Chinese leery of buying their own toys
By Nicole Belle Sunday Dec 16, 2007 7:30pm
AP:
When freelance writer Wang Jian shops for toys for her 5-year-old son, she's happy to pay extra for Legos blocks and Japanese-brand train sets.
The reason, she and other parents say: Foreign brands enjoy a reputation for higher quality - a perception reinforced by the product scares of recent months.
"We pay close attention to the news about toy and food safety. If I find a problem with a certain brand, I will just stop using it for sure," said Wang, who writes for film magazines.
China may be Santa's global workshop, but when it comes to buying playthings for their own children, Chinese families who can afford it opt for foreign-brand toys - even if they are made in China.
Quality and safety issues are drawing more attention as incomes rise and upwardly mobile Chinese grow more health conscious. While virtually all toys on the market, whether foreign or domestic brands, are made in China, factories making foreign brands are assumed to abide by more rigorous standards to screen out lead paint and other harmful materials.
"I dare not buy cheap wooden toys or toys with paint," said Lin Yan, a professor at Shanghai International Studies University, whose 7-year-old daughter tested for elevated levels of lead in her blood.
I actually attended a Christmas party this weekend where the host gave out lead testing pens as hostess gifts, so that we parents could check our children's future gifts. What a wonderful free market economy statement for us all.
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They don't want to buy their own toys?
Gosh I wonder if that should cause us to consider maybe not buying crap from a Totalitarian state.
FIRST!
Great, another country that gets it way before America...does anyone remember when America led the world? now we follow pretty far behind and these idiot's who got us this far behind will still get mad if you question America's standing in the world.
Yeah, that's it, I'm unpatriotic because I want America to be the best it can be...and Repug's are more patriotic because they don't think their civil rights are worth fighting for...how does this work again?
Why do you think they have a booming business sending it here?
"I actually attended a Christmas party this weekend where the host gave out lead testing pens as hostess gifts, so that we parents could check our children’s future gifts. What a wonderful free market economy statement for us all."
US Parents should boycott companies that have their toys made in China, not just because of safety concerns but because manufacturing jobs were sent to overseas for corporate profit. There are options to buy American. If parents are too lazy to seek alternatives and easily give in to the corporate programming of their kids, then they deserve all the poison they get.
PassedPawn @ 5:
It's a hell of a chore not buying Chinese made stuff these days. But we've become complete nitpickers and manage to avoid 90% of it now.
Imagine what would happen if Americans did the same. Did without rather then buy these potentially deadly imports?
Hell we might be able to rebuild our manufacturing base.
Get those wooden Brio toys, from Sweden. Best toys ever! The ones I remember most from childhood. Lincoln logs and tinker toys too. Legos.
Dodd won.
Reid tabled Fisa until Jan.
Dodd vows to do it again in Jan.
China
The U.S. is dancing with a diseased partner who keeps putting out.
L.A. Confidential @ 4:
Indeed the situation is not as this post would make it seem. China is getting ready to follow the EU in their use of the
'precautionary principle' as applied to toxic chemicals in the environment. And folks these chemicals are not just in toys.
Check out my post:
U.S. now stands with Third World in regulating poisons in the environment.
whats with this thing dumping your name and email add
They have a major pollution problem and will have to cut back for their people to live.
A.Citizen @ 10:
Hey I hear you and we've been eating these Chinese toxins since 95 at least. It's no wonder were constantly sick or on the edge of it if not getting deadly diseases.
Here's when we lost track of reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI
be thankfull ,the chinese are only sending us lead toys !as soon as they can muster up enough landing forces they reall be filling you full of lead!so lets keep them troops in iraq, cause we could use another asian sneak attack!
tyree @ 15:
Why send troops when they can just obliterate us with toxic foods, pharmaceuticals, and toys?
Lemme re-run this Erin Burnett clip of her explaining to Chris Mathews that it's in our best interest to not piss China off, that we should be careful for what we wish for, and if we want safer goods from China, then we shouldn't be such cheapskates.
Oddly enough, it was Tweety that caught heat from this heinous exchange, instead of Burnett, which makes zero sense to me.
