Book: A Year Without Made in China

A YEAR WITHOUT MADE IN CHINA by Sara Bongiorni is Bongiorni's description of trying to go an entire year without buying anything made in China. Her reasons seem a bit vague--she claims not to be opposed to Chinese goods per se, and was willing accept them as gifts. Indeed, at times she basically *asked* people to give her children specific things that they wanted that were made in China. And she spent a lot of time explaining to her children, and friends, and us, that it was not that she disliked China, or that China was bad. Also, her efforts were mostly at the end-product level, because it became obvious that one could not always tell where the parts for something were made (though she did try). Bongiorni seems to vacillate between spending a lot more money to avoid something made in China and conniving to get as a gift something she (or more often, her son) wants that is made in China. It is also not clear how much buy-in she had from her family on this project that they were involved in. While there are interesting anecdotes about trying to find children's shoes or
sunglasses, it mostly seems like an undirected experiment, sort of like deciding not to buy anything made with plastic. (Or perhaps even less directed than deciding not to buy anything made with
plastic.)

Grade: C