By Jennifer Nagorka, KERA Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-657237.mp3
Dallas, TX –
If Santa could grant me one wish, it would be no Chinese-made products under the Christmas tree. But then, to be consistent, I'd have to strip half the ornaments off the tree and all the strings of lights. The tree stand would have to go, too, along with the electric candles for the windows. What would a modern American Christmas look like without all the tchotchkes from China?
I had a similar question when I was pregnant. Were babies a jobs program for China? The bouncy seats, strollers, baby bathtubs, changing pads, and most of the toys sold at mainstream retailers are manufactured in China. If something ever blocks those shipping lanes, Americans will have to stop having kids.
Chinese-made products are ubiquitous - and that may be a problem. The products are occasionally toxic. You know, lead paint on toys, contaminants in imported seafood, toothpaste laced with the sweet-tasting poison, diethylene glycol. These substances may harm consumers, so imagine the health risks they pose for the people who make all these things. Imagine the toxins that must be ending up in the environment.
Then there's the question of market distortion and the balance of trade. What does the flood of ultra-cheap products do to manufacturing industries in other nations? Is it healthy for our country to import five times more from China than we export to it?
There's one more reason to control our appetite for Chinese products, one that hasn't been discussed much. Those distant factories are flooding our lives with bad taste and cluttering our homes with junk.
Did you see the newspaper insert advertising the remote-controlled, farting teddy bear? Yes, a farting teddy bear. Buy two or more, and they cost just $12.95 each - plus $3.95 shipping and handling. Here's what the ad says: "HILARIOUS! Guaranteed laughs for everyone!" There's even a little illustration in case can't quite picture how this might work.
Guess where it's made.
Chinese stuff is cheap - at least, cheaper than it would be if it were made in another country with decently enforced labor and environmental laws. Much of it is also cheap in the sense of being shoddy. An elderly friend gave our son a plastic gunfire-blasting robotic spider thingee that began losing legs almost as soon as it was out of the box. Because it didn't cost much, and had already broken, and was really loud and annoying when it had worked, I didn't feel bad about throwing the robot spider away as soon as our son went to bed. But it does seem like something that never needed to be made.
There's a lot of stuff like that filling the shelves of drugstores and dollar stores and retailers like Wal-Mart and Target. Americans buy it - just because it's there. We've got a habit, an addiction, to buying. We can't blame China for that. We have to restrain ourselves.
I'm not forgoing all Chinese goods. I bought a neat game for one nephew despite its country of origin. But I put the Chinese-made reusable rocket kit back on the shelf. Seemed like asking for trouble. I expect to give a lot of books and chocolate this Christmas.
Jennifer Nagorka is a writer from Dallas.
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