Shenzhen YouTube Models

I'm sorry for not posting recently. I've been really busy with a number of projects. I've also been traveling a lot on business trips. Blogspot has also been re-blocked by the great firewall sooo... ugh.

Anyways, to kick back posting, I wanted to show everyone a Shenzhen video on Youtube. While there are normally thousands and thousands of videos from the west, Chinese content is rarely posted. This is definitely a needle in a haystack...

Talk about Shenzhen "model" culture...

Olympic Tickets

When I first moved to China, I promised myself that I would go to the 2008 Olympics. I have a lot of friends and family in Beijing and it seems about right that I go for the festivities. Not only will there be awesome events, it's a great way to celebrate China's growth and revival.

A few months back, I applied for tickets online. A couple of days ago, i received confirmation of the tickets that they're going to give me. Out of the 10 different events I wanted to go to, I didn't get anything in ping pong, basketball, badminton or swimming. Those tickets were already lottery-ed off. I going to see fencing, beach volleyball and a event in the National Stadium, though.

There has been rumors that not a lot of foreigners are going to come to the 2008 Olympics. I dont believe this. I bet there are going to be a ton of travelers coming for it, and if they don't come, Chinese people will just have to take all the seats.

加油。

Inside the toy recalls: Mattel's sins

It's been a few weeks since the Mattel toy recalls first started. Since then millions of toys have been taken off the shelves all over the world, a Chinese factory owner hung himself and the "Made in China" name is being dragged through the dirt in the US media.

Just about everyone in the US has jumped on the hating. There have been countless examiniations into the saftey of everything China makes and an unseen fervor has developed. Democrats and Republicans alike are attacking China as the now "irresponsible" global production machine.

While I can not make any statements regarding food recalls or underware, as a person who has worked in the toy industry (my job was to liason between the factory and the US design staff), I see this situation really clearly:

It isnt really the Chinese company's fault!

During the design process, there are a lot of considerations for safety. Only certain materials could be used for certain aged kids and the spacing between motorized parts had to be a certain width. Above these basic restraints, all of our toys had to pass a RoHS standard. This applied to the entire packaging, the paint, the materials used, the parts, everything. Before being able to ship any toys, we had to submit them for testing at a hong kong third party. Only with certification from this third party could we ship to Walmart, Target, ect.

In order to pass these tests, we had to control our supply chain. Every shipment of materials were individually checked by our on-site Quality Control team. If anything was wrong with the shipment, the QA team would not accept the entire stock and demand the sourced company to redo it.

In essance, there were atleast 4 different levels of quality assurance: During design, supply chain, manufacturing and third party testing before shipment. Of course not all shipments were perfect and things did slip through the cracks, but no products were recalled when I worked there. None.

So with my own first hand experience, I was terribly shocked when I heard of Mattel's recall. How could the biggest toy company in the US allow so many millions of toys be shipped? What happened to all of the different layers of testing and retesting. Also, why didnt the US media find the real reasons for the problems instead of making China the scapegoat?

Well finally, someone did. Only in today's NY Times has there been any mention of the innate problems within Mattel's business.

Mattel has been manufacturing in Asia far longer than many companies (the first Barbie was made there in 1959). That led to long-term relationships with certain Chinese contractors, many spanning decades. Paradoxically, that appears to have contributed to Mattel’s problems: the longer it outsourced to a factory supplier with good results, the looser the leash became.

During Mr. Eckert’s tenure, the company has scaled back the number of companies it uses and the fraction of Mattel toys that they make, but it allowed its more reliable suppliers to do their own regular toy testing — with spot tests by Mattel only every three months.

The two contractors that caused this month’s recalls were among the most trusted. Lee Der Industrial, the supplier involved in the first recall, had worked with Mattel for 15 years. The Early Light Industrial Company, the contractor that made the Sarge cars in the second recall, has supplied toys for 20 years.

Mattel became so confident in their China production that it basically gave all control to their subcontractors. Instead of making sure they had final say of what toys were being shipped, the left it up to their Chinese counterparts. What responsible company would decide to do that? No smart company would ever think of giving all control for their products to someone else.

Still Mattel execs want to refocus the blame on the Chinese:

“I think it’s the fault of the vendor who didn’t follow the procedures that we’ve been living with for a long time,” Mr. Debrowski said.

I guess Mr. Debrowski has never worked in a Chinese factory (like I have). Maybe if he worked there for 2 weeks, he would see that Chinese employees need constant attention. Only micromanagers with attention to detail can actually confirm that any processes are used. Without this oversight, any "procedures" are just random words on paper.