Who cares if he's a lecherous old man, that's a given. Burnett got her job on her looks, and she knows it, and what she said was a lot worse than any public, live on-air leering he might have done by several orders of magnitude
Also, I just can't get enough of the this retelling and thoroughly modern updating of The Grinch in Who-Ville, it's a keeper for the ages, but it's unlikely you'll see it put on as a Broadway Musical anytime soon.
~Nyc
Dustin de Wynde @ 17:
She the one that hit the cop and got arrested today? Or in line to be next?
I have a dear granddaughter who is 5. She wanted dolls and stuff. I convinced my daughter to allow me to do the shopping for her.
Not much out there? You'd be surprised. I bought a doll's bed made in New Hampshire -- in the 1950s in an estate sale. I refinished it all white and pink roses. The doll I found on eBay, brand new from Germany. I am making all of the clothes and a chest to keep them in.
Fuck the Chinese and the lead-painted wooden horse they rode in on.
"Chinese families who can afford it opt for foreign-brand toys - even if they are made in China."
This is false security. It was Mattel, a large American company, that had to recall over a million toys. Obviously, our companies at home in America are not any safer than a company actually based in China. Maybe we should clean our own house. During that entire thing, I thought it was interesting that everyone was China bashing, but not many were vocally upset with the large American corporations that don't follow the rules of regulations for their plants overseas. If Mattel is slapping their name on a product, then they have to be responsible for the safety of the product. The corporations will always claim that it was something that was beyond their control because it is operated in a different country, etc. But, this is the same argument they make when they are found using child or slave labor.
In addition to the safety concerns, many of the toys are simply of flimsy quality. We have purchased toys for our kids at Target which repeatedly broke down-one remote control dinosaur we took back four times. We purchased a Corgi brand race car set which literally broke down in ten minutes-both the propelling motor and the cars themselves. I purchased a little Mattel car for my son which fell apart under normal usage in 2 days. They are made with potentially toxic materials and they make the old jokes from my youth about `Made in Japan' look very quaint. I am very, very leery of toys made in china now for all of the above reasons.
Oh sorry it's Alycia Lane
NEW YORK — A television news anchor who made headlines for sending photos of herself in a bikini to a married man at the NFL Network was arrested Sunday after she punched a police officer in the face, authorities said.
Emmy Award winner Alycia Lane hit the female officer in Manhattan about 2 a.m. Sunday, said police, who provided no information about what led to the incident. The officer was treated at a hospital for a cut and was released.
L.A. Confidential @ 16:
And they get paid for doing it too.
L.A. Confidential @ 16:
cause when lead comes out of a gun barrel its permanent poison!!!!besides they cand round you up and send you on death marches with just toys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i belive we called them communist china in the korean war!
CD @ 1:
and does that totalitarian state mean the "united states"? remember it is this bastard bush administration that has almost demolished any kind of safety inspections of imported goods. if any thing the chinese are more aware of and concerned with the health and safety of their children, than the bush administration.
Another thing we here in the US don't seem to think about is all the people who are working in the shops in China who have no clue what chemicals are in the paint, etc. They are in direct contact with large amounts of these chemicals. They get the chemicals and lead on their clothes and they unknowingly bring them home to their children. And they get paid pennies to do it. The real solution here is to have international safe work environment rules and regulations. But you know US corporations wouldn't go for that. (The real problem is that our government doesn't require basic safe and humane working conditions in countries we trade with. The corporations cry that they would lose money if they had to ensure that products are made safely and people are paid decent wages.)
This is what happens when the earth is flat economically but not politically.
dadams @ 25:
Bush is an asshole but his time is almost done.
China on the other hand is truely a totalitarian state.
VietVet8666 @ 9:
The difference being that in China they executed their head of the FDA when he messed up.
Wonder if we had that kind of accountability for our officials here in the US if it would make any sort of difference?
:P
~Nyc
Looks like China's plan 'B' for holding down their population isn't going to work.
WHy is that? If they are leery how would us be?
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2319811
L.A. Confidential @ 16:
Hey, Colonel Ripper and Doctor Strangelove, how's protecting our precious bodily fluids from T3H Y3ll0W P3r1l coming?
CD @ 1:
I talk with people in China everyday on Skype.
