I have to say that I was really surprised when I opened up a Sara Bongiorni’s A Year Without Made in China — the story about one family’s attempt to boycott Chinese products for all of 2005 — there wasn’t much about China in it.
The book is subtitled “One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy” but it isn’t really about globalization either. The book is a story about commitment China and globalization are just background players. Nowhere is this more true than looking at Bongiorni’s knowledge of China. She keeps talking about Chinese factories as sweatshops but makes no attempt to examine major retailers’ supply chains other than to call companies and ask if the product came from China — which the forward to the book mentions most of the world’s products are completely made, assembled or have components sourced from China.
Bongiorni also gets around the difficulty of her boycott by saying that products from Hong Kong and Taiwan are okay. She mentions that HK used to be controlled by the British but now she doesn’t even know who controls it and not until almost page 100 does she admit that the Chinese government (and most of the world) considers Taiwan to be part of its territory. She mentions early in the book that she has a brother who traveled through Asia and speaks Chinese (he translates emailed interview requests from the Chinese press for her at the end of the book), but I guess she didn’t consult him on those questions.
China-specific complaints aside though the story is a fun read for a weekend afternoon and is probably a good gauge of the average North American’s knowledge about China which is not much. They know that many products they buy at Wal-Mart and other major retailers come from China and that China’s low product costs keep the prices of these goods low for them, but not much else about the country other than that. Unfortunately, A Year Without Made in China doesn’t do much to change that situation.
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I never really know how to respond to people like Sara Bongiorni, and I have family members that are just like her – or enough like her for this generalization.
I mean, I doubt many of us who *know* about China want to be labeled CPC apologists, or travelling know-it-alls… ok, maybe a few of us do. But really, how could any but a North American get away with writing a book about a country they’ve never been to and know nothing about?
Blows my mind.
Incidentally, I’m now writing a novel entitled, “The complete guide to Azerbaijian from someone who’s never been there nor ever plans to go”
Haha Ryan I can see it becoming a best seller.
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