Meet Your Global Tailor

Your personal Bangladeshi seamstress

I wanted to close my recent trip to Bangladesh with a few summary thoughts and images about the Bangladeshi garment industry. I toured a clothing factory in Bangladesh yesterday, and thought you might like to see where your clothes are being made.

How do I know that your clothes are made there? I can almost guarantee it, actually.

According to the site Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, Americans buy 20 billion (with a “b”) articles of clothing every year – roughly 68 garments per American annually. 98% of the clothing that Americans buy is made outside the United States. This is up from only 50% in 1990, an incredible sea change in outsourced manufacturing in just two decades. According to Wikipedia, Bangladesh is the 2nd largest producer of clothing in the world, and is projected to take the #1 spot within the next 5 years.

Why Bangladesh? Well, the production of clothing is surprisingly labor intensive. From spinning to weaving, dyeing to cutting, sewing to finishing, there are hundreds of steps involved in producing even a simple garment. China has long been the world leader in clothing production, but according to a recent Global Sources article, labor now accounts for 40% of the cost of making a garment in that country. In Bangladesh, labor is a lot cheaper – it only accounts for 20% of the cost of making a garment. This explains why despite some of the challenges of working in Bangladesh, famous clothing brands the world over are flocking there to invest in larger and larger sourcing operations. Bangladesh has millions of workers willing to do a lot for very little.

So like I said – I can almost guarantee that if you look through your drawers and closets (or just check the labels on the clothes you’re wearing), you will find a “Made in Bangladesh” label on something or other. But it doesn’t have to be Bangladesh… the point here is that we are wearing stuff made all over the world. I didn’t plan this, but I just checked the clothes I have on – Jockey t-shirt made in India, Basic Equipment shirt made in Peru, BVD boxers from El Salvador, Old Navy jeans from China, and shoes from Vietnam. I may not be cosmopolitan, but my wardrobe is. And I don’t have to search far to find Bangladesh: I’ve got a pair of St. John’s Bay khaki pants that I wear to work at least twice a week, bought at a J.C. Penney (big spending fashion mogul that I am) in Vermont, and made in Bangladesh.

We put a lot of thought these days into where our food is coming from – is it locally sourced? Is it organic? Is it safe? How do I know who’s producing it? Buying clothing is a lot less thought provoking, but maybe it shouldn’t be. So follow me below the jump, to learn just a little bit about how the stuff you’re wearing gets made.

Chandeliers and Wallpaper? Check.

Our old landlord decided to move back to Taiwan and sell the apartment.  This meant we had to move out by March 15th.  So a few months ago, I started dropping by realtors in the neighborhood seeing if anyone spoke English and could show me some apartments.  I found different levels of English and varying levels of apartments.  After seeing about 10-12 apartments, I found the winner. It's in the older "phase" of our same compound, just across the street.  Not as fancy, smaller apartments, no door ladies in the buildings and not as obsessive landscaping, and cheaper.  And as a bonus, it comes with awesome chandeliers and wallpaper.  It also came fully furnished and with toys.  Check it out.

Oooh shiny.

Back in Business

We've had much to post about but technical (and political) difficulties have stopped us from our blogging work.  Since January, the Great China Firewall has grown in size and strength and made getting on blogspot harder.  We also moved apartments and were temporarily without internet.  We have internet at last, but it is slower and we're only now discovering which parts of the apartment get the fastest connection.  It seems to change throughout the day.  I'm flirting with the idea of switching to tumblr. but I seem to have found a blogspot sweetspot and will try to stay here for now.

We reached a big milestone recently.  March 14th was both Naomi's 12th birthday and our one-year Chinaversary. The year went so fast, but then I look back at pictures like this...



Chinese New Year

 

I think it's been a whole 24 hours since I last heard a firework.  They were so frequent and so loud and so a part of our life for the past two weeks, that I didn't really notice them any longer until they stopped.  BUT, I understand they will come back this Sunday for one final bang -- the 15th day of the lunar month, the Lantern Festival.

New Year's Eve was Saturday, February 9th.  We flipped on the CCTV five-hour New Year's Eve extravaganza, gathered some snacks, and got ready for some fireworks.  With hours of acrobats, skits, kung fu performances, Celine Dion, and Psy on in the background, we watched out the window as the fireworks began at sundown.  Slow at first, they got closer and louder.  And then closer.  And louder.  I was impressed.  Then midnight drew near.  So did the fireworks.  So close in fact, that we heard and saw shrapnel bounce off our windows.  We have an amazing video on Facebook, but we have trouble posting big files on blogspot.  It involves a lot of gasping and swearing in the background as we watched our security guards carry refrigerator-sized boxes of explosives to the street at the base of our building.  Five boxes at a time.  Again and again until there were 35-40 charred boxes on the street.  More fireworks on our block than our state capitol of Montpelier uses during its Fourth of July celebration.  Then firecrackers in rolls the size of truck tires. 

And this was just on our block.  Similar size explosions were taking place two blocks over in every direction.  They finally stopped around 1am.  They started up again at 6am.  The air was thick.  We saw ash fall from the sky.

That spike is from the fireworks.  Cough.  Cough.

 

A Day at the Farm

Matthew's colleagues hosted an outing to the farm a few weeks ago.  Matthew got stuck in Detroit, but the rest of us went and had a great time strawberry picking, grilling, poking people with sticks, getting muddy.  As you can see from the photos, the kids have so much fun there.  The husband of one of the ISC staff took most of these great photos (Thanks Hunter!).

Naomi trying to remember how many strawberries she'd eaten...

 

Still Breathing in Shanghai

Living in Vermont for so long, I thought we were prepared for a dark and cold winter.  And for the most part we are, but boy is it dark and gloomy with that wet cold that seeps into you.  And the air.  While not the "airpocolypse" that they're having in Beijing, it has been bad in Shanghai.  Lots of "pollution days" at school where the kids aren't allowed to have outdoor recess or PE.  Makes us long for the fresh air of home. 

Sadly, that's smog not fog.

But on the upside, unlike Vermont, there are already signