[narcissism, vanity, exhibitionism, ambition, vanity, vanity, vanity]

19.12.07

Santa's Elves are Migrant Workers

...and the North Pole is really the Pearl River Delta.

In 2002, Li Chunmei died after working sixteen-hour shifts on the Bainan Toy Factory's assembly line to meet the demand for Christmas toys. Hers is not an isolated case; deaths like hers have become so common that even Chinese journalists have dared to coin a word for them: guolaosi, or death from overwork.

Eric Clark, in The Real Toy Story devotes a chapter to Chinese toy factory labor ("Santa's Sweatshops").

See also The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. Important. Thanks, GG!

Labels: china, green, mothering

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Hi! I'm Diane Greco, and you are looking at my seven year-old exercise in narcissism, vanity, exhibitionism, ambition, vanity, vanity, and, of course, vanity.

More specifically, here is where I stash links, funny ideas, stories about my kid, notes on what I'm reading, practical reflections, reports from other places, e.g., Russia, Japan, China, Paris, and Iceland, and other miscellaneous junk.

I am a writer. That's me, right there, writing in a restaurant.

I've just finished a novel, EASY JOURNEYS TO OTHER PLANETS, about a group of friends hailing from the deceptive, complicated fastnesses of middle America, who struggle to come of age during 1967's Summer of Love. I've also got a collection of short stories concerning generally unreliable DICTATION (is there any other kind?), and a nonfiction book about the fortunes of an Egyptian antiquity smuggled into 19th-century Paris.

Caveat lector: this blog's free, including free of advertising. Comments are open; we'll see how this goes. Email at ping DOT diane AT gmail DOT com.