three hungry boys - what a waste of time
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Would you be surprised if I said Yes?
So would I.
I understand your point mate, but I'm not sure we all need to go somewhere to be concerned about what we hear from credible people who have been and seen it.
Not really lots of folk visit Hk and shoot over the border into Shenzhen to visit copy city at Lo Wu....
But I would have been surprised if a NHS Senior Nurse had been for a look around an electronics factory in Shenzhen....
Ive been and seen it on numerous occasions worked in lots of factories there eaten in lots of workers canteens etc, lived there and worked on setting up a factory.. So its not exactly as clear cut as the info you have posted...
The point folk seem to miss on a consistent basis is that China is not a western culture although western cultural influences are of course prevalent in some aspects of Chinese life...
OK, well I didnt expect that. So where does my second hand story miss the mark? I admit I've formed an opinion,based on other peoples opinion and would like to balance it with yours?
If you don't like HFW then don't watch him. If you don't like the conditions the workers are forced to work in whilst making I phones then don't buy one.....sorted. thread has been spammed that much its now onto talking about corned beef.
Very droll. Just for clarity though, are you just making the joke or are you actually complaining about thread drift in a thread discussing the political correctness of Hugh Fernly Whittingstall? Just checking?
I read the transcript of the 'this American Life' Podcast. I thought it was very good.
Large factories are very common in China (as they used to be in the UK, US and Western Europe) and most of them have a large Migrant Worker Population working for them that live onsite in the factory. This is true of Shenzhen, Guangdong, Ningbo etc.. Factories very generally, break down into 3 types. Chinese owned, Owned by Foreign Chinese ( Taiwanese, HK Chinese etc) or a JV between a foreign company and a Chinese JV partner (Shanghai GM for example).
I've visted or worked in all three types and there are some differences between them in the way they operate and run and also in the way the Chinese Govenment treats them.
In all of the factories I've spent time in I've never personally seen or heard of Child Labour in factories. I've been in factories where the Govenment has been through lookng for Child Labour on site. I've been inspected for H+S compliance to the point where our staff were given blood tests to make sure we weren't poisioning them. In terms of working conditions some factories would be on a par or surpass Western factories, some would be worse than current Western Working conditions. But then I've been in Grubby non compliant engineering shops in the UK and the US as well.
China's manufacturing again breaks down into 2 types domestic market or export. If you manufacture for export then you need to base your factory near to a port so you can export your stuff Yantain for Shenzhen is an example of this. This leads to an interesting geographical fact that most of Chinas export manufacturing is located on the seaboard and close to deep water ports. Which means all of those factory jobs are there hence the migrant workforce. what you also have is a huge economic imbalance between the coastal fringe and inland China...
That is a growing problem IMHO. I used to visit a Factory located near to Quingdao the factory was inland and the drive there took you through rural china you'd often see folk with Oxen Carts and they' be drying sweetcorn on the main road as it was a nice rain proof relatively clean surface. In contrast I used to stay in the Marco Polo Hotel in Shenzhen which had a Ferrari dealer opposite.
The choice a lot of Young Chinese folk face is stay on the farm or in the rural province or head to the city for a factory job which they percieve to be a better life for some it is for some not. The UK faced a similar situation during the Industrial revolution. China is undergoing a manufacturing revolution based on our excessive consumption of pretty much everything.
I think folk in China do work hard, harder then we do in the West that is for sure.
Shenzhen is not bad as Cities go the infrastructure is good and I've seen a blue sky there more than once. But I'm always happy to get back to NZ...
Thanks for that John. I envy you, China is a country I've always wanted to visit. It fascinates me. From an outsider it looks full of conflict, the old world and the new. But particularly, I'm curious about how the old communist state, rationalises it's growth in a capitalist world economy? It seems as though they have sectioned off portions of the country and given those areas over to capitalism, out of a recognition of the wealth it will generate, but at the same time are fundamentally at odds with the ideology. The massive and rapid growth of Shenzhen (my spelling error noted) shows what a thirst they have for wealth - or perhaps just a reflection of a desperate desire to get out of the paddy fields and make a better life? I'm not sure which, but with Hong Kong going back to China and the emergence of cities like Shenzhen, I cant see China going backwards. It surely must be the start of the end for the communist regime? Whatever, as Chinas economy grows and the country becomes more westernised, either through choice or through economic revolution, working conditions and human rights will only get better. That means better pay too, which eventually will mean they will no longer be able to compete on price alone. It'll be very interesting to see how that develops over the next few decades. China could become the biggest, wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth (if it isn't already), or it could all implode. Fascinating country.
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Whats wrong with corned beef? are you being corned beefist? With that I'm going to make corned beef hash and watch Judge Judy on my 52" Sony Bravia and keep an eye on this thread on my Galaxy S2 so there.
No iPhones here. I have a blackberry that's a hand-me-down from good old Mum, although I'm sure said electronic device has it's share of shame. Then again I wouldn't own something that's been known to melt in 16 months anyway. Most things that I own are obsolete. Doesn't make sense to keep up with silly trends. Besides, I just need something to call people and text. Sometimes I use the camera and calendar but that's it really.
I suppose most obsolete junk from the 80s,90s,00s ended up for recycling in India or China. Shows the consequences of a throwaway society. I know that hardware engineering in terms of maintenance in this country has pretty much gone now because it's cheaper to buy new computers than to get them repaired.
Essentially, HFW is a rich kid anyway. What do you expect? I'm sure his house is a grand affair of underfloor heating, 50" plasma screen TVs and engineered oak flooring like all the rest. Welcome to reality.