Right now, until more people catch onto this it definitely has a "only Nyc can go to China"* feel to it.
I started doing it because I wanted to learn Mandarin, which turned out to be an exercise in futility because most of the people I talk to speak and write better English than my fellow Americans do. But that's not the cool part. What's really neat is that Skype's phone signal is so clear now that i can actually hear traffic noise coming from the streets of Beijing when I talk to people over there.
I've spent a lot of time in Soviet dominated Eastern Europe as a child and adolescent, and I got to tell ya, for a Totalitarian State the Chinese have got some killer Western tastes.
Fiddy Cent and Kanye West are huge over there, as is Avril Lavigne.
Right now their favorite TV shows are House, Prison Break and among the women, Sex And The City. I am not making this up. The women flip when they talk to me because I have a friend that owns a building on Perry Street in the West Village that's on the same block as where the Sarah Jessica Parker character lives.
Small world.
Another funny thing about the women is that they've all adopted American names that are straight out of the 1950/60s, Peggy, Cindy, Margaret, Agnes, Mary, Lois, Kate, Rosemary, you get the idea.
After I explain to them that the names they've chosen for themselves went out of vogue a long time ago and after that one sinks in I then tell them that their worship of the United States is misplaced, that this place that they so idolize vanished at about the same time American parents stopped using names like that for their daughters, and that its we Americans that should be the ones doing the bowing and scraping and adopting Chinese names out of respect, and not the other way around.
If that one doesn't sink in I then inform them that the current debt that the United States owes to China, just in bonds, is in the neighborhood of 10 trillion Yuan/RMB, or $1.5 trillion USD.
To put that into perspective I tell them that is the same as every 150 million working American owing China $10K apiece, or every single one of the 1.5 billion Chinese having lent the USA 7K Yuan/RMB, ($1K), apiece.
This, of course does not count the Wal-Mart money that flows out of the US each and every day...
I predict things will get very interesting once the 2008 Beijing Olympics are over, because that's when the games will probably really begin.
:P
~Nyc
*I actually have had to explain the "only Nixon can go to China" line to people over there, and one woman, upon seeing a picture of Nixon, described him as "handsome."
Knock me over with a feather.
CD @ 28:
... if it makes you feel better. Sure, we can try to find solace that our shit is slightly less stinky than theirs. A neutral outsider as an observer may rightfully point out that the shiniest part of a fecal matter is still that: shit.
This country, on a per capita basis, has an incarceration rate much higher than China. So if it makes you feel better, sure... we are more "free" whatever that means in the context of whatever our country has become.
This got me thinking, I wonder if the Department of Homeland Security got its nomenclature as an Americanization of the original national socialist German concept of Fatherland , maybe it was the next logical name as the USSR had already adopted the motherland wording... so the next *land after father/mother was home. China, the USSR, and Nazi Germany sure loved their *land departments, and they sure were fairly totalitarian places. I guess that the US is better at marketing, so maybe this time around they may be able to pull the sell off --the residents of the previous *lands did not buy it eventually, but it seems that the American populace may revert that trend. Oh, joy!
Once it was acceptable for the American people to have a department of "Homeland" security, and not have an issue with the conotations of the name... we
navyswan @ 20:
Agreed... if corporations want to play in the global village, fine. However, if you want to sell shit in my own village under your brand... YOU are responsible for it.
I guess a lot of these corporations want their cake (huge profits from cheap ass labour forces else where) and eat it too (not have to be responsible, since some one else made that shit for them).
Interestingly enough, I though the future was about having robots doing all sorts of shit so humans would have more time and spend their lives in pursuing of higher interests, such as finding the cure for all diseases, deciphering the meaning of life, or explore the cosmos. Ironically we simply ended being enslaved by the things that were supposed to set us free... we never expected those people at the top to be so fucking greedy and not wanting to give up a piece of the pie so every one can have a nice dessert. The sad part is that they will never be able to eat the pie, they may not even like the flavour, and they will end up throwing it all away rather than share it...
Ah, humans... the idea was good, but the world wasn't ready for us I guess.
The Dude @ 34:
In China all media outlets are controled by the state.
I don't trust them to be reliable sources on matters that would embaress China.
