Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [87]
Walk through a Target or Wal-Mart and it’s difficult to believe that there are indeed quotas on Chinese goods. Everything seems to have been made in China. And yet, while the U.S. government may have abandoned the country’s textile mills, and its steel producers, and its television manufacturers, and its toy producers—really, what hasn’t the government thrown under the bus—somehow, a few corporate farmers were able to draw a line in the sand with corn. It’s miraculous, really. Nevertheless, Kenny had provided a succinct summary of the trade situation. In the U.S., we squawk about shoddy goods, poisonous toothpaste, contaminated toys. We bemoan the lost jobs. We point to the slave labor in China, like the unfortunate people, kids even, snookered or kidnapped to work in the factories. Or we lament what China is doing to the environment. But it’s like blaming an addiction to crack on a poor, illiterate farmer in the highlands of Bolivia. We’re the market. We decide what to buy. But do we decide to buy domestically made, high-quality goods manufactured in a well-regulated environment that ensures humane working conditions? We do not. We want it cheap, no matter what the consequences. And thus China, with its “millions of houses in thousands of villages, all making something.”
We got off the subway in the gleaming new downtown. In front of an enormous shopping plaza, a gathering of uniformed security guards was being led through their paces, marching like a military regiment on parade.
“Now, compare these with the mall security guards at home,” I said to Jack.
He shook his head in wonder. “We’re so screwed, aren’t we?”
Inside the shopping mall, I could sense Kenny’s pride. There were seven or so stories of gleaming stores topped by an entire floor devoted to the amusements of kids, something I rarely saw elsewhere in China. Whenever I thought I had stumbled upon a playground, it was, in fact, an exercise yard for the elderly. But here, there was a haunted house. There was a movie theater.
Kenny suddenly turned to Jack. “How many pixels in your camera?” he asked. “Two?”
“Five, I think. I don’t know.”
“But I see that your camera is three or four years old. In China, we only use the new. Cell phones, cameras, computers, we only want the newest.”
Slowly but surely, Kenny was confirming an incipient impression I had been forming. The Chinese were becoming the Americans of Asia. There was a sureness to the Chinese, a cockiness even, that not so long ago could be found among Americans. Today, of course, many Americans, even conservatives like Jack, would concede that the U.S. has lost its way. From endless war to the expensive absurdities of the health care system, onward through the colossal amount of debt that Americans have assumed, most of us can’t help but begin to feel that things in the USA aren’t looking particularly perky at present. The rest of the world, of course, couldn’t agree more. China, however, was beginning to strut. And they were even beginning to assume some of our most remarkable characteristics, like buying shit they didn’t actually need.
“When I was in the U.S.,” Kenny continued, “I thought everything would be modern, state-of-the-art. But it’s not. Much of it is actually very backward. Here in Guangzhou, we have flat-screen televisions and air-conditioning in the subway.”
And crippled kids begging on bridges. And the foulest air this side of Venus. But I knew manners were important in China, and I didn’t want to be disagreeable with our host. Kenny had offered to take us out for traditional Cantonese hotpot. We left this showcase mall and walked past the Starbucks in the New China