I suppose most obsolete junk from the 80s,90s,00s ended up for recycling in India or China. Shows the consequences of a throwaway society. I know that hardware engineering in terms of maintenance in this country has pretty much gone now because it's cheaper to buy new computers than to get them repaired.
Essentially, HFW is a rich kid anyway. What do you expect? I'm sure his house is a grand affair of underfloor heating, 50" plasma screen TVs and engineered oak flooring like all the rest. Welcome to reality.
half of this 'green energy' is anything but i can't stand sanctimonious people preaching about how they're on a higher moral plane than the rest of us because they've got a hydrid car or they use bio-diesel, conveniently ignoring the fact that farmers are clearing huge amounts of rainforest to grow plants for the stuff in the first place. 'oh my cars electric we're very eco-friendly here' yeah well where does the electricity come form? dirty great coal fired power stations. bio-mass is not a sustainable energy source
Thread drift mate. Thread originally started with disappointment in the hungry boys show not the PC of Hugh though.
Cheers.
Wow, OK. I guess we'd better get back to talking about disappointment in the hungry boys show then. My apologies, please carry on.
Martyn,
I dont think you'd really envy me that much. Business travel and work overseas is generally a PITA but you do get a differnt perspective on a number of things.
In regards to the old Communist State China has been pursuing a policy of a 'Socialist Market Economy' for a good number of years..
We have Deng Xiaoping to generally thank for that... Communist reform in the 90's was quite common you'll remember Perestroika in the Soviet Union, Doi Moi in Vietnam etc....
The Chinese pragmatically I suppose seem to accept the benifits of a single party state and the benifits of an active Market Economy.
I dont think that Chinas current boom is at odds with any Ideology the Ideology has changed it's a new form of Communisim. The days of Mao Suits and collective farms and the little red book are rapidly fading into the distance.
Reasonably should we as 'Enlightened Westeners' tell them thats not a system they should have?? The largest Democracy in the world is a 2 party State... Capitalisim and the free market in it's purest sense has been having a really bad run for the last few years...
A lot of the folk I have worked with, met and spoken with in China are genuinely proud to be Chinese they can see the advances the country is making. An example of this is evident in a lot of the Parking lots of the factories Ive been to. 10 years ago there was likely 1 car which belonged to the Director or Boss, Visit today and there are lots of Cars which belong to Managers, Engineers, Admin Staff etc...Lots of the production guys dont ride a push bike to work they have a moped or Motorbike. Mobile phones are rife in the cities ( might not be an I phone).
My point I suppose is your podcast and Iphone commets only tell part of a story not the whole one. The whole story is far more interesting and complex than the view point of an American Journalist etc...
If you want a really interesting country to look at and discuss, child labour et al then look at Vietnam.. They make a lot of outdoor gear there....
There has been a certain amount of drift on the thread, but it does highlight an important (well, obviously to us) point that there is a certain hypocrisy in the morals the west has concerning eco living and consumerism, and especially the Guardian reading ecogensia, where sops such as this programme and those of its ilk are employed to make us feel different from the way we actually behave.
I try not to buy from shops like Matalan, and try to keep off the consumerism tradmill as much as possible. Much of my stuff comes from ebay, but I have friends, people who would consider themselves green, or green-leaning, who are all left leaning and are concerned about workers rights etc, and yet are happy to have an iphone each and an ipad, and who buy clothes week after week at knock down prices from places like Matalan, conveniently pushing aside all the real issues of where these things come from and the havoc they wreak in other people's lives and the environment.
I try to keep off the consumerist treadmill as much as possible (don't buy from the worst of the supermarkets, get stuff off ebay and all the rest) but yes there are electronic products in my house which will come from these places, and most of the cotton clothes I get from whereever will have a trail of tears behind them. I am a hypocrite, it is true, but when you're in the system, as most of us are, in the most part, it is impossible not to be.
Getting back to the prpgramme, I do think it highlights what a gulf there is between soft ecological commitments and actually doing any real good for the planet.
And the greatest irony is, I suppose, if the viewing public actually followed the example of these kinds of programmes, then the countryside would be ripped bare by hoards of foragers, all looking for the last snails and the last mussels and the last rabbit to catch and kill and put in the pot.
Perhaps it's better that no one takes any real notice.
I try not to buy from shops like Matalan, and try to keep off the consumerism tradmill as much as possible. Much of my stuff comes from ebay, but I have friends, people who would consider themselves green, or green-leaning, who are all left leaning and are concerned about workers rights etc, and yet are happy to have an iphone each and an ipad, and who buy clothes week after week at knock down prices from places like Matalan, conveniently pushing aside all the real issues of where these things come from and the havoc they wreak in other people's lives and the environment.
I try to keep off the consumerist treadmill as much as possible (don't buy from the worst of the supermarkets, get stuff off ebay and all the rest) but yes there are electronic products in my house which will come from these places, and most of the cotton clothes I get from whereever will have a trail of tears behind them. I am a hypocrite, it is true, but when you're in the system, as most of us are, in the most part, it is impossible not to be.
Getting back to the prpgramme, I do think it highlights what a gulf there is between soft ecological commitments and actually doing any real good for the planet.
And the greatest irony is, I suppose, if the viewing public actually followed the example of these kinds of programmes, then the countryside would be ripped bare by hoards of foragers, all looking for the last snails and the last mussels and the last rabbit to catch and kill and put in the pot.
Perhaps it's better that no one takes any real notice.
P
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I have to admit I haven't watched this yet.
I did smile at the trailer, as with most things the concept is drawn from other sources, perhaps this is one.
http://www.threemeninafloat.com/Welcome.html
The book is a good read.
I did smile at the trailer, as with most things the concept is drawn from other sources, perhaps this is one.
http://www.threemeninafloat.com/Welcome.html
The book is a good read.
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