Saturday, March 24, 2012

Apple. Cramped living conditions in Shanghai. Links.

  • I have just heard about the retraction This American Life had to do about a recent show they did about Apple in China.  I remembered listening to the episode, which they now say they shouldn't have broadcast, and recalling that some things that Marc Daisey said weren't quite accurate and that they were the observations of somewhat who had paid a quick visit to China.  This American Life, on that episode, then did have someone look into allegations made by Daisey and put them into proper perspective. 
  • Now, I have just listened to the retraction episode of This American Life this morning and the controversy seems like a storm in teapot.  There was nothing in the episode to make me think "Ha ha ha!  Leftist NPR types making up stories!"  The basic message of the original episode and the retraction episode about Apple both say that Chinese workers making Apple products in China work in ways that people in the West would find unacceptable.  
  • Some Chinese workers will put in long hours to make money.  I have seen many Chinese happily put up with living or working conditions that would make me squeamish. 
  • Speaking of conditions.  Jenny stayed with a cousin from her hometown while in Shanghai on Monday to pick up Tony's passport.  She told me that three people were living in an apartment that was the size of our bedroom in Casa K.  They shared a kitchen with four other families.  This kitchen was the size of the Casa K kitchen but it had four stoves in it for the four families to use.
  • So many workers in China doing menial tasks and I so often take them for granted.  I looked at worker at a restaurant I was in last night with my wife and her boss.  How was it that this women in her forties or fifties, with withered arms, came to be working in this Korean place.  She was performing tasks I stop doing in my twenties.
  • Bus Stops of Wuxi China #18, #19 & #20.
  • Wuxi, China traffic photos.
  • Photos of Tony taken on the evening of March 24.
  • More photos of Tony taken on the evening of March 24.

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