
Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy - waqasaday
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany
======
metaphor
An all too familiar predicament[1], except I grew up accustomed to also seeing
Filipinos (services) and Bangladeshi (construction) in similar melting pots.

> _Locals suspected that Chinese mobsters were disposing of corpses in
> exchange for passports, which they then sold to new arrivals, a scheme that
> took advantage of the native population’s apparent inability to tell any one
> Chinese person from another. There was a note of jealousy to the Pratans’
> complaints, as well as a reluctant respect for people who had beaten them at
> their own game._

Morbid humor aside, this game and it's variants are apparently quite
common[2].

[1] [https://mobile.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/world/made-usa-hard-
la...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/1993/07/18/world/made-usa-hard-labor-
pacific-island-special-report-saipan-sweatshops-are-no.html)

[2] [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/business/saipan-
casino...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/business/saipan-casino-
illegal-chinese-workers-trump.html)

------
baybal2
Chinese owned a big chunk of Italian textile industry for quite a while. For
at least 12~14 years, a big portion of made in Italy stuff were Chinese made.

Owning a factory in Italy can be quite cheaper than to do so in China, to a
lot of people's surprise. An added benefit to it is that you can claim
"Italian quality"

For more on topic stuff, if you are a Vancouverite, you can visit an Italian
cafe by Gastown Starbucks that is ran by a lady from Wenzhou who speaks decent
Italian.

~~~
wenc
There's a town near Florence called Prato that has a large population of
Wenzhou Chinese. Most work in the textile industry.

If you visit Milan's Chinatown, it is full of textile and clothing shops as
opposed to most Chinatowns around the world which are dominated by food and
grocery stores.

~~~
lvoudour
>There's a town near Florence called Prato that has a large population of
Wenzhou Chinese. Most work in the textile industry.

That's exactly what the article is about :)

~~~
tyu100
This was one of the best didn't read the articles I've seen in a while.

------
reaperducer
Neither surprising, nor new.

This has been going on for years in a number of countries (Spain, Italy,
etc...) just so the goods can be marked "Made in *". The TV image of the
careful old craftsman hand-sweing your luggage is a falsehood. It's sweatshops
all over again.

It's even happening in the United States. Louis Vuitton does its repairs with
immigrant labor in southern California so it can say the work was done in
America. (The whole thing is tremendously complicated because of California
laws about handbags and leather goods, but that's off topic.)

There are compounds in some states that are essentially isolated towns
surrounding a factory where Chinese laborers put things together so they can
be marked "Made in USA." The laborers eat, sleep, work, and live without ever
going outside the compound. It's like the horror stories we see about China,
but on U.S. soil.

~~~
chrischen
What's wrong with immigrant labor (apart from them taking "our" jobs)?

~~~
make3
it is implied that they are payed at a sweatshop price in sweatshop conditions

~~~
chrischen
So it's implied that in Southern California they are breaking minimum wage
laws?

Also, exploitation only applies if the workers 1) have no better option and 2)
their options are artificially constrained by the party offering their only
option. Anything else is simply failing to understand their situation.

~~~
throwaway9d0
Segregation is technically illegal, but if you look at a census map for 8 Mile
Rd in Michigan, it’s all white people to the north and black people to the
south. In other words, please don’t assume that injustices can’t somehow still
occur within systems that, by the letter of the law, have done away with
injustice. I don’t know how to epxlain to you that immigrants assembling
consumerist garbage in the US probably aren’t doing it because they weighed
other options and thought it was the best one... And if you think they can
“just leave”, ask yourself why so many of them haven’t.

~~~
chrischen
Also, exploitation only applies if the workers 1) have no better option and 2)
their options are artificially constrained by the party offering their only
option. Anything else is simply failing to understand their situation.

Simply because they are abiding by minimum wage laws and making less than you
are per hour does not mean they are exploited. Simply because Detroit is
segregated in practice (as a result of factors beyond the control of most of
the individuals) does not mean these workers are exploited. The fact that the
dinosaurs went extinct even though they too, like us, deserve a chance to
exist does not mean these workers were exploited.

------
padobson
As I read this, the New Yorker seemed to highlight the problems from a more
leftist, social safety net perspective. The Chinese immigrants circumvented
the tax code in every way they could - working under the table, starting
unregistered businesses in garages and vans, living in the garages and vans,
even dying secretly so their passports could be repurposed for new immigrants.
This meant hospitals and other public services went underfunded.

What I found interesting, though, were the competing right-wing narratives in
the lives of the immigrants. They were so ready to live industrious,
entrepreneurial lives (largely) outside of the protection of government,
pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, while their work ethic, frugality,
and ultimate success led to anti-immigrant, nativist sentiments and the
politics that reflect them.

I tend to be relatively laissez-faire in my tastes for both economic and
immigration policy, but watching the right-wing in Europe and the United
States reject the latter makes me think the sentiment comes from a deeper,
visceral level. Almost like an immune system rejecting something it doesn't
recognize. For all the posturing and intellectual maturity of free-market
economics and small government policies, it seems that right-wing politics
will always find easier alliances among those with xenophobic or even racist
sentiments because those motivations are hardwired into our DNA, and embracing
your hard wiring is a lot easier than comprehending Friedman or Hayek.

~~~
asveikau
It's interesting to me that you would see the economic arguments and assume
they were a genuinely held first principle and not an inauthentic PR line
meant to resonate with the more base fear and hatred.

In the United States at least there is a long history of this. Go look up what
Lee Atwater said about the southern strategy. Summary: they embraced lines
about low taxes and small government because it was getting impolite to
campaign with the n word.

~~~
mkirklions
After this most recent presidential election, I believe that racism is
ingrained in our DNA.

I couldnt believe what I was seeing in the 21st century.

Politicians will use this tool until humanity goes extinct.

~~~
attalus
You really must be a troubled individual.

------
dekhn
When I was in Amsterdam I chatted with a guy. His job is to fly to Amsterdam
and Milan, go to all the bespoke stores, buy up all their goods, and then take
them to a shop which clones them for production-scale. I'd have thought the
designers would be working with the producers at scale, but that's not how it
works.

~~~
wenc
"Bespoke" means custom-tailored to an individual. I'm not sure if it makes
sense to clone them for production-scale -- mass-produced clothing are cut to
_average_ measurements to fit as many people as possible.

Are you sure you meant bespoke?

~~~
nickff
"Bespoke" actually means more than custom-tailored; to be "bespoke", the
client must have commissioned the creation of the design of an article of
clothing. The usual dividing line between "bespoke" and "made-to-measure" is
that in a "bespoke" process, there is more input in the design process, and
there are a number of fittings of the garment (rather than just a set of
measurements as in made-to measure). In the case of a shoe, a custom 'last' is
generally the indicator of a "bespoke" product.

------
nepotism2018
Film Camorra has a dialog based on this! its a must watch!

~~~
eecc
You're probably referring to Gomorra, based on a novel by Roberto Saviano -
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425/)

~~~
Cyph0n
There is also a TV show which I honestly think is much better than the movie.

~~~
eecc
Yes, I've heard about it but never seen it. The book is just fantastic, anyone
should read it to understand what's become of Italy.

------
w0mbat
Apparently if you are Chinese then you are a "worker" who "assembles" Gucci
handbags but if you are Italian you are a "craftsman" who "makes" them.

~~~
wu_tang_chris
so brave

