China Hope Live

Affordable gadgets vs. Chinese workers’ rights

Joel 大江 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:32:18 +0000

Three recent news articles (and one response) return the spotlight to the mammoth electronics factories in China that make most of our favourite electronics, pointing out what everybody knows and no one wants to think about:

Happy Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech (ZDNet)
“Human and worker rights reforms in China would have serious negative consequences for the efficiency and cost of the gadget supply chain.
[...]
“Foxconn’s client list reads like a celebrity tech roster that includes Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, IBM, Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, Microsoft, Sharp, Sony, Motorola, Asus, Acer and Vizio… tablet runners and e-reader champions Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Yes, your Kindles and Nooks are also made by the very same companies with the same awful working conditions that make products for Apple.”

The dark side of shiny Apple products (CBS News)
“…our most popular electronic devices are largely made by hand … MANY hands, as it turns out … hands that often are very over-worked, or so industry’s critics contend.”
[...]
“”I met workers who were 12. Do you really think Apple doesn’t know?”

“But what was news were the suicides…”

In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad (NYT)
and
BSR: New York Times’ Apple-Foxconn article contains untruths, inaccuracies, and misleading info (Mac Daily News)

Fair Trade iPhones

Joel 大江 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:10:15 +0000

I was in a Starbucks bathroom in greater Vancouver last week where a poster on the wall got me thinking about our relationship as First World consumers to the labourers who make the stuff we consume. And of course that reminded me of the suicide nets hung in the Foxconn factories that make our electronics, like iPhones. Anyway, here’s the text of the poster (I didn’t have a camera with me):

YOU.
Buy more FAIR TRADE CERTIFIED COFFEE than anyone in the world.
EVERYTHING WE DO, YOU DO.
It’s simple. You choose to be our customer, and that means you’re the one that allows us to DO GOOD THINGS IN A BIG WAY. Like doubling the amount of Fair Trade Certified coffee we’ll buy this year to 40 million pounds. It’s a choice we can only make because of the choice you make — to walk into our store.

SO THANKS, YOU.

Starbucks Shared Planet. You and Starbucks.
It’s bigger than coffee.

I think I’m smelling a rather self-serving double-standard on the part of cosmopolitan Euro-Americans, but I have to admit, that is some slick advertising. They make the upper half of Western society — which globally is “the 1%” or darn near to it — feel economically ethical (a feat in itself) for buying $5 coffees (doubly impressive). The bourgeoisie of the First World are made to feel we’re behaving ethically in the global economy because overspending on non-essential creature comfort status symbols is promoting economic justice. In this global village, we’re economically responsible neighbours! Now, I’m glad Starbucks is at least making some degree of effort to be ethical in its sourcing practices. I’m not so sure patronizing Starbucks means First World consumers deserve a pat on the back, but that’s actually not the main point that I want to draw out of this.

“Everything we do, you do.” As far as ethics are concerned, the corporate actions of Starbucks are our actions as well. What they do as an economic player in some far-flung, impoverished coffee-producing nation is actually an expression and extension of our choices and actions as consumers. That, at least, is what the poster implies, and I’ll assume for the sake of the argument that this is true. My questions, then, are: Why limit this kind of thinking to coffee grown in South America? Why not apply this ethical connection between corporate actions and consumers to, say, electronics manufactured in China? If we get moral credit for the good things our favourite companies do through their purchasing and employment policies, do we share blame for the bad things as well?

For example, imagine how the text of that Starbucks poster could be rewritten by other super-popular companies like Apple, who manufacture their products in China:

YOU.
Buy more NOT-FAIR TRADE ELECTRONICS than anyone in the world.
EVERYTHING WE DO, YOU DO.
It’s simple. You choose to be our customer, and that means you’re the one that allows us to TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DESPERATE CHINESE PEASANTS. Like doubling the amount of Abusively Employed Desperate Chinese Peasants we’ll use this year to 2 million. It’s a choice we can only make because of the choice you make — to walk into our store.

SO THANKS, YOU.

The 1% Shares the Planet. You and Your Gadgets.
It’s bigger than smart phones.

I’m not singling out Steve Jobs or Apple. We, as 21st century First World citizens, have more access to information, individual autonomy, mobility, and power than any other average citizens of any other civilization in history. If we’re ethically implicated in the coffee we buy, what does that mean for our smart phones?

P.S. - I’ve only recently begun to really think about this topic; I’m mostly just thinking out loud here. So if anyone wants to provide me a foil and challenge the idea that we consumers are ethically implicated in the actions of the corporations who produce our products in China, you’re genuinely welcome. So are suggestions for potentially effective responses to the situation.

