Saturday, August 24, 2019

China and Christmas

* kddomingue says:
I think our President is spot on in regards to China. Too many people who are screaming about how the tariffs will affect Christmas are regrettably shortsighted. The unequal trade has got to stop. A little pain now for great gains in the long run.

   ** yadent says:
Ya, how can one really celebrate Christmas without commerce interactions...

      *** wendy forward says:
Gotta have that cheap shiny Chinese crap, it’s not Christmas without it.

         **** Sofa King says:
“Mommy, Mommy, what’s kwismas about???”

“Cheap Chinese crap, my dear…”




Suddenly I'm flooded with memory in pictures relating to the oddness of trade with Communist China.

Not like transporting back into the scenes, rather, being shown again the images and the feeling of emotion of then. Three at once. It's a flood.

The mind is a terrible thing to allow to ramble unrestrained.

The first scene is a very long time ago, before everything important in my life changed. Right after Nixon opened relations with China. Right after reading Kissinger's The White House Years and Years of Upheaval.

Neusteters in a mall way far south, like Orchard. A place I don't usually go. So it's odd to begin with just being in there. The whole time I'm thinking, "This is weird." I'm with my younger brother and the shop is loaded with trade goods from China. And I mean loaded.

The items are interesting. I admit to myself. Mostly handcrafted. Unusual things that Americans do not make. Household baskets and such things as made from wicker. And all cheap as dirt. (I had no idea how cheap dirt is. It's a simile ah-ight? )

And that young, I was thinking back then, what in the world are we doing trading with this communist country? They're all slaves. This is wrong. Whatever we exchange in trade will go to support a communist country. I don't like that. I don't care how cheap everything is. It's all made by communist hands. And that's bad. Very bad. Them trading with us will not change them. It changes us first by gobbling up their cheap-ass crap.

The second scene is much later. The internet was invented but still in its early phase. I was buying a few pieces of furniture for an apartment that was one house and two apartments after the first scene. The only things that I could find were all cheap as dirt. Yes, everything was coming from China. I didn't want that.

The alternative were the shops that I bought things from previously. And all those things were 10X more expensive. And at least 25X better made. The American furniture was solid as H-E-Double mortise and tenon joints. And the Chinese stuff was cheap as H-E-Double bamboo sticks.

I looked up the type of wood that was used on most everything that wasn't bamboo. Some tree that I hadn't heard of before. It started with an H, apparently some tree that grows in Asia like a weed. I bought a few pieces. I still have one side table and two folding screens. There were other things that I gave away since, two rather nicely carved wooden folding screens. The two that I kept are paper. All five things were rather cheap.

The alternative was still available at 4X the cost. I bought the cheap Chinese stuff and I still regret those purchases. I'm much better off with all the American-made things that I own. All the imported stuff has its problems. All the imported stuff, no matter what, no matter China or Europe, all with their weird little shortcuts,  is S-H-I-Double SHIT.

And I mean it.

The third image that intruded simultaneously by reading the remarks about Christmas is Dr. Fred introducing me to Rob L.

Dr. Fred and I drove out to Avenue Grill on 17th Street. This is a sweet little white tablecloth place. Fred and I were already seated and waiting for Rob to arrive. I had never seen him before this. He came in rather late.

We're sitting there drinking water and Rob arrives. He is a large tall man, totally bald about 10 years my junior. I think. Fred is about 15 years my senior. Rob says graciously, "I hope you haven't been waiting too long."

Fred answered, "Nah. No problem."

I answered, "Well ... I was getting kind of tired of waiting."

Just for a laugh. But I held the facial expression of being put off.

And held it as Fred rebuked me. They both knew I was joking.

Because you don't say that to someone you're just first meeting.

Fred freaked out at my rudeness and Rob laughed, he got the joke.

Rob understood me right off.

He liked me for being a rude little prick.

We hit it right off. He lived nearby so we did things without Dr. Fred.

By this third image, I had moved again. Rob is over at my new place assisting in preparing dinner. He liked doing these things because I taught him simple things like how to make gravy. He asked about some object at hand. I forget what it was. Something that had to do with the dinner. The exact object is not in the recalled scene being shown, most likely a platter. I turn over the object and pretend to read something stamped on the back. I'm making up this crap:
"Made in China
By slaves." 
I was being sardonic, not being funny but Rob cracked up laughing at my pretend reading. He thought I was hilarious.

Come on, goddamnit, this is serious!

All this cheap shit is serious.

Cheap crap from China is serious!

It means Americans are being put out of work. It means our middle class is literally being exported. To a communist country. It means we're accepting second quality goods. It means we're readily accepting goods that are literally disposable.

For example, I threw away a perfectly good microwave oven because the plastic door lock was broken. But a new microwave is so cheap that it's not worth the hazard of opening it up to repair it. So into the trash it goes. And all of their products are like that.

By our own choices we allow this. We are vampire victims that give our own necks to the creatures that draw out our blood. We literally trade our entire middle class for cheap products.

And that's the wrong thing to do.

I intuited this the moment I saw all those terribly interesting wicker-work products. That intuition was reaffirmed when I bought a few pieces of furniture over the internet. Rob knew all of this and more when I pretended to read the back of a plate. And finally a president grabs the bull by the horns and slams it into the ground.

And that pisses off everyone because we agreed to be vampire victims.

I know that hereafter everything will be more expensive. I expect most everything will be much better quality and American middle class restored to its singular global awesomeness.

Now if Trump could just do something about the airlines getting cheaper and cheaper and more worse by the hour.

Wow. I turned into Grandpa yearning for the world that was.

Get off my goddamn lawn.

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