All in all, the real issue is money. The real reason why Mattel gave so much autonomy to their contractors was because they wanted higher profits. In order to have their own staff oversee and manager the production, QA and other processes, it would cost Mattel much more money. Instead, they calculate the cost and overhead of the Chinese manufacturer, add 15% for the Chinese company's margin and not worry about anything else. For a toy that costs the Chinese company $1.20, Mattel sell it for $4.50 to Walmart. That's quite a profit.

Whey they're making that much money, who cares about a little lead in the paint?

Ultimately, no one is really blaming Mattel for this. If you read the NY Times article, you can see that the underlying tone of it is pro-Mattel. Even the title, After Stumbling, Mattel Cracks Down on China, shows the bias.

The US (and world) media will continue to attack China while the real culprits enjoy their high profit margins. I guess it's just another symptom of globalization.

Chinese Version of the "Birds and the Bees"

I was hanging out with a friend a couple of days ago, just screwing around, wasting time. My friend has a belly button ring, so I was joking around that she was hampering her reproductive organs.

This might not make sense for my western readers....but in China, when kids ask the world-wide question: "mommy, where did I come from", they are told, the belly button. This answer, although weird, seems like a very natural choice now. This is what my parents told me when I was young.

When this topic came up, I continued to ask what my friend's parents also said to her. She responded with: They told me that they found me in a dumpster. （我是在垃圾里面检出来得。）

What?! What are Chinese parents thinking? I know it is hard and uncomfortable to talk about sex with a kid so sometimes, flat out lying is not too bad.

However, Chinese customs have gone way beyond this. Parents, instead of doing the "birds & bees" story tell their children that they were adopted. Not only were they adopted, but their previous family threw them out into the trash, only until your parents rescued you.

What a fucked up thing to say.

Come to think of it, my parents told me that I was found in the trash too...

China & Morality

One of the most interesting things about living in China is the underlying sense of morality.... or the lack there of.

From my time living here, I really believe that anything and everything can happen. Although the vast majority have a decent sense of what's right and wrong, a lot of people clearly don't have it.

Business ethics? Who cares.

Insider Trading? Common place.

Cheating for self gain? Standard.

One recent event that shows the turbulent and frequent questionable nature of what is real/fake and right/wrong occurred in journalism.

The west often accuses Chinese journalism as censored, government approved and basically propaganda. Although everyone and their grandmom knows that there is a natural sensitivity for the government on certain issues (like falonggong, protests) on the national scale, journalism on the local level is more open than I had previously thought. There are definitely news reports, on the radio, in TV and print describing corruption, crimes, and other unsavory events. Although there is a vail lifted over the average Chinese person, it's not as thick as everyone thinks.

Well, about a month ago, a Beijing journalist described a very interesting story about food vendors putting cardboard and other undesirable materials into food. This scary story caused a stir in local and national headlines and was quickly picked up by CNN international sources.

The whole country was in outrage. Police and health inspectors started checking everywhere. Foreign press lamented and criticized China, ect. ect.

And all the while, the story was fake...

As CNN reported through Reuters:

Beijing police have detained a television reporter for allegedly fabricating an investigative story about steamed buns stuffed with cardboard at a time when China's food safety is under intense international scrutiny.

Beijing authorities said investigations had found that an employee surnamed Zi had fabricated the report to garner "higher audience ratings", the China Daily said on Thursday.

"Zi had provided all the cardboard and asked the vendor to soak it. It's all cheating," the paper quoted a government notice as saying.

After I read the original report, I spent a while thinking about the stuff I put into my body every morning before going to work. I also thought about the other crap that could be in the foods out there. I was almost freaking out.

So while I, and many other people were freaking out (like me), while the whole country was in outrage investing food processes, standards and regulations, and while the international community criticized the Chinese government and its standards as another example of inept corruption of the "communist regime," the story turned out to be fake.

So, creating this panic and international incident was just a chance to get higher ratings, and a future promotion. Wow.

This is China.

The reporter has since been tried and sentenced to 1 year in jail and a fine. Good times.

Before leaving this topic, there is another issue that is involved here. I would not be surprised if the story was true and the reporter was telling the truth. Instead, the culprit could be the authorities who are trying to damage control. Different agencies could have ordered that the reporter be the scape goat so that the government could deny these accusations with more footing to foreign trade partners... what if...

Ultimately, no one knows what the hell is going on. It doesn't matter if you believe one side, or the other. They are all playing with the same, cheating deck of cards.