China Blue

China Blue is one of the most interesting, intelligent documentaries I've ever seen. It sets itself apart from other documentaries in how closely attached we become to the workers the filmmakers chose to concentrate on in the film. We get to see away from the factory floor and even to the countryside where they immigrated from. I've spent hours speaking with assistant producer Song Chen, the Taiwanese-American who speaks Chinese and who did so much of the work to gain the impossible access to the factory workers, even filming in their dorm rooms. This film would have only taken 2 to 3 years to film IF one of the two main people in the factory didn't quit and disappear. An incredible tragedy on the surface, in fact, to all of those who fell in love with the new worker, the delay and re-filming was one of the things that allowed the director and Song go far more deeply into the reality of the situation than they normally would have been able to. I don't know how engaging the original girl would have been, but the two girls who ended up taking part in the filming (and who were NOT paid, but told to cooperate by the factory owner, who thought the movie was being made about HIM) were simply wonderful. Part of what makes the film fascinating was how things 'accidentally' worked out in the favor of the documentary. The factory putting off paying them until they called a mini- protest/revolt and won... all caught on film by chance... The unbelievers would have you believe that the workers might not have behaved that way if there wasn't a camera. The workers thought the camera was off. Song was shooting that scene, put the camera down to her side, and purposely failed to turn the camera off. That was one of the greatest moments in the film. That and the forbidden scenes of the birthday party in the country that helped attach the viewers to the wonderful characters and their families. Ironically, what made this film great is exactly what the naysayers hold against it.... in fact, it is SO GOOD, that it seems just too good to be true. It's IMPOSSIBLE to have gotten all the scenes they got.... impossible of course, unless they spent 4 years of their lives filming and editing this film! The very few incredulous viewers' logic supposing a fake documentary is flawed. If the director wanted to stage a fake documentary, he could have done it in a few days or weeks. With virtually 4 FULL YEARS involved in the different stages of the filming and editing of this movie, the director and his assistant producer created what is close to one of the most perfect documentaries, and truest ever made. The one sour note in all of this is that when PBS airs this on April 3, it will be a much shorter documentary. They will edit out 1/3 of the movie; some of the most interesting scenes of Chinese country life that attached viewers so closely to the people in the film. It will be a simpler documentary, just about the factory conditions in China. This film is important and a must see.

What I loved most about this movie was the diversity and balance of its coverage -- from the issues of globalization, labor laws, and the impacts of rampant consumerism to the colors and flavors of Chinese culture, family issues, relationships, and the ups and downs of life. This is a very rare glimpse into the lives of young women working in a jeans making factory. The filmmaker does an excellent job conveying their exhaustion and the pressure to keep up with production. The viewer can feel their pain. Through it, one sees the need to improve labor conditions not only in China, but in other parts of the world where such demands on workers are unfair and inhumane. It definitely makes one think about where their jeans came from, and where we're going in a world that allows such wonderful young women to work under such horrible circumstances.

"China Blue" is an engrossing documentary that tells the story of 3 teenage girls who leave their rural homes in China to come work for a factory that makes blue jeans.

The movie also presents at some length a portrait of the factory owner, and draws him as a sympathetic character (though not entirely). The factory owner believed that he ran an excellent factory and had nothing to hide--he gave the documentary makers extensive access to the factory and to the workers. In fact it was only the Chinese government that hassled Peled--their rule is that all foreign journalists must have a government minder, and any filming without government approval is illegal. Big chunks of the film were lost as a result.

Peled said in discussion afterward that the moral of the film is not "don't buy Chinese jeans". He said that conditions would be similar in any factory in Sri Lanka, El Salvador, or the Mariana Islands. In fact, conditions in the factory of the film are said to be relatively good. Nonetheless, the workers (mostly teenage girls) work 7 days a week, often getting only 2 or 4 hours sleep. They are paid irregularly, when it suits the owner, and the costs of the dormitory and kitchen (and "fines") are deducted from their pay.

Their wages average 6 cents an hour. The factory owner sells the jeans for $4.20 (or $4.10) each. Of that, $1 is labor cost, the cost of about 25 peoples' labor for one hour. The owner claims to make only 20 cents profit on a pair of jeans. The documentary asserts that the big name brands push costs to be so low that they know that the factories cannot be paying minimum wage, but they look the other way regarding proof of factory conditions. Walmart, for example, allows factories 3 reports of non-compliance with basic humanitarian rules before it will consider going elsewhere. And there are consultants who specialize in teaching factories how to fake their inspections. It's cheaper than paying decent wages.

The documentary is not a crude polemic. It lets the girls speak in their own voices, relying on a charmingly written diary by the main character, Jasmine, which is read in a voice-over. The film shows the girls in their daily routine, 8 of them sharing a room and a toilet, brushing their teeth and getting ready for work at the same time. Although I've read much about globalization, this film brought home the reality of its results in the lives of the girl workers, who marvel at the huge girth of the jeans they are making and wonder what kind of people must be wearing them. The conditions are both shocking and matter-of-fact in the way everyone takes them for granted. I highly recommend this movie.

When the balance of global power shifts, changing the world as we know it, it can be hard to fully reconstruct the historical realities. Today, the emergence of powerful industrial economies in countries that can become superpowers is barely understood. In 2005, The Economist newspaper ran an article entitled, 'How China runs the World Economy', and has recently acknowledged that China's GDP will overtake the USA within 40 years. The exact mechanism is shown in stark terms in China Blue, a mechanism with which the West cannot compete. But this is not a political film, it is a documentary chronicling one woman's struggle in a society very alien to our own.

The scene that sticks in my mind, and brings tears to my eyes just remembering it, is 16-yr old Jasmine and a goldfish. She has worked a 20hr shift, her pay is late, she won't be able to use the three days off a year she gets to visit her family because she can't afford the train fare. If she falls asleep on the job she can get fined two days' wages. The girls joke about staying awake and sometimes use clothes pegs to hold their eyes open. They feel lucky to have the job. Left alone at New Year, Jasmine gazes at this goldfish, the only thing in her world onto which she can project her pent up feelings of love and frustration, and says, "You are so lucky, you can sleep any time." Even sleep, the most basic of pleasures we take for granted, is mostly denied her.

Now before you get up in arms and want to boycott Chinese goods, check out the reality. It has been widely documented that in countries where they put the squeeze on factories to follow human rights, buyers simply go elsewhere, the original factories close, and kids like Jasmine, some as young as thirteen, turn to begging and prostitution. Same happens if Western companies like Nike put effective pressure on the third world factories to satisfy customers that their goods have been made to 'ethical standards.' So what happens - and what we see in the film - is a hypocritical game-play in which buyers and sellers are complicit. Workers are rehearsed on what to say when inspectors come, security guards make duplicate clock cards to show the workers did normal shifts with proper breaks, and everyone goes away 'happy'. Watching the charade, we feel a mounting sense of frustration. Jasmine also knows there is nothing that can be done. Her best 'hope' is that the person wearing the denim jeans she has worked all night to make really appreciates what has gone into them, and her feeling is not of bitterness, but of love, just hoping someone, somewhere, cares - that's all. She earns the equivalent of six cents an hour. That's before deductions for food and board.

Jasmine is, by Chinese worker standards, quite lucky. An Amnesty International representative, in the Q & A after the screening I went to, explained that at any one time there are several million Chinese undergoing 're-education through labour' which is a punishment handed out fairly lightly and means the government has a workforce at zero labour cost if push comes to shove.

One of Jasmine's fellow workers has managed to climb the ladder to a position where she gets a few hours off in the evening. She uses it to wait for her boyfriend in a neighbouring factory. He is under the same regime of non-voluntary overtime and often doesn't show, but she is content. "It's hard to find someone to love who treats you right," she says.

From a global point of view, China is simply going through what the West did years ago. Our Industrial Revolution only involved one third of the world's population: the rest are now catching up, and things will never be the same. Trying to halt China's growth (through protectionist measures) would be a disaster not only for the Chinese workers but it would close off a powerful source of future global prosperity.

Only with the end credits do we see how much harassment the filmmakers had from the authorities. Amnesty explained that a major crime in China is 'splittism,' which means anything that might be divisive of Chinese philosophy (and also explains why the peace-loving Falun Gong are targetted). Next time you put your made-in-China denims on, pause to remember the backbreaking toil that went into them.

I watched the screening of China Blue and this film changed my life.

I am by no means a person who does not keep up with the world and its issues, and I am still in shock by my ignorance of the working conditions in third world countries.

According to Micha, this movie did not even reflect the worst and I am disgusted by the inhumanity that backs these factories. Young, innocent women being taking advantage of because they don't know better.

There is absolutely no excuse for this, and somebody needs to put a stop to it. Because the corporations profit from this cheap labor, it is our responsibility, as consumers, to speak up. Afterall, corporations are driven by money, and the money relies on the consumer's purchases.

I have done some research on what organizations exist that are trying to regulate these working conditions. Unfortunately, it is not easy to have a voice, but I am very interested in getting involved with this issue.

Again, it is solely China Blue that is driving me to make a change. If more people would watch this movie, perhaps they would want to take initiative as well.