The one previous post in this vein is: Steve Jobs, Apple, China and Us. For an introduction to the connection between your electronics (virtually all major companies, not just industry leading Apple) and abusive Chinese factories:

Those aren’t Chinese New Year’s fireworks; they’re “recreational munitions”

Joel 大江 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:48:09 +0000

From Nankai Rob’s Chinese New Year 2012 post “Spring Festival Time. . .Lock and Load“:
“…parties are held on a scale so massive that Caligula would have nodded in approval, and enough recreational munitions are set off to make the Battle of Waterloo feel like a suburban bar mitzvah. You’ll notice my careful word choice here: “recreational munitions” rather than “fireworks.” “Fireworks” as a term carries with it more celebratory, even innocent connotations, but you can’t define Chinese celebratory fireworks by the intent behind them. Certainly they’re set off with great excitement and joy, but you can, after all, also lob a grenade into a dumpster with great excitement and joy, and most of what is being set off these days qualifies for inclusion in the dumpster-grenade category. So: recreational munitions.”

For more about the genuinely stunning Chinese New Year fireworks phenomenon with photos and video, see:

Happy Chinese New Year!

Eaves-dropping on Beijingers in Vancouver

Joel 大江 — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:22:40 +0000

Last Friday I started teaching a month-long EFL “Winter Camp” program for nine Beijingers aged 8-13 who arrived the night before. We have English class in the mornings and field trips in the afternoons. They’re all staying with Canadian families and it’s a shocking cultural adventure for them. Almost everything is different. It’s rare to get a group this “fresh”, and I plan to have fun with it.

We’re using a classroom in a posh local private school that is pretty impressive even by Canadian standards, so the facilities and grounds are really nice; they were awed by the interactive white board, for example. But they were also excited just to walk down the hall to the bathroom, armed with their cameras, taking photos of everything from the vending machines to the high school classes in session with their doors open. I’ve taught this kind of EFL gig before, and sometimes the kids have already traveled so much that being in a developed Western country isn’t so special, but not these kids. They’re apparently doing this kind of thing for the first time. I felt like a celebrity in the classroom with all the cameras aimed at me.

I’ve decided to keep the fact that I can speak basic Mandarin a secret from them for as long as I can, so I can listen in on their conversations as much as I can. Between my limited Mandarin, my teaching responsibilities, and the fact that four excited 12-year-old girls babbling away at once is hard to decipher in any language, I don’t get to tune in to their conversations near enough to satisfy my curiosity, never mind pausing to scribble down notes of what I hear. But it’s still funny what I do catch.

Friday morning was their first morning in Canada after their first night and breakfast with a Canadian family. Before class started they were animatedly telling one another about how BIG everything in their homestays’ house is, even the bookshelves. Then they were talking about what they were fed for breakfast and what was packed in their lunches, how it was either gross or they didn’t know what it was. It was funny in its own right, but extra funny to hear the “foreigner” experience in reverse. We’ll see what the next month brings!

Other experiences of teaching Chinese students in Vancouver:

You can browse all of our ESL/EFL teaching post here.

Tension rising with Mainland students in American universities

Joel 大江 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:55:39 +0000

Interesting observations at China Law Blog about how Mainland Chinese students studying in the USA — in contrast to Chinese from other countries — are apparently generating a lot of anger among the American students: Chinese Students In America. It’s Bad Out There.

It seems that Mainland Chinese attitudes toward education don’t play well among their American classmates. For example:

“They cheat all the time. It is pretty unbelievable how often I have seen them cheating. I am always complaining to my professors about this, but they usually just act like they are too important to deign to deal with something like this. Just come watch a test being adminstered and it will be obvious. They are allowed to get away with it because they pay the foreign tuition rate.”

“One student told me of how all the students not from China agreed not to speak one day to see what would happen. There was no class discussion and the teacher asked them not to do it again.”

Chinese “evil cult” propaganda in our Canadian mailbox

Joel 大江 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:29:03 +0000

As soon as I saw this in our mailbox today, it reminded me of something I’d read in the news a couple years ago. A certain religious group in China, famous for being brutally persecuted by the gov’t in the late 90′s, was apparently squandering Western public sympathy by selling tickets to Chinese cultural stage performances that contained explicit (but unadvertised) political and spiritual messages. This was making some Euro-Americans feel deceived. People felt ripped off that they’d come for a family show and got explicit politicking and proselytizing.

I didn’t know if this was them or not. My suspicious were heightened when I read the vague but very spiritual introduction section and this statement:

A performance like Shen Yun can no longer be found in China today because many of China’s best artistic traditions have been lost in recent decades.

