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| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_industry_of_China# |
The post-Cold War era has given rise to some "new" (old) demons that feed from our collective fears and paranoia about walls we can't see past, and the loss of the self through mass conformity that's reflected in our consumer tastes. Buying, at least to many Ameri-Europeans, has long been touted by advertisers and companies as a way to freely express our individuality, with the unfortunate consequence of the exact opposite, as it so often works in generational trends. Some of it is justified: without world standards for consumer goods firmly in place, every import becomes a case of "buyer beware", with sometimes strange and/or humorous results.
East Asian people of Queens have a fun and actively-thriving "New Delhi" culture we enjoy greatly, with the unforeseen consequence of serious eye infections and other health issues, as the direct result of unchecked charcoal eyemakeup imported from India freely applied as a cosmetic, without the obligatory warning label. And it isn't just overseas goods. American cosmetics have more lead and mercury in them than any of their European counterparts, even "all-natural" products that are supposedly wholesomely made from at-risk bees with their ill-made wax. It's all inter-connected.
As businesses strive to supply already-strapped families affordable toys at Christmastime, so too do they open the door to Chinese plastic goods (or kitchenware with traces of lead) that do not require mandatory testing for stocking (and re-stocking) on our discount "Big Mart" shelves, leaving the average American to presume a level of scrutiny that bests or matches the mind of an actively researching scientist, leaving the hardest hit strata of our society even more vulnerable than ever, in their quest to find better deals priced cheaply.
And some of it isn't unintentionally dangerous either. You'd have to be extremely naive or delusional not to think twice about the pairing of poorly-made Japanese air bags stuffed into German cars sent to an American marketplace with murderous results that doesn't reek of vengeance for our role in WWII. Look what we did to them for their evil actions: we writ (some would suggest) an even bigger horror upon them with an atomic bomb and severe economic sanctions that lead to more hurt, rather than the healing of so many openly infected wounds. Certainly, Oppenheimer deeply regretted the militaristic use of his atomic discoveries all of his life.
It's saturated our consciousness at a deep level, too. Director/actor/writer/producer Robert Redford did a fascinating movie about one man's struggle against the elements while at sea, comically (at first) put into mortal danger by the floating of so many shipping containers from their loosening off a massive cargo ship, now left adrift and filled with those precious Chinese imports of common American brands. And it isn't as remote or exotic as that, either.
As a production manager and art director, part of every job I worked in publishing is the factoring of their timetables into our U.S.-based manufacturing process, as we calculated the time and cost that it takes for shipments coming off "the slow boat to China" into warehousing and delivery, in order to save our beleaguered American houses precious U.S. dollars. It wasn't always worth it.
When time was "of the essence", we went with the more direct and timely service that American and Canadian printers can provide. As our industry factored in overseas trade on the daily, we discovered that Asian printers produced low-cost 4-color work, but not the regular typesetting of black type on paper, which ideally marks the best thinking of our American intellects conducting trade, and I like to very much think that our Ivy League at work in media do that better than anybody. Actually, I know we do.
Because our labors are transacted on moral, ethical, and aesthetic levels, in addition to solely economic ones (because we make art and design), it lead to some very interesting discussions. In my early thirties, I violated my "don't date at work" rule with a handsome printing sales rep because he was a sub-contractor to my house, and as such, not technically an in-house employee or my direct report, though one could argue that increased "bonhomie" as the result of our brief coupling would put him in an advantage over me as a managing woman with everything to lose, and it did. Briefly. Fortunately, I'm surrounded by a lot of fuck-ups, and he went on to date his Asian counterpart at his job and our young part-time receptionist, which meant I had way more "dirt" on him and his at-work dating indiscretions than he had over me.
But I learned some really interesting facts about the huge Chinese printing conglomerate he represented stateside, because our original outside-of-work meetings were just that: questions-and-answer sessions between a buying manager and her main supplier, albeit in a hip "fusion" restaurant with moody dim lighting that used the blending of Brazilian food and Japan sushi to market themselves to craze-craving New Yorkers (usually from out-of-town) hungry for the latest exotica, and this Midwestern tool definitely fit the bill.
Turn out, his company's highly competitive pricing was the direct result of China's mass-production mindset, which utilized an offshore island as their main base of operations for international buyers of their worldwide printing concern, which further meant (and always means) that they are violating human rights somewhere in their production queue at sometime, as they always do when they use their "extreme conformity at any price" mentality that the Chinese try to market as a social system of governmental reforms meant to combat oppression and corruption. Uh, no.
He informed me that the Chinese people at the factory worked in 24/7 shifts, and that they could implement such an extreme rotation of their staff by supplying us with a total inconsistency in their staff (because they always change hands), combined with a brutal enforcement of mandatory shifts that are "4-months on/4-months off" work schedules, in which employees are allowed back home to the mainland to recuperate and visit with their families. Wow...that sounds intense. "I know!" he told me enthusiastically. This was the kind of stuff tourists thrived on in our town, pre-recession. "It's nuts! Sometimes monsoon season cuts them off from the mainland for awhile, which means they lose the window of opportunity to go home and see their families for holidays!" Yeah, that would be communism for you.
It kinda dulled any zest I had for producing potential card packages from our lesbian designer, who wanted to push them through our gay sales rep, that resembled so many vagina shapes in cheesy flower photographs like the rip-off Georgia O'Keefe it was. The world could definitely do without these. No need for some horrow-show factory system. He told me that they slept on cots in constant day/night shifts that left them confused, sleep deprived, careless, and almost impossible to communicate with. Every layout went through several translations from English-to-German-to-Mandarin and back, because I saw the markups from our returned card and calendar layouts. What the fuck...
After awhile, I began to openly despise their stupid-looking calendars that we made for their similar conformity-minded and mass-produced wackos, at a price they could easily afford. So much pain and heartache for nothing that becomes so much toxic landfill after it's done. When every crazy employee at that small house turned on me, in an effort to push me out the door, I was horrified to discover that I might have to punch my way out of the job by besmirching my fellow employees, which they'd already done to themselves. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be like them. "Yeah, but you may have to," said our gay sales rep to me, in our last closed-door meeting before my supposed "ousting". Fine, if that's your twisted priorities over dignity and respect. You can have all that pain and hurt. I have this.
