"N Cook" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote in message
...

"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:Xt44j.857$UG1.496@trnddc01...

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
We see a lot of stuff on here from time to time, about crappy Chinese
goods. Well, a couple of days ago, my usual office supplier sent me
one
of their regular e-mail fliers, on which was a high-back padded
leather
swivel chair with gas lift, castors, arms, rocker action and so on.
Thirty quid (about$60) delivered. I ordered it on the 'net Tuesday
night,
the man delivered it Thursday lunchtime. How good is that ? But the
really good thing about this chair, and the point of the post, is the
quality of it. Really good stout shipping box with none of the
printing
that you would 'traditionally' associate with Chinese goods. The chair
is
superbly made. Not a stitch out of place. No missing parts - in fact
there are even some "extra parts" set into the blister pack of screws
and
cover caps. Every hole lined up where it should, and every hex-head
screw, which were pre-treated with a thread locking compound, drove
straight in without any effort, using the good quality hex wrench that
was provided. Even the assembly instructions and safety warnings were
in
full proper English (as well as other languages), and the diagrams
were
properly drawn, rather than the 'rice break' sketches we have become
used
to.

If the Chinese are going to churn out stuff like this now that they
are
a
'recognised' industrial power trading properly with the west, what
chance
is western manufacturing going to stand in the years to come ? I
assume
that electronic goods are going the same way, as I have now seen
several
'Made in China' valve (tube) amplifiers that were similarly well
built,
and have achieved some degree of acclaim over on one of the audio
groups,
and at something like a quarter of the price of similar items of
western
manufacture.

Arfa

They may well be the next Japan, of course the question is how long can
they sustain it? From what I hear, there's a big problem with pollution
in
China, as well as working conditions and wages are terrible.


The 'working conditions and wages' one is interesting (sorry all, that
this
has got so far OT - I wasn't expecting it to generate quite so much
interest, but most of it does have at least a tangential impact on
servicing
!)

I saw a banner headline in one of the newspapers that I read a couple of
weeks ago, on just this issue. You may be aware that we have a new leader
of
the existing government here in the UK. He is nothing like as
'charismatic'
as Blair was, and the political sharks are seeing this as an opportunity
to
give them a good kicking, and seek to discredit them in any way that they
can. It turns out that some senior minister - I think it was even the
trade
minister (!) but I could be wrong - has some relation that owns tea or
coffee or some such plantations, and the headline screamed that they were
only being paid what to us, was some ridiculously small amount of a pound
a
day - might have been more or less but you get the picture. I think there
was also something about conditions that they were sleeping 10 to a room
or
something. Anyway, when you got past the headlines, and looked into it a
bit, turned out that the average wage in that particular country was only
like half what they were paying, and the 10 to a room thing was in a
dormitory that was provided by the company for the workers to 'sleep
over'
at the end of a shift, if they lived too far away to travel, which many
did,
as these were the only major employer for miles around.

So, whilst it's easy for us all to jump on the 'pay and conditions' issue
as
a moral excuse for not supporting third world manufacturing, it might not
always be quite as black and white as it appears. It's also part of the
'west is best' culture, that seeks to convert the rest of the world to
what
we think is 'right' but that's another whole story !

That's not to say that there are not western companies who *are*
exploiting
such people, but probably not quite to the degree that some would have us
believe ...

Arfa



Quoting that someone earns 10 dollars a day, or whatever, is meaningless.
The method of comparison is how many pints of milk, or some other basic
necessity ,could he buy for one hours work.

--
Diverse Devices, Southampton, England
electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://home.graffiti.net/diverse:graffiti.net/

Yes ! Exactly the point.

Arfa