Busting the ‘Made in China’ myth
Admit it – whenever you hear the phrase ‘Made in China’ about an electronic product – you immediately conjure up an image of a cheap, plasticky, poorly made, extremely ugly and a very shabby product.
Admit it – whenever you hear the phrase ‘Made in China’ about an electronic product – you immediately conjure up an image of a cheap, plasticky, poorly made, extremely ugly and a very shabby product. Despite the fact that China is the world’s factory, despite the fact that every luxury brand gets almost their entire line made in China, despite the fact that the biggest tech manufacturers including Apple and Samsung exist and are profitable today due to their China outsourcing business model – the China tag is still synonymous with ‘won’t last a week’, the copycat kings and the emperors of crappy products.
Double Shock: When I was invited to visit China to take a look at how a mobile phone is made from scratch – I was doubly surprised. First, because Chinese assembly-line factories and sweatshops don’t ever allow journalists or TV crews inside. Second, exposing your entire line-up of manufacturing is like giving away all your trade secrets to competitors. Well, if they wanted to commit
business (suicide in Mandarin), who was I to argue? Off I went to Shenzhen; the onetime sleepy little fishing village that in a few years has been converted into China’s all-new mega industrial hub.
Off Topic for a minute: Every time I go to China, I discover one non-techie thing that blows my mind and makes my jaw drop. This time was no different as even before I got my first look at a giant factory of mobile-phone making, I saw a giant factory of art. I will admit, I am a recent art convert (for the most part I still don’t understand it, find most of the people involved in it to be very pretentious, but have been very drawn to the creativity and beauty of it all) and had already set up to go straight from the airport to Dafen Village on the outskirts of Shenzhen.
Inside this very laidback art centre are about 5,000 painters, 3,000 sculptors and about 2,000 other skilled artists that are hard at work. To take art, a very individualistic passion and skill – and convert it into an efficient, highly organised, perfectly tuned
factory is China at its core best. This one little village is currently exporting 60 per cent of made-to-order art to the world! 60 per cent!
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