Nightmares of Yi Wu

Sunday 31st July: driving home up The Great North Road [sounds more romantic than the A1], good mood having had a nice day at Cambridge. Tune in to Radio 4 Pick of the Week which is generally enjoyable and relaxing.

Not this week however. An extract from a programme 'The new Silk Road', etches itself into my neural circuitry. It is about Yi Wu, city from which all sorts of goods are exported. The old trade routes, such as The Silk Road, used to carry silks, porcelain, spices, and all kinds of exotic goods, but not the ones emanating from Yi Wu.

The presenter of the programme describes the vast trading emporiums contained in nightmarishly gigantic buildings whose ground plans are equivalent to some large number of football pitches. These emporiums are stocked with plastic novelties of all kinds: Christmas baubles and lights, plastic fruit, religious kitsch for Lourdes, Graceland, India and the Middle East, nasty hair goods, costume jewellery and so on. The presenter is doing 'being amazed' at the diversity of products and their sheer quantity.

But I don't find it amazing, I find it horrifying. I can't help going through in my mind the processes that are occurring and contemplating the waste of human and natural resources involved, and the resultant pollution. Here's my brief analysis of what happens:

Oil extracted from the ground

Oil converted into plastic pellets.

Plastic pellets used in moulding machines to make components.

Components assembled into goods by bored, alienated human beings ['labour'].

Goods sold by exporters to wholesalers all over the world.

Wholesalers sell goods to retailers.

Retailers sell to customers.

Customers use and discard.

Goods dumped.

At each stage CO2 is released, money is exchanged, taxes and bank charges are paid. At each stage low paid workers perform the necessary physical tasks -assembling, packaging, carrying, sweeping up and so on [this could be a very long list, please feel free to use your imagination to extend it and to consider what it feels like to be the person who has to do these jobs]. At each stage some kind of clerical work is done: computers buzz, invoices are filled out, accounts completed.



At the later stages of all this 'a consumer' 'consumes' and once the article is 'consumed' it is got rid of. It may be be recycled but, more likely it will be dumped and end up as landfill.


All this is classed as 'economic activity' and regarded as a 'good thing' by politicians. But to me it is a nightmare of exploitation and pollution

Contrast this with the production of Sharon's pewter pictures:

We look through art books.

We take a walk in the country and take some photos of, say, an oak tree or an ivy leaf.

We sit in our kitchen make sketches, talk about the design, drink tea.

Sharon cuts out her piece of pewter. I make more tea. We listen to Radio 4 or a talking book.

I take the finished piece out to market.

I talk to lots of people.

I sell the piece.

It is put on some one's wall and is admired and enjoyed.

It stays there for a long time. Quite a few people now collect Sharon's work [unlike the goods from Yi Wu].

At any stage the materials we use can be recycled.

All this is part of an economic process, albeit a small part, but it is so much more. Enjoyment is present at each stage of the process. Sharon loves making things. I love being out on markets. Our customers get pleasure out of what we make. Please draw your own conclusions

These matters were much discussed in Victorian times particularly by John Ruskin and William Morris. I think the latter's oft quoted dictum is worth repeating:

'Have nothing in your house that you do not to be useful or believe to be beautiful.'

Perhaps I'd better go and do some housework now. Hmm...check for the useful and beautiful?