National Harware Show
So this weekend, Monday, and Tuesday, I was in Chicago working as a translator for an exhibitor from China. Mr. Sun Jinfu of HangZhou XingYi Metal Products. In this case it was sheet metal products — tool boxes, lockers, cabinets, 19″ computer rack enclosures. Lots of good business. And by Hardware, I mean the show was about Tim Allen type stuff — power tools, hand tools, and everything related to that. There was also lots of stuff pertaining to lawn and gardening (though that was rather boring to me). Brands like Channel Lock, Great Neck, SK, Campbell Hausfield, etc.
Translating was not too hard, though my vocab was lacking at times. Fortunately, I usually got the gist across.
I noticed a surprising trend — the Chinese exhibitors were basically making copies of American/European goods and churning them out at a significantly cheaper price, basically turning those things into commodity items with very low profit margins. Everything is going overseas. Basically, anything that can be manufactured here that is not overwhelmingly complex or needs a lot of capital to startup — e.g. airplanes, cars, will eventually be taken by them because of their cheap labor. And according to my old man, this’ll be happening for a very long time because the Chinese population is just that big that it can sustain such low wages and a lower standard of living.
So basically, I’m a bit anxious about this situation. Recently on C-Span, a senator from Idaho(?) was talking about the trade deficit and our poor skills at negotiating trade agreements. He made a very striking point that a country without a strong manufacturing base cannot be a world power. And unfortunately, it seems that the U.S. is slowly losing a significant portion of it’s manufacturing to foreign countries, especially China, because they are able to sustain lower pricing as mentioned before.
So now, what to do, both for myself and the future economy of the U.S.? I’m still deciding. When it comes down to it, I’m an American at heart, so I would hate to see us lose status as a world leader. Now, for me and getting a job, I think it’d be best if I find an industry that is unique to the U.S., that cannot be taken away or have cheaper imitations produced elsewhere. It’s a difficult time right now, it certainly is.
To end on a less serious note, I got a free tool box from my boss: 3 drawers, 20″ width.
(Pics to come soon.)