats she liked, but they were all made in China. We ended up buying clothes made in Honduras, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Jordan. We found NOTHING made in the USA.

I got to thinking: what if you opened a department store that sold only American made products? Would there be enough products to sell? Maybe not.

The manufacturing might of the United States was once the envy of the world. It won World War II. But we’re no longer a country of factories. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53 percent of the U.S. economy. By 1988 it only accounted for 39 percent, and in 2004, it accounted for just 9 percent.

November 28 – The National Zoo. We had to stop and see the pandas  (they sure are cute). We went to the Panda Gift Shop, but explained to the kids that we wouldn’t buy anything made in China. We found about two items in the whole store made in America. AT THE NATIONAL ZOO!!

Granted, the manager of the zoo is in a tough position. While it would be a nice gesture if out national zoo bought American made products, he or she is expected to run the organization like a business – which means, unfortunately, buying the cheapest of cheap crap to stock the gift shop with. Still…

John Henry (our son) got soooo bent out of shape. He’s six and he wanted a toy. He made this awful face and said “Why does everything have to be made in China?! I’m very angry!” [Those were his exact words.]

“Good son, you should be,” I said. What else was I supposed to say?

We ended up buying nothing, but it was a good lesson. We don’t need to buy plastic crap everywhere we go to be happy. Do we? I have to say that it felt good to walk out of that gift shop with my money still in my pocket instead of a piece of plastic.

Speaking of plastic, I just read the book, The World Without Us. It’s about how we’ve affected the planet and what would happen if we suddenly disappeared. It turns out that plastic doesn’t biodegrade. No microbes exist that can break down plastic. If we disappeared tomorrow the Empire State Building would degrade and rust and fall down and disappear within 100,000 years. But that Barbie Doll, flashlight or panda souvenir will still be as good as new. It’s a sobering thought.

December 1 – Janet bought a Christmas themed musical piece of junk for a “Tacky Christmas” party at a second hand store. It was made in China of course. Does it count if it’s second hand? I don’t know. We weren’t too specific about the rules of this parlor game.

December 4 – The Carolina Beach Christmas Parade. This lady jumped off her float and started running over to us with a stuffed animal. I waved her away and told her we didn’t want it. (I didn’t need to inspect the tag to know where it was made.) She looked at me like I was Ebenezer Scrooge.

She then proceeded to give it to a kid standing next to us and ran back to her float smiling broadly. I don’t think she noticed that the kid’s sister (who was standing right next to him!) went ape-shit because she didn’t get a stuffed animal. Why do people in the parade think this is a good idea? That poor dad next to me could do nothing and his little girl cried for ten minutes. “Thanks for nothing lady,” he must have been thinking.

Now I’m way off topic. I’ll write about the insanity of throwing candy and toys at the parade next year. (Somebody remind me next October.)

December 5 – More Christmas shopping. It’s hard when you have kids. Do you realize how impossible it is to find a Hannah Montana microphone for a 4-year-old girl that isn’t made in China?

December 10 – Janet went to the craft store. She figured that the only way to get an American made product was to make it herself. She came home empty handed. Her exact quote:

“I found a lot of great crafting ideas, [She loves crafting] but I couldn’t buy one single thing. Not one thing!”

She couldn’t even build a wooden bird house because all the parts were manufactured in China.

She did manage to find a cutting board at Wal-Mart that was made in the USA. I honestly didn’t think that they had anything at Wal-Mart that was made in the USA, but they do. Wal-Mart is very bottom line oriented. They buy from whoever supplies stuff the cheapest (and most reliably). If Osama Bin Laden’s wives were sewing oven mitts in an Afghani cave, Wal-Mart would buy them – provided they came cheap of course.

December 12 – We caved. The kids really want scooters this year and you simply cannot get one that’s not made in China. You can’t. And besides, there’s no way I could deny Sarah her pink Razor Scooter based on where it was made.

I can hear her now, “but Dad, don’t elves make scooters?”

“If by elves you mean 14-year-old Chinese peasants working 95-hour weeks for $1.65/month – then sure.”

I try to stick to my principles, but I’m not having that conversation. Besides, these are good products. John Henry has had a Razor Scooter for three years. It’s held up great. It’s always left out in the rain, he rides it a lot and it still works like a charm. We could probably get ten more years out of it, and it only cost $30. So I’ll give China credit on that one.

At this point I should clarify that I’m no closed border freak. I’ve even read Milton Friedman. (He was arguably the greatest economist of all time and he extolled the virtues of free markets, globalization and such - I also know who Hayek was and I'm not talking about Salma) I know that protectionalist policies are ultimately bad for our economy. I guess what really irks me is our habit of nonstop buying cheaply made crap that we really don’t need.

December 15 – Trying to find a bike. Put this one in the “don’t even bother trying” category. I had a conversation with a clerk at the Two Wheeler Dealer here in Wilmington. He said that many adult bikes are assembled in the USA, but the parts typically come from China. US companies just can’t compete. The ultra high-end bikes are made in the USA, but we’re talking about the $4-5,000 models.

Why is this? Because Chinese factory workers are basically slaves. They make maybe $1/hour. Now you can’t fixate on that number because a meal at a nice restaurant there costs about 50 cents, but this much is true – they work long, hard hours, live in dormitories and are lucky to send a few bucks back to their families every month.

One website I visited displayed the rules of a typical Chinese factory. Certain infractions could cost a worker anywhere from an hour’s wages to three day’s pay. My personal favorites:

“Putting personal objects on the work desk.” – 2 hour’s wages

“Plugging in electronics [using electricity] in the dorm room for personal use.” – 1.5 day’s wages

“Putting up personal notices…or handing out flyers.” – 3 day’s wages

CMS Tool & Die is a manufacturing company right here on Pleasure Island. Their workers are well-respected, well-paid and happy. They’re not getting rich, but they’re doing pretty good. The owners tell me that they can’t bid on some jobs, because the Chinese will produce a finished product for less than CMS can but the materials for. That’s what is known as “the China Price” in manufacturing circles.

December 20 – I give up. Sorry, but I have kids. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without markers, whizzlers and whambuzzles…Legos and books and Sponge Bob puzzles. (My apologies to Dr. Seuss for the bad rhyme.)  I had to do it.

I was careful to cover up the “Made in China” tags, because my kids have listened to me rant about this all month. Plus most of these gifts are supposed to be from Santa and they know that China is not the North Pole.

December 24 – We’re stopping to visit some friends on our way to church. They have kids. Should we be bringing presents? Why has it come to this? No wonder we buy so much junk. (And no wonder I like the Fourth of July better than Christmas.) The average person can’t afford to spend $50 on gifts every time they visit someone in the month of December, so they buy things at the dollar store. We made a cool Panthers poster for our little friend, but we’re a little different from other people. (I’m pretty sure the average person doesn’t have PhotoShop, Publisher, a color printer and 12x18 glossy paper.)

December 25 – The big day. We tried not too, but we couldn’t help but peak at the labels on everything we got. My Coleman tent – China. Janet’s slippers – China. Guitar, Panthers jersey, Zu Zu Pet – China, China, China.

But not everything. In fact my favorite things were made domestically. A globe for the kids was made in Illinois. Most of the books were printed in the USA. The granola from our sister-in-law was made in her kitchen in upstate New York. Janet’s home-made eggnog and the bourbon that goes in it. All those kisses from Sarah.

I don’t have an answer, but I will say this. We are now much more aware of what we buy – and so are our kids. More importantly, we’re more dedicated to only buying things we need versus things that are just convenient. Now there’s a resolution worthy of the New Year. 

Try it.