Chinese Recalls: How Can You Even Avoid Their Products?

I saw that there were even more recalls of Chinese products. This time it's Barbie toys or something like that. It's getting to the point where you really can't trust anything. Some people on a homeschool forum I go to was asking whether or not you let your babies suck on their toys. Well, it's kind of a natural thing for babies to want to put toys in their mouth... kinda hard to do.

Anyway, I went high chair shopping yesterday. We've been feeding our baby in his swing, and now that he's eating more table food, we thought it was about time. They had some really nice high chairs, most of them are adjustable and have these really cool trays that you can put the food on and take off to wash. We got the Rainforest one with this monkey toy that they can play with while they're sitting there waiting for you to finish getting their dinner ready.

While we were at Babies R Us looking at high chairs, we looked at all the boxes to find out where these high chairs were made. Made in China. Made in China. Made in China. Every single high chair at Babies R Us was made in China. Even the wooden ones. What have we as a society gotten into?

There is a much greater problem with finding all these products made in China than the fact that there are so many getting recalled. What if our relationship with China sours? What will we do then?

We depend on China so much, for almost everything. Obviously high chairs. Toys. A lot of our clothes. Even things like tires, baby food, and pet food have been recalled lately, so I guess that some of those things are made in China as well. What would we as a country do if one day we woke up and all trade with China was cut off? Not a pretty picture.

Why can't we make more things in America? There are so many people fed up with the toy recalls lately, I think that there is a growing segment of the population that would be willing to pay a little more to buy something made in America. Not only could we oversee the standards that the products were made with, but we could also help out local workers. These workers in turn go out and buy more products, keeping our economy humming.

I'm really tired of companies outsourcing jobs to India and other places. I once tried to validate a Microsoft product and I got India. Most of the people were nice enough, but this guy was breathing heavily into the phone and it was driving me bonkers. Maybe I just ended up with a rare gem, but maybe that's a cultural thing and is okay there? I know that the Indians have to work too, but I'm not so sure that working 3rd shift over there to answer calls during US business hours is great for their family structure over there.

I'd much rather talk to an American. By the way, if you are looking for someone to host your web site and would like to have an American answer the phone, please consider giving your business to Godaddy.com. I know they hire American, because my husband just got a job there and starts on Monday. They have tons of American people working in their call centers, web designers, etc. They seem like a good group of people who treat their people well, so at least look into them if you need web hosting.

Enough of that commercial. I really do find it disappointing that we can't find some company that will make toys that children want to play with (my daughter does not want to play with a corn cob doll, thank you) in America. Not only does it make us feel better to support Americans, it also makes us feel safer when it comes to things like lead paint, the company could still get products to us no matter what happened with our relationships with other countries.

Not to mention, the likelihood of buying a product made in America made by a prisoner who was sent there because of his religious beliefs is slim to none. Can't guarantee that with China. But that's another post.

More Chinese Recalls

This time it's toys. There are many that have been manufactured with lead paint.

If you want to check to see if your child's toys are affected, you can check with this link.

I've written on China and all the recalls that have been coming out of there lately, so I don't think I need to rehash everything I already wrote. Follow the recalls tags to read my other commentary.

In a way, we are reaping what we are sowing in terms of who manufactures our products. Not that us regular people really have a choice where products are made, but we as a society kept buying toys even though they stopped making them in the US. We keep buying these toys and products even though we hear that the people making them are hardly paid anything, and some of the products are even made by prisoners.

Do we really expect top quality from people that are being paid $.50 a day? I guess it's something to think about.

Cardboard Bun Story A Hoax

Because I wrote about this story earlier this week, I feel that it is the responsible thing to print a retraction to the Chinese cardboard bun story. It has been shown to be a hoax.

I still don't trust a lot of the food coming out of that country, but at least there is nothing as egregious as people serving rolls made from 60% cardboard.

If you wish to read more about the hoax, an article is available here.

China Sends The Christians Away

More than 100 foreign Christian missionaries have been recently expelled from China. Many of these missionaries were from the United States, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, and Israel.

I'm really not trying to turn this into "The China Blog" but there are just too many stories coming out of there right now. Most Christians and Bible teachers that I know believe that China is going to have its place in the world stage during the tribulation - the prophetic era of time described in the book of Revelation. So with all this activity going on in China... it does make things interesting.

