In a newly released book by Chinese-American Author, Pe Yuan Yu-Smith, titled “You Buy More Yankee, OK?” Americans are finally being made privy to some of the lesser known facts about the tenuous economic relationship between China and the United States.
Although his title is considered a lighthearted attempt to poke fun at some of the things the Chinese have been known to think and say about American consumers, in fact, the book discusses a darker side of how China, over the past several decades, has become the leader in supplying America with some of the most dangerous and useless products in our lifetime. And how they plan to continue doing so until 100% of every item in the American home bears the mark “Made in China.”
Getting much of his information in the back storerooms of some of China’s biggest export corporations, Yu-Smith gives us a never-before-allowed look into how Chinese manufacturers and exporters plan to eventually bring America to its Imperialistic knees through what they call, “market-cide.” Wei Hung Lo, a young Chinese man set to take the reins of the family export business, and who has a good command of the American hip-hop language, put it like this, “Yo, Americans are our Dollar Store Bitches, Y’all.” One would almost have to agree with him judging from the great holiday season dollar stores around the country had while other leading department stores suffered.
Long’s father Wei Tu Lo, has a less crude, but nonetheless equally sardonic view toward his American customers. In traditional Chinese, he explains to Yu-Smith,
我們採取愚笨的美國人的美元，因為太愚笨的美國人以至于不能知道質量。 我們有中國內閣在我們的數以萬計的家庭几年，並且不買新。 美国人買新的內閣，如果出发抓痕或腿秋天，因此我們做便宜的內閣打破容易。 美國購買更多內閣和我們得到更多金錢,
which loosely translates to: “We take stupid American’s dollar because American too stupid to know quality. We have Chinese cabinets in our family for thousands of years and do not buy new. Americans buy new cabinet if get scratch or leg fall off, so we make cheap cabinet to break easy. American buy more cabinet and we get more money.”
A chapter in Yu-Smith’s book gives us some insight into the young entrepreneurial spirit of Hung Lo, who just recently opened up a chain of low-priced, low quality hip-hop clothing stores up and down the East Coast called “Gangsta Sh’up” offering throw-away clothing for a cheap price. Said Hung Lo, “we bring the sweat shop to every Gangsta Sh’up with our exclusive polyester sweat suits in every design, from Chinese wealth and greed symbols, to big-ass $$ signs in gold.”
Agreeing with his father, he states, “Everything we do relates back to money. We have found Americans to be very wasteful when it comes to buying goods and we are just one of many hundreds of companies in China taking advantage of their greed and ignorance.”
Yu-Smith takes an especially close look at the controversy surrounding countless cases of children’s play things from China found to be made with toxic substances, but still stocking the shelves of various discount dollar stores throughout America. Yu-Smith was unable to get any Chinese manufacturers to open up and tell whether or not they know the products are potentially harmful. However, he was able to ascertain that a consortium of Chinese manufacturers and importers calling itself the Shanghai Legal Alliance of Manufacturers or SLAM, has been formed to pool substantial amounts of money in an effort to offset the eventual tide of international lawsuits that these Chinese companies believe are inevitable.
In summation, Yu-Smith states, “China realized a long time ago that their strengths lie not in superior technological knowledge, but in the ability to produce mounds of cheap plastic crap that Americans seem to crave, as well as copy-cat products with such a high degree of authenticity that most gullible Americans are willing to spend money on knock-offs in the off chance that they can actually fool their friends into thinking that they are sporting a real Rolex or clutching the latest Micheal Kors creation.”
I agree with both these commentaries. Well spoken. The only problem with buying American is that for years they have insisted on building gas guzzlers, refused to pursue non-gas using cars, stifled the electric car development and pushed looks over substance on their cars.
In a humorous manner, this speaks the truth: all of our manufacturing jobs have gone to China, but without our prowess. It has gotten so bad, that it is hard to even find a book that is printed in America anymore. Who would have thought that it’d be cheaper to print a book over there and ship it here?!!? So how many of us actively try to buy American? I’m trying. The biggest item you can help with is vehicles. While China is not a big player in this field – YET – just wait six years. It will be. But tomorrow why don’t you check the cars riding alongside you on the highways or parked in the parking lots. Count how many in a row you see that are made elsewhere. Sometimes 15 or 20 in a row! How many American car dealerships have closed down in your area and been replaced by a Kia or Hyundae or gigantic Toyota palace? If we only bought American vehicles, we could do plenty to revive this economy. The ripple effect would be enormous. No one can tell me that they can’t find a good or great quality American vehicle, but people are so selfish and callous that they don’t see what they are doing to our country. Sure a Hyundae is cheaper. But what kind of standard of living do it’s workers have? We are losing too many good middle class jobs with decent benefits in this land, thanks to all of you foreign car owners. Be a patriot and buy American. It makes a difference. I’m happy to pay more when I consider that it is helping people maintain good jobs like I would want for myself if I didn’t already have one.
Help your country out and only buy American vehicles. That’s easy to do. And try with other products too. They are out there.
Its amazing how this story is so true. Many Chinese products are pieces of crap, and they know it. But will this stop American’s from buying this crap? No. People in America love to buy things for whatever reason and waste money. Its time that we put away some money instead of always complaining about what we don’t have, or what someone else has. This is the reason why we are in a recession now, because people were living outside of thier means, buying things that have absolutely no value, and the things that do have value, (such as their house) was not paid for because they ran out and purchased that 52 inch TV, or blew a whole bunch of money at the store for Christmas or something like that. We have no one else to blame but ourselves (and the Bush Administration) for the situation that we are in now. It makes me even more angry that people in the blogosphere are blaming Pres. Obama for the state of things. He is only 1 man, and cannot save the world,or make you get off your ass and either get an education or a decent job. None can make you do that but you. So lets stop the bickering and fighting and stop leaning on the friggin Chinese.