Jo @ 19:
You rock Granny! :)
CD @ 36:
... and the the US the media outlets are controlled by the corporations.
Again, it all depends on what makes you feel better: being shafted by a bunch of communist assholes, or being shafted by a bunch of corporate assholes.
Americans think that because they get to sing "I am proud to be an American, where at least I know I am free." The ironic part is the assumption, it is dangerous to make such claims when for the most part a lot of those singing that song haven't been exposed or know what is out there regarding freedom and social expectations.
If you look at the American MSM, there is little difference between their so called news and propaganda pieces. At least for a foreign observer, let's say a Western European, there would be little difference between the literal and deliberate black out of information performed by American MSM and the one carried out by the Chinese official news agencies. The main difference, is that by large most Chinese at least recognize that what they are getting are nothing but pieces of propaganda, where as the American populace by large is still under the assumption that they are getting the "news."
Ironically I have seen similar levels of jingoistic ultra-nationalistic attitudes from both Chinese and American nationals.... scared shitless by both to tell you the truth.
just remember WalMart specializes in chinese goods. and their employee health plan is welfare and medicaid.
CD @ 1:
Sorry, but I cannot cozy with that logic, CD. Even when Germany and Italy where under the rule of dreadful totalitarian governments, especially Germany, their craftsmanship did not suffer (allowing for the scarcity of materials due to wartime demand). I think there is a different explanation.
I do not know how old you are, but during the 50's, Japan had at least the same level of quality issues as China, probably more. Japanese products were the joke of the world, and the subject of considerable ridicule. However, an American named William Deming had arrived in Japan in 1950. He was a PHD in statistics, but was also an expert in manufacturing quality systems. He completely transformed Japanese manufacturing. Each year in Japan their is an award given, named after him, to the top individual exemplifying his teachings. It is highly sought, and Deming is a national hero in Japan. China does not have a Deming, but they have imported an army of manufacturing gurus from around the world.
Part of the problem they are having right now is internal cut-throat competition. That has led some to cut costs by some dubious means. What they are learning, you cannot do that and survive in today's global market. You will get caught and you will be punished.
free trade is the god that failed
MacDaKnife @ 40:
That is a fairly US-centric view, IMHO. Else where people are taught differently...
If you go to any major industrial country, American production methods and theories are viewed as passe. Sure there was a hey day of American production, but for decades this country has been irrelevant in areas of heavy production. Sure we have a lead in other areas, like certain aspects of micro electronics... however, if you stroll around any major US University campus and head for the engineering department, you will see that hegemony is very likely to be in danger. We are however the #1 weapons manufacturer, so at least we can take solace in that.
I still get a chuckle when some American complains about Made in China as being equal with crap (which in most situations it is likely to be true), and regard the good ol days of "made in USA." When ironically, you can go to other countries and they are very likely to equate "made in USA" with crap. Even the few shining stars, like Boeing, are now relegated to be simple assemblers of foreign made parts. Most of the big sub assemblies of the newest Boeing planes are made in Japan, with final assembly happening in Seattle and not much else. A lot of the big 3 automakers have to introduce engine and production technologies developed in their Asian/European branches... Heck if it weren't for the European branch of Ford for example, the oval brand would have collapsed long ago under a sea of debt, as the European filial was the only part of the company turning a profit.
I have colleagues who work as production managers/engineers for large European auto and parts manufacturers who basically claim that their companies were literally forced to open factories in the States. The reason for opening the factories was to make sure they could weather the random tariff patterns/threads from the US government (yest the US of A has a history of fairly protective policies), even though the have a very hard time getting quality products/competitive production runs out of their US based factories. And it is a constant source of headaches, but they are lesser than having to face a full blown tariff war.
Japan had a fairly competent industrial base for a large portion of the XX century. What Japan had to deal with during the 50s was the challenges associated with the rebuilding of its industrial infrastructure which had been decimated during this little thing called WWII. Japanese competed on areas which the Americans would consider worthless: small cars, pfffttttzzzz that's for girls! And their lack of penetration initially had little to do with quality and more to do with racist attitudes. Also most of the industrial base in Japan was home grown, where as in China is mostly imported from else where. Also when Japan "copied" they manage to add value to the copy, i.e. the tradition of miniaturization. Where as China out right copies with the only added benefit being the cheaper price, but at a much lower quality point... so the possible benefit cancels out.
The US needs to return to the basics. But that will not happen until people start to learn to make money the old fashion way: by earning it. The whole culture of the American business class is so laughable as to be scary. For more proof witness the trail of shit left by our very own first MBA president: George W. Bush.
Thus it is very disigenuous to draw parallel between Japanese and Chinese industrial approaches.
MacDaKnife @ 40:
That is part of the reason why American manufacturing went the way of the dodo: they were producing utter shit in some areas.
Sorry, but while some Americans now scream bloody murder when equating "made in China" with crap (and in many cases they are utterly correct), a lot of overseas attitudes towards "made in USA" are similar. Some people simply won't touch a large mechanical product made in the US of A with a 20 ft. pole.
General_Rennenkampf @ 32:
just fine and is yours still working
The Dude @ 38:
I can watch Amy Goodwin five nights a week.
NPR is on 24 hours a day as is Air America.
BTW I seem to recall Woodward and Bernstein working for a Corporation.
That didn't seem to stop them from bringing down the President.
The Dude @ 42:
That is a fairly US-centric view, IMHO. Else where people are taught differently...
Your guess as to my credentials falls short. I am an industrial engineer, former production manager and process analyst. I was attempting to comment on a post associating totalitarian rule and quality standards. I was not opening a debate to every exception one might possibly derive by my post. It was generic enough and has the 30K foot view. I have made my points. You seem to moving far off-topic. Not headed that way.
MacDaKnife @ 47:
Your guess as to my credentials falls short. I am an industrial engineer, former production manager and process analyst. I was attempting to comment on a post associating totalitarian rule and quality standards. I was not opening a debate to every exception one might possibly derive by my post. It was generic enough and has the 30K foot view. I have made my points. You seem to moving far off-topic. Not headed that way.
My intent wasn't to say China's being a totalitarian state affects quality standards (though it does to an extent).
My intent was to point out that we shouldn't be buying things from them at all.
I guess it wasn't well written.
Of course they're not going to buy that crap.
What do you think they are? Stupid?
*
Who can blame them?
Hey...maybe the invisible hand/'market forces' will cause Wal-Mart and all the other multi-national corporations that buy everything from China will stop buying lead poisoning products to 'protect the consumer'....because everyone knows that deregulation is great for everyone....
Anyone prescribing to this idiotic doctrine or believes in the 'fair tax'/'free market'/'world is flat' BS tooth fairy tale.....you are stupid on stupid and there is absolutely nothing redeeming about your self deluded fantasyland 'logic'....you are truly voting against your own best interest.... Here's to hoping it doesn't take your children being poisoned before you WTFU...
the invisible hand has to choke a few hundred children to death to make change. that's the way Smith and Friedman say it should be. Who are we to argue
Let's not forget...China is the model for the future United States. It's not an accident that Americans are being tasered more and more for saying the wrong thing. They want to build a China-style regime here. Free market and fascism.
Damn that was funny!!!!
VietVet8666 @ 9:
Damn that was funny!!!
From what I have learned, the reason there is lead in our painted toys are made and assembled in China - then farmed out to urban poor people in that land and they slap any old kind of paint. Hence - lead, lead, lead. The poor people are just trying to get by - make a living. There is no quality control so they rush the product through in order to get it back to this country and on the shelves to sell.
The so-called big wheels of the companies that are doing this don't really care about our kids.
Mom and Dad said "We are all responsible for the children of the world."
So what do they call Santa Claus
Santa Fe?
Toys? How about food, dishes, cooking items, utensils...
I threw out the cheap Chinese bowls and cookware
10 years ago. I don't have to wonder what the drinking water is like
over there. To even raise the question is a joke. It's like laissez faire PMS
libertarianism over here.
I won't buy anything made in China. It's partly the quality/safety issue, but more, I can't support an "American" company that would abandon it's responsibilities to its alleged home. They are social parasites.
Who needs government regulations. Bidness il' take care of it. - GWB
Then a loud cheer went up from 26% of the people; and God sighed.
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