Made In China

There was a really interesting programme the other night by Gok Wan called Made In China.
Basically he went to China to look at the manufacturing processes and their obsession with copying things. It was a strange and interesting episode. With regards to the factories, he visited a jeans manufacturer which was like a small town. The surprise was how much of the process is still hand made. The skills that they have are fascinating which is hard to swallow when you find out how much they get paid and where they have to live. The majority live on site in very small rooms and have all their meals provided on site as well. One of the slogans in the dining hall was basically, you take care of your work and we will take care of your stomach!

We all have an awareness of where our clothes are coming from but it isn't until you see it like this that it makes you think a lot more. What makes it worse is that they make jeans for so many different companies like Gap, Pepe and Joe Bloggs but they are all the same jeans. they are all made the same and they sell them all for the same price. It has always fascinated me how you can pay such a varying price structure for something that is the same, whether you are paying £10 or £200 for a pair of jeans, they are all the same.

It was a similar story at a bra factory that he visited. they make them for Marks and Spencer, Asda and Victoria's Secret. Again, they are made by hand but they put the same care and attention into every product. The factory manager explained that they have the same high standards regardless of who they are for. So this goes to prove that buying a bra at Asda for a few pounds is no different to one at Victoria's Secret for a few hundred. Definitely makes you think how much power branding has.

There is also a tradition of making offerings at family shrines. His father had requested him to buy some paper objects to burn at the family shrine in his father's old village. The shop he goes to is just mind boggling. Everything is made from paper with shoes, clothes, money and even jewellery. But you can even buy paper replicas of iPads, karaoke machines and even air conditioning units! I found this really fascinating how much detail they put into these products only for them to be burnt. What a waste.

Another aspect of his visit was that very few people would stop and talk to him with the camera crew in tow. It seems there is still a distrust with being filmed and to be honest, you can't blame them considering their turbulent past. Even today there is still a feeling of mistrust as he tried to interview some workers from some of the factories. He arranged to have dinner with three women who had saved some money from their meagre wages to buy their mother a house. When he arrived there were managers from the factory and even an official photographer present. It all seemed friendly enough but you still got the feeling that being truly free in China is still a distant dream.

You can see how they will become the richest nation on Earth in a few decades as the rate of growth is staggering. What is also astonishing is their blatant disregard to copyright as they will copy anything, even whole towns in some cases. He even visits a company making black taxi cabs for export. There were lots of propaganda type posters and sayings throughout the factory with slogans like, 'intentions will continue to exceed' and 'it is good to find problems, important to solve problems, stupid to hide problems and a bad thing without problems'.

Without giving anymore away because it is definitely worth watching, he was talking to a supervisor in the taxi factory and made a good point. What happens when another country can make products even cheaper, what will happen to China then? Will they the feel the pinch and slip into a recession. The rate that they are expanding cannot be sustained, there has to be a point where they will over dilute the market.

So check out 4OD and watch Gok Wan, Made In China.