[img]139|left|||no_popup[/img]Have you heard of pine mouth? No? Didn’t think so. Google it. I dare you. I hadn’t heard of it until a couple of days ago. Picked some fresh basil from my garden, got out the garlic, the aged parmesan, and pine nuts from the pantry. Did I read the label on those pine nuts? I sure didn’t, but I wish I had. Turns out they were from China. It’s apparently widely, if not well known, that Chinese importers have been mixing the regular old pine nuts with some other species of pine nuts, indigestible by humans (but not deadly, I’m promised), but indistinguishable on sight from the regular old kind. The result – a bitter metallic taste in the mouth that will last from days to weeks.
Every day I am shocked at how quickly and deeply Chinese-made goods have infiltrated our lives. Every time I need or want to make a purchase, I wonder if there is any realistic way to avoid such goods.
A few weeks ago I needed a dress for a party. Off I went to Bloomingdales, a theoretically “upscale” department store. Every single “designer” item I picked up was “Made in China.” At the downscale stores, it’s all the same, but I wouldn’t expect any better. It’s how they protect their margins. The “Made in China” label is pervasive across so-called luxury brands.
That very cute Kate Spade baby bag I wanted, Made in China. That all-purpose Burberry purse that would be the last purse I’d ever need, Made in China. Nearly every children’s toy and item of baby and toddler clothing that has come into my house: Made in China. Of course, the ubiquitous Apple products that help the bottom line of a company with a net worth higher than the U.S. Treasury “assembles” its products in China.
Even the most unexpected items seem to be made in China. When someone bought my child the bubble liquid and wand that he’s become obsessed with, the label declared it was Made in China. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that it was truly cost efficient to throw together water, soap and glycerin six thousand miles away and sell it for ninety-nine cents at a Walgreens down the street.
Animal Stinks, or Instincts
Even in the so-called natural pet food store, the “highest quality” thirty-dollar dog treats: Made in China. How am I supposed to believe that the highest quality pet food treats come from the same place of melamine tainted dog food, deadly baby formula, and exploding watermelons? Am I to be assuaged by the red, white and blue banner across the package that proclaims they may be made abroad, but are checked for quality right here in the U.S. of A? I’m sure China is a lovely country. It’s even on my travel bucket list, somewhere between Easter Island and New Zealand. As soon as those brown skies dissipate, I’ll be there. In the face of our new global economy, I often wonder how we have become a country of people oblivious to the working conditions of those who make our consumables. Then I remember that we’ve always been that country.
Despite the most recent reading of the U.S. Constitution in the House of Representatives, that purposely omitted slavery from its rendition, our country, and much of our world has been built on the shoulders of free, or nearly free, labor for hundreds of years. Few here or abroad had a problem with it. It looks as if that’s not about to change. For years, the labor has been black and brown people here. In the nineteenth century, Americans were happy to expand the railroads and plant sugar plantations on the backs of Chinese laborers. On the other side of the world, workers in sub-Saharan Africa, or even India were and are the exploited. Now a bulk of the work has been moved a continent away.
What We Know
The difference between now and then is knowledge. The working conditions of those so far away are no secret. Workers are far away from home, sleeping dozens to a large dormitory room. Women are checked to make sure they’re using birth control and are not pregnant. Suicide- prone workers are given nets to keep them from falling to their death.
Occasionally, a child or two or fifteen finds his way into one of these factories, All this for a little under two hundred dollars a month, hardly enough to buy the products they produce. But we keep buying them. Whether it’s a way to prop up our shrinking standard of living with the illusion of wealth, or whether we’re just victims of ceaseless marketing, I can’t say. I for one think we and the Chinese both would be better off without all the stuff. It’s terribly sad to watch our middle class disappear as quickly as our once thriving manufacturing sector. It is especially sad when you see that other countries still can make and sell goods to their citizens. I myself just bought those French-made shoes and German-made toys for not much more than I regularly spend on Chinese goods.
I am going to try a little experiment. I’m going to avoid Chinese-made goods for one solid month – starting today (make that tomorrow – I just bought some new Uggs, and Melissa and Doug toys that I’m sure were made there). I think both my taste buds, pocket book, and moral compass will thank me.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