The last page confirmed my guess. Turns out the performance advertised in the pamphlet (not mailed but hand-delivered to our door by an elderly Chinese man) is put on by the “evil cult” at the top of the Chinese government’s hit list — one of the largest, most viciously persecuted Chinese religious groups in the last fifteen years. There were propaganda posters in our neighbourhood in Tianjin denouncing them (see here for images and translations), and you have to walk past their demonstration to get into the Chinese consulate in Vancouver. To avoid tempting China’s net nanny I won’t write their name here, but here’s a picture:

I don’t blame them for presenting their religion and protest message through art and entertainment like they do. We Westerners are, after all, well-accustomed to ideological propaganda in our entertainment; that — and money — is what our entertainment is all about. But it takes a little more nuance and subtly to do this effectively to a Western audience, as evidenced by the negative reactions they’ve provoked (here’s an example). Who knows, maybe this go around they’ve tailored their message a little better.

Anyway, it’s interesting to find yet another example of China popping up in the daily life of Canadians. For more about this particular “evil cult”, see:

Recent propaganda from Tianjin, China: evil, scheming, bloodthirsty cults! (China Hope Live)
Shen Yun Performing Arts
Politics and art blend in contentious Chinese show (Toronto.com)

P.S. – “Shén Yùn” refers to charm or grace in art and poetry. Literally it is “God/spirit/divine” (神) + “beautiful sound/charm/appeal” (韵). Here are some different dictionary entries.

Japanese apologies

Joel 大江 — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:41:36 +0000

Unremarkable at first glance, this is a photo of a Japanese colleague who serves in the charity org we’re connected with in China. She’s placing flowers at the memorial to Eric Liddell (the “Chariots of Fire” guy) in the Japanese internment camp where he died during the brutal Japanese invasion of China during WWII.

Of the Japanese I’ve met in China, it’s been the three Japanese Christians (two more plus the one pictured, all serving in the same NGO) who’ve gone out of their ways to personally and symbolically apologize for the actions of their country during WWII. On another occasion, an older Japanese couple hosted a special dinner for their Chinese colleagues and language teachers at which they personally and formally apologized on behalf of their nation.

Has anyone else seen or heard of individual Japanese making apologetic gestures in China? I assume it’s not just Japanese Christians who do this (though with the three I’ve mentioned, their Christianity has a lot to do with it). But I’m also assuming that these kinds of apologies are exceptional, since, as at least one scholar points out, “in Japan there’s almost a dramatic lack of any sense of responsibility.”

I’d love to know more about the dynamics of apology and forgiveness in honour-oriented, Confucian-heritage cultures like China and Japan. I’m also curious about the ways Mainlanders are likely to perceive these types of gestures.

And I wonder: Should Europeans and Americans do the same for the Opium Wars?

More on Eric Liddell and the Japanese invasion:

Why they hate the Japanese
Eric Liddell: McSaint (biography review)
Marriage market, Eric Liddell, weekend slogan (finding Liddell’s former residence in Tianjin)
Spitting is good for something! (interesting anecdote from Liddell’s Japanese internment camp)

P.S. – For some info about official Japanese acknowledgment of WWII atrocities in China, see this comment.

A brief introduction to Watchman Nee & the Little Flock Movement

Joel 大江 — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:44:51 +0000

You’ve maybe heard the name “Watchman Nee” before. That’s because he founded one of the largest Christian groups in Chinese history before dying in a Chinese labour camp. Here’s a summary of a longer article on him and his work, with a link to the PDF of the original article: Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China

A basic understanding of the place of Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Chinese history adds some helpful nuance to understanding the relationships between the Party, Chinese Christianity, the TSPM, and Chinese patriotism and anti-foreignism.

A day in the life… of a Chinese street vendor

Joel 大江 — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:21:40 +0000

Foreigners and locals in China both routinely but superficially interact with street vendors. One young researcher spent a few days with a street vendor family and wrote about it here, giving us a more intimate look at the lifestyle, struggles with the authorities, and living conditions of China’s street market migrants: Street Vendor Life in China

You can read about a similar project here: Thirty Days in a Fuzhou Barbershop

For more about street market migrants and the chéngguǎn (bylaw enforcement thugs), see: The Tianjin Chengguan Street Market Game and Making our neighbourhood more “civilized”

The evolution of Christmas Eve in China [Updated]

Joel 大江 — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:41:28 +0000

In China, Christmas Eve is actually called “Peaceful Night” (平安夜 — after the Chinese translation of the song “Silent Night”), but peaceful is the one thing it definitely isn’t. Here’s a short post about Christmas Eve in urban China, from a foreigner who’s witnessed it go from nothing to the spectacle it is today in just a few short years: Some Thoughts on “Ping An Ye” (Silent Night)
An here’s a Chinese perspective, translated into English: Christmas in Shanghai

For more about the odd creature Christmas Eve has become in China (with pictures!), see: