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凱莉·麥克帕蘭：我這一年不買中國貨
有一天，我帶著一份10件家居小物件的清單出發，回家時卻隻帶回了一件。我知道這很難，但是……
凱莉·麥克帕蘭 2021年12月13日
凱莉·麥克帕蘭的2021年新年決心是明知故犯地不購買任何中國製造的東西。結果，這比他想象的還要難。圖片來源：沈齊萊/彭博社
我2021年的新年決心是明知故犯地不購買任何中國製造的東西。
這與中國人民無關——他們和大多數其他人一樣，隻想過上自己認為最好的平靜生活——而與中國政府息息相關。當時，北京政權扣押了康明凱和斯帕弗兩位邁克爾，以換取孟晚舟的回國。孟晚舟是一位與共產黨政府關係密切的富商。北京政權過去和現在都在運營再教育營，歧視少數族裔，使用強迫勞動，威脅入侵台灣，壓製香港的自由，試圖欺淩該地區的鄰國，建立一支希望能夠恫嚇任何外國勢力的軍隊，幹涉外國選舉，並持續進行密集而長期的活動，竊取技術和收集數據，以破壞民主製度以及在不那麽專製的政權中建立的行為規範。
任何人，哪怕隻是稍微努力核實一下從大型超市貨架上搶來的商品的來源，都會明白中國是主要的供應商。商品越便宜，就越有可能是在廣東、江蘇或浙江的工廠生產的。如果你從亞馬遜上買東西，很有可能是從中國港口運過來的。即使你特意偏愛加拿大或美國公司，他們也很有可能把製造業務外包給了中國某個工資更低或安全標準更低的地方。加拿大對華十大出口商品中，隻有一項涉及製造業；而中國對加拿大十大出口商品中有九項都帶有附加值。所以我認為這會很困難，事實也確實如此。在某些情況下，事實證明根本找不到其他選擇。要想避免向許多人認為是世界上最危險的政權提供經濟支持，需要毅力、頑固不化，以及願意支付超過最低價格的代價。這個政權禁止少數少數派以外的選舉，最近剛剛慶祝了其允許的唯一政黨成立100周年，而且其領導人正積極謀求終身總統的職位。
我以為會很難，結果確實如此。
我承諾之後第一次嚐試購買的商品隻是一團簡單的麻繩。你得問問自己，為了避免把每一美元的利潤分給中國，我願意花多少時間尋找麻繩呢？結果發現，我花的時間不多，所以我額外花錢買了一些其他地方生產的橡膠緊固件。在逛了家得寶、勞氏、家居五金、加拿大輪胎和羅納百貨後，找新的門鎖也費了不少勁，我終於找到了修理舊門鎖的方法。我買的一把用來切瓷磚的濕鋸忘了查產地，但發現做工很差，零件也不匹配，我才意識到自己的錯誤，把它退了，換了一把日本產的更好的——結果發現刀片是單獨製造的，為時已晚，你可以猜猜是在哪裏製造的。
我又一次被騙了，一盒新冠口罩給人的印象是裏麵裝的是美國製造的，從德克薩斯州運來的。盒子確實來自德克薩斯州，但口罩卻並非產自那裏。這種情況並非罕見；我清楚地感覺到，尤其是在線上銷售中，他們會刻意回避原產國信息。如果你足夠努力，有時還是能找到的，但這需要一些努力，而且並非總能成功。
有一件事比我預想的要複雜得多，那就是找到一個價格實惠、可以放下皮劃艇的車頂行李架。曾經有一段時間，你可以買到一個幾乎適用於所有車輛的簡易可調節行李架，但現在不行了。“通用”行李架並非真正通用，最便宜的版本來自中國。有一種很棒的替代品來自瑞典，但價格差距比我願意支付的價格高出許多倍。在網上搜索後，我找到了一家位於緬因州的美國家族企業，規模很小，甚至有專人負責回複電子郵件。不幸的是，他們的車架是中國製造的，而不是緬因州，不過他們的客服團隊很貼心地告訴我們，他們所有的拖車都是美國製造的。
當我發現除了體育用品商店之外，用綁在屋頂上的簡單泡沫支架就能解決問題時，我以為自己挖到了寶。
我查了一下，他們的貨源和生產廉價車頂行李架的國家一樣。巧合的是，我妻子提到了一位在當地經營小生意的女士，她專門生產沙發替換墊，她同意幫我切幾塊適合我車頂的泡沫塑料。成功了！我感覺特別好，雖然我沒問泡沫塑料是從哪裏來的。
不幸的是，我在其他方麵也遇到了麻煩。有一天，我列了10件家居小物件的清單出發，結果回家卻隻帶了一件。其他的我決定不用也行。誰還需要檸檬榨汁機呢？我什麽時候擠不動檸檬了？幾個月來，我把東西重新擺上貨架，學到的一個教訓是，沒有它們，生活也照樣過得去。漢堡壓榨機？你不能自己做漢堡？成熟點吧，夥計。
我在一個方麵徹底屈服了。據我所知，某些類型的燈泡除了中國以外，根本買不到。通用電氣、飛利浦、喜萬年……中國，中國，中國。一家標榜自己是“加拿大驕傲”的公司，結果除了中國燈泡什麽也沒有。不知何故，我找到了一個匈牙利產的偏藍燈泡，但如果燈泡插不上需要充電的插座，那就沒什麽用了。考慮到買燈泡的替代方案就是在昏暗的房間裏摸索，而廚房的光線越來越暗，我不得不放棄，付了錢。為了稍作安慰，我選了一個據說能用13年的燈泡，這樣至少暫時不用再麵對這個難題了。
我也沒找到家用打印機，但我還沒有放棄。堅持終有回報，自力更生也是如此。我敢肯定，中國有句諺語也這麽說：中國文化遠比中國現行政治體製更睿智、更有吸引力。我計劃在可預見的未來繼續抵製，盡管我知道我永遠無法百分之百地成功。俗話說：“千裏之行，始於足下。”你也能猜到這句話的出處。
Kelly McParland: My year of not buying things from China
Setting off one day with a list of 10 small household items, I returned home with precisely one. I knew it would be difficult, but ...
By Kelly McParland Dec 13, 2021
Kelly McParland's resolution for 2021 was to not knowingly buy anything made in China. It turned out to be even more challenging than he imagined. Photo by Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
My New Year’s resolution for 2021 was to avoid knowingly buying anything made in China.
It had nothing to do with the Chinese people, who, like most other people just want to be able to live their lives in peace as they see best, and everything to do with the Chinese government. At the time the Beijing regime was holding the two Michaels — Kovrig and Spavor — as hostages for the return of Meng Wanzhou, a wealthy businesswoman with close connections to the communist government. It was, and is, also running re-education camps, discriminating against minorities, employing forced labour, threatening to invade Taiwan, crushing freedoms in Hong Kong, attempting to bully neighbours across the region, building a military it hopes will give it the ability to intimidate any foreign power, interfering in foreign elections and continuing its intensive and long-running campaign to steal technology and collect data it can use to disrupt democracy and established norms of behaviour among less despotic regimes.
Anyone who makes even a notional effort to check the origins of the stuff they grab off the shelves of any big-box store understands that China is the dominant supplier. The less expensive it is, the more likely it is to have been made in a factory in Guangdong, or Jiangsu or Zhejiang. If you buy it off Amazon there’s a very good chance it was shipped here from a Chinese port. Even if you make a point of favouring Canadian or U.S. firms, odds are high they outsourced their manufacturing to somewhere in China that paid lower wages or enforced lower safety standards. Only one of Canada’s top 10 exports to China involves manufacturing; nine of China’s top 10 exports to Canada have value added. So I figured it would be difficult, and it was. In some cases it proved impossible to find an alternative. It takes persistence, pig-headedness and a willingness to pay more than the lowest conceivable price to avoid offering financial support to what many believe is the world’s most dangerous regime, one that bans elections outside a few rarified echelons, recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the only party it allows, and is headed by a leader actively angling to be president for life.
I figured it would be difficult, and it was
My first attempted post-pledge purchase was a simple ball of twine. You have to ask yourself, how much time am I willing to spend searching out twine options to avoid sending China its share of the profit from a dollar? In my case, it turned out, not much, so I paid extra to buy some rubberized fasteners made somewhere else. Finding a new gate lock also proved so much trouble after striking out at Home Depot, Lowes, Home Hardware, Canadian Tire and Rona, I just figured out how to repair the old one. I forgot to check the origin of a wet saw I bought for cutting tile, but when it proved to be cheaply made, with parts that didn’t fit, I realized my mistake and returned it for a better version from Japan — only to discover too late that the blade itself was made separately, and you can guess where.
I got fooled again on a box of COVID masks that gave every impression it contained a U.S.-made product shipped from Texas. The box did come from Texas, but it turned out the masks weren’t made there. It’s a situation that proved not to be rare; I got the distinct impression that, especially with online sales, careful efforts are made to avoid identifying the country of origin. If you try hard enough you can sometimes track it down, but it takes some effort, and doesn’t always succeed.
One purchase that proved far more complicated than I’d expected was finding an affordable roof rack for the car that could hold a kayak. There was a time you could pick up a simple adjustable rack that would fit almost any vehicle, but not any more. “Universal” racks aren’t really universal, and the least expensive versions come from Chinese sources. There is an excellent alternative that originates in Sweden, but the price gap was many times higher than I was willing to spend. After scouring the internet I found a family-owned U.S. firm based in Maine, so small they have an actual person who answers emails. Unfortunately they have their racks made in China, not Maine, though their support team obligingly advised that all their trailers are made in the U.S.
I thought I’d struck paydirt when I discovered you can get by with simple foam supports that can be strapped to the roof, except all the sports supply stores I checked get their supplies from the same country that makes cheap roof racks. Fortuitously, my wife mentioned a lady who runs a small local business making replacement cushions for sofas, who agreed to cut a couple pieces of foam that would fit the top of my car. Success! I felt particularly good about that one, though I didn’t ask where the foam came from.
Unfortunately, I struck out on other fronts. Setting off one day with a list of 10 small household items, I returned home with precisely one. The others I decided I could live without. Who needs a lemon squeezer anyway? Since when am I incapable of squeezing a lemon? One lesson I learned from months of putting things back on shelves is that life easily goes on without them. A burger press? You can’t make your own burgers? Grow up, buddy.
I did cave entirely on one front. As far as I can tell, it’s not possible to buy certain types of light bulbs from anywhere other than China. GE, Philips, Sylvania … China, China, China. A firm that promotes itself as “Proudly Canadian” proved to have nothing other than Chinese bulbs. I did find a bluish-tinted bulb manufactured in Hungary for some reason, but if a bulb doesn’t fit the socket that needs filling, it’s not much use. Given that the alternative to buying bulbs is to stumble around in darkened rooms, and the kitchen was getting steadily dimmer, I had to break down and pay up. As a small consolation I picked a bulb that’s supposed to last 13 years, so at least I won’t face that conundrum again for a while.
I also haven’t been able to find a home printer, but I haven’t given up yet. Persistence pays dividends, as does self-reliance. I’m pretty sure there’s a Chinese adage that says as much, Chinese culture being far wiser and more attractive than the current Chinese political regime. I plan to continue my boycott for the foreseeable future, though I know I’ll never achieve 100 per cent success. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” as the proverb goes. And you can guess where it comes from.