The Bible speaks of a 200 million man army coming out of the East. Most likely it would involve China. So some stories are just more interesting when it comes out of China, because it has significance in more than one way.

At any rate, the Chinese have kicked out some of their missionaries. It hasn't been too safe being a Christian in China at any time in recent years... at least in my lifetime. I have met some missionaries in China, I wonder if they are still there. Hmmm, I'll have to see if I can find out.

A book that I recommend to everyone about Christians in China is The Heavenly Man by brother Yun. Brother Yun does not live in China any more, he works with the Chinese and their Back To Jerusalem movement, which strives to reach the world with the Gospel message in places that most western nations are afraid to go... like most Arabian countries where Islam is standard and converting a Moslem to Christianity can get you the death sentence. I believe what he wrote in his book, and if you don't think that New Testament style miracles can happen today, you have to read this book. It's amazing. One of the conclusions that I came to while reading this book is that we in the western world don't often see New Testament style miracles because we don't need them. God already provides most of us with food, a roof over our heads, and relative safety. For those in China that don't have much of that, he provides through more miracles. Go read it.

The Chinese Christians need all the prayer that they can get. The Church there is still growing, despite (or perhaps because of) all the persecution.

read more | digg story

Chinese Chopped Cardboard: Yum?

*** THIS STORY WAS FOUND TO BE A HOAX. ***

Not trying to harp on China or anything, but eeew. Fox News has a report about a man who served steamed buns in a neighborhood in China. The main ingredient: chopped cardboard softened in an industrial chemical. It was then mixed with fatty meat and then cooked.

Even worse, where does he get this cardboard? Off the ground. Double eeew.

The police shut down this operation, but it really makes you wonder about the safety of food imports from China. As if bad toothpaste, poisoned pet food, and moldy diapers weren't already causing a concern.

And... I think I might cancel any trips to China. Or at least be careful when eating anything there.

China Returns US Meat

In a previous post, I mentioned that China has been importing shoddy and/or dangerous products into our country. Some pets have died from poisons in Chinese pet food, poison has been found in Chinese toothpaste, even diapers imported from China have been found with mold in them. Clearly, the quality of Chinese imports seems to have gone downhill.

Now, there's a second part to the story. China is now refusing some of the US's meat imports. While you might say... uh... who cares?... this could lead to more serious consequences.

I've been saying for years that China is clearly not our friend. I made several trips to Panama in 1999. If you recall, at the end of that year, the US gave back the canal to Chin... er... Panama. Even though the canal is technically Panama's... China has control of a lot of the property down there.

Nobody can know for sure whether this import fight will lead to anything more, hopefully it will not. However, China is big, they want to be a player on the world's stage, and they have a lot of people. The Bible also says that the Kings of the East will be supplying a large supply of people for the big Middle East fight in the tribulation. The China story is definitely one to watch.

read more | digg story

Boycott China?

I was surprised to read the other day that some diapers made in China have been recalled due to excessive fungus in the diapers. Great... in case you're wondering, I checked. Pampers diapers are made in the US, Luvs diapers are made in Mexico, Huggies diapers are made in Mexico, and Especially For Baby diapers (sold at Toys R US) are made in the USA. I'm not sure what diapers are made in China, but I wouldn't want to put them on my baby... yuck.

Fungal diapers are just the latest substandard product made in China to be recalled. Baby formula, baby clothes, pet food, and toothpaste are just some of the dangerous Chinese products that have been sold to us.

Maybe we should just stop buying from China. That would cut down on our trade deficit. It would cut down on the amount of business that Walmart does... but then again, if we stopped buying products made in China, they'd have to get their products from other places.

I have nothing against the Chinese people. I have a lot of respect for the Chinese Christians and pray for the Chinese Christians' Back To Jerusalem movement. I like Americanized Chinese food. But I also know that they employ prison labor, have gross civil rights violations, and imprison many of their Christians (the ones that aren't part of the official, watered-down, government-sanctioned christian church). And lately, they've been pumping out shoddy products for us to use.

While I suppose I'm not going to go nuts and boycott Chinese products right now, I do think that I will be paying more attention to where things are made, and perhaps try to avoid some things made in China. Like food. Clothing... I can deal with for the right price. I have a sewing machine and I know how to use it. I think I might avoid Chinese diapers and toothpaste too. I couldn't find where Gerber baby food is made, it looks like Beech-nut products are made in New York... I'll try to look at where my baby's food is made more as well.