The Forbidden City of Terry Gou

ElvaWSJ writes "Hon Hai churns out iPhones and Wiis, and provides a window into China's secretive world of outsourcing and manufacturing. With a work force of some 270,000 — about as big as the population of Newark, N.J. — the factory is a bustling testament to the ambition of Hon Hai's founder, Terry Gou. In an era when manufacturing has been defined by outsourcing, no one has done more to shift global electronics production to China. Little noticed by the wider world, Mr. Gou has turned his company into China's biggest exporter and the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics."

Comments

Worker conditions

[ktappe]

Note the interviewee who says that while the living conditions have improved since the BBC publicity last year (the "iPod slaves" story), he says the changes are "incomplete" and seemed afraid to go into more detail or give his full name. I really do wish that buying electronics wouldn't mean supporting companies whose workers have to live in slum conditions. But I really don't know what to do short of writing probably useless letters to Steve Jobs and Michael Dell.

Re:Worker conditions

[iamacat]

If we actually passed laws requiring US based companies to pay 5-7 dollars to workers anywhere in the world, their only option would be to leave the US altogether.

Fine, as long as:

a) The company agrees to follow all Chinese laws and we agree to promptly extradite any executives residing in US to stand trial for any violations. I hear death penalty is common for stuff like environmental accidents and allowing employees to access information about Tinamenn square events through corporate intranet gets you sent to a re-education camp for a few years. Are you actually suggesting that a company should be allowed to avoid laws of ALL countries by shifting people and corporate registrations around?

and

b) The company goods are charged a non-punitive duty to compensate for the loss of tax income compared to a US company paying wages to american workers.

No joke, do it! Learning Chinese is easy...

[The Underwriter]

I've been teaching myself Mandarin Chinese for 6 months now. Some reasons why you should pick it up:

- It's way easier than Westerners make it out to be...similar sentence structure to English, and the verbs stay the same between different tenses. No conjugations, declinations, etc. In many regards it's much easier than "Romance" languages.

- You will be able to communicate with a quarter of the world's population.

- Though there are 13 different dialects of spoken Chinese, they all share the same writing system. You get to read and write 12 additional languages for free. Japanese uses many Chinese characters, too.

- Because it's so hyped as the world's most difficult language, your Western colleagues and employers will think you're a freakin genius. Imagine having "Fluent in Chinese" on your resume?

- Future study in languages more closely related to English will become comparatively easy. You'd be surprised how much French, Spanish, and German you already unknowingly speak on a daily basis.

- It's utterly fascinating to learn, especially the characters.

- If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

If you want to get the hang of Mandarin Chinese quickly, Pimsleur is hands down the absolute best.

indentured servitude in china

[fliptout]

Really, these "amenities" are almost standard here in China. In many places that use unskilled labor, the workers live in a dormitory and have access to health care, ie shitty public hospitals or clinics.

They've got access to genuine 1960s era medical technology there, which I suppose is better than medical tech from the Qin dynasty that is available in the boondocks. That is, if people don't just watch you die.

Workers typical have access to low cost/free housing too, which consists of crappy temporary concrete buildings. I'm sure Chinese business owners have a paternal warm fuzzy when taking care of their workers, but don't let the the "spin" of how great the workers have it get to you. The conditions totally suck here.

The Chinese pride themselves on their ability to endure hardship, but the other side of the coin is that they are ignorant of what a better life is like AND they are fairly passive as a people. Change is going to be a long, frustrating progress here. Honestly, I don't think China would be progressing so fast if they weren't being given oodles of money on a silver platter.