Well, that explains the holes...

One of my friends sent me a link to a story about Forever 21. It touched on a couple things: 1) Forever 21 steals designs from other designers and 2) they barely pay their workers minimum wage. In one example picture, the dress on the left is Foley + Corinna and probably retails well over $200 while the one on the right from Forever 21 is probably $20. According to the original and much longer article in Bloomberg Businessweek, the author visited the store at the Fifth Avenue location, and noticed something.

"I notice a pair of faux-leather lace-up ankle boots that look a lot like the Jeffrey Campbell ones I'm wearing: The style is the same, so are the combination of hooks and holes for the laces and the distinctively shaped heel. Forever 21 sells the boots for $35.80, less than one-quarter the price I paid. I mention them, and Linda says brightly: 'You should buy another pair here.' "


The working conditions are another thing all together. The author writes, "... on the top floor, with no company name on the door, about 30 people are sewing gray cotton vests for Forever 21 in a small, hot room. Many of them have stuffed scraps of fabric into their noses to block the particles of material floating in the air. They're just finishing up a one-week, 10,000-piece order for which the seamstresses earn about 12 cents apiece, according to Guadalupe Hernandez, a longtime garment worker in Los Angeles. If they sew 66 vests an hour, they'll earn minimum wage." This is in America. A-mer-i-ca. 


So what can I do about it? I do love shopping at Forever 21 when I need a cheap going-out top. But almost everything I've purchased there has fallen apart fairly quickly. Maybe if it was made in 2 minutes instead of 1, it would last longer? The sweater I'm currently wearing is from Forever 21 (coincidence, huh?) and just taking a quick look at it, I can tell the sewing was, um, hurried. Sometimes, you just have to pay more.


Or go to consignment shops! Luckily in Berkeley, we have lots of choices like Buffalo Exchange, Crossroads Trading, and Sola Lucy. These stores are pretty nice, and I know that many of these stores are very picky about what they sell. I tried to sell some of my clothes at Buffalo Exchange, and I was told they were "looking for more trendy clothing" and that my clothes were "too conservative." Not the C-word! 


So as Heidi Klum would say, "Thrift stores, you're in. Forever 21, you're out. Auf wiedersehen."

More Beef with China

On Thursday, my adviser told me my research needs to start working or I need to "shift gears." Why? Partly because, well, my results don't look so hot and because a research group at the China Agricultural University in Beijing published a paper using a regulatory protein (that I was working with) to improve ethanol production in E. coli. This protein comes from Deinococcus radiodurans, one of the most ridiculous organisms on Earth. It's so tough that it's in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most radiation resistant life form.

The paper itself is crap. The authors misspell words, they leave out a whole section in their methods and materials. I don't know if I can trust anything they wrote, but it's enough for my adviser to say, "Let's take a few steps back." I have a couple ideas, but if I knew what would work, I'd obviously be doing that!

And if all else fails, my dad always says I can come back home and drive a gravel truck.

Mega City Plans in China

A friend of mine who saw "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" with me, sent me a link about the new plans to combine several large cities, including Shenzhen, into one mega city. Why in the world would you put these cities together with a total population of 42 million? According to the head planner, "It will help spread industry and jobs more evenly across the region and public services will also be distributed more fairly." Or maybe it's a way to turn the whole area into one giant industrial zone where the companies make the rules. We'll just have to see what happens.

Macarons!

Tonight, my boyfriend made macarons - macarons! - while I worked on a paper. While the making of macaroons and writing a paper are very different things and take many different amounts of time, they both take a lot of patience and practice. The title of the recipe he used was "Almost Foolproof Macarons." Turns out it should have been called, "Almost Foolproof Macarons if You Try to Make Them Three Times." The macarons first came out very, very flat, cracked, and rather sticky. He was not happy. He tried again, and one out of the ten turned out properly. After a third try, most of the cookies came out right with only a few cracked.

As I watched him try again and again while I wrote, I thought back to my experiences gathering the data for the paper. With the amount of literature available on the protocols for my experiments, they should have been much easier than they turned out to be. I had to repeat everything at least three times, and I started this project a year and a half ago. That means I've spent 5% of my life on experiments that will culminate in a single paper. 

Oh science, if only you were as satisfying as a macaron...

Tomorrow Is Another Day

During a break from writing a paper and eating peanut butter M&Ms, I went to the eye center to pick up the glasses I ordered last Tuesday. The glasses were finished a week early, and I purchased my last pair when I was a freshman in college - eight years ago - so I was excited to pick them up! After trying them on and adjusting the nose pads, I walked out with a smile on my face. I could be free of my contacts whenever I wanted! The glasses could be a fashion statement!

As I walked back to the lab, I suddenly thought, "Oh crap. Where did these wonderful glasses come from? Did little fingers bend the metal to form the cute frames?" This evening I searched and searched to find the origin of my Bongo frames, and sure enough, they were made in China. I couldn't find the name of the manufacturer, so I can't say if labor rights were forsaken to make my glasses. But it's another example of my increasing awareness about the products I buy.

Maybe next time I'll buy my frames from here. They sure have some stylish frames... if you're a hipster.

Time for a Change

On Friday night, a few of my friends and I went to see Mike Daisey's monologue, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. To say that it was amusing is an understatement. It was an emotional roller coaster. Daisey is a rather large man who has to wipe his brow and upper lip throughout the two-hour, no-intermission performance. And he loves Apple.  Loves it. "Oh, the new iPad just came out? What does it do? Who cares! Purchase now!"  As part of his obsession, he constantly checks tech-geek blogs on everything Apple. On one blog, an iPhone user posted pictures from his phone that were not erased before it left the factory after testing. Daisey was fascinated with the photos because they opened a window to where iPhones, iPods, iWhatevers are born. In one of these photos, a woman, wearing a clean suit and looking off into the distance, intrigued him. Who were the people who actually made the iWhatevers?

Daisey decided to go to the "town" of 14 million people called Shenzhen in southern China where he visited Foxconn, the biggest electronics maker you've never heard of. The air pollution was so thick that Daisey described it as a booted foot pressing on your chest. Within the walls of "Foxconn City" work and live up to 450,000 people, some as young as 12. The conditions at Foxconn are so terrible that the company had to put nets around the tall buildings to keep workers from committing suicide. The stories Daisey heard from the workers and underground labor unions called him to action, to tell their stories to others and hope that they do not fall on deaf ears.

I was quite moved by Daisey's monologue, but it's easy to tug my heart strings. I didn't even want to turn on my cellphone after the show. I felt powerless. I can't work without using my MacBook Pro that's been made in China. I can't stay in touch with friends and family without my phone made in China or watch my favorite shows without my TV made in China. What the heck am I supposed to do!

Well, I know that I personally cannot change China's unfair labor practices. But I can use my credit card to only purchase things from companies who pay fair wages and decide not to pollute the environment even though the Chinese government has given them a green flag to do so.

And I can tell you about it. I have decided to create this blog not only to share my experiences as a graduate student at Berkeley but to share my aspiration for a more thoughtful life as a consumer. I'm not advocating the purchase of only American products - I would miss out on great French wine! But maybe  when I go to Target, I'll take a closer look at the tag on the sweatshirt in my basket...

And maybe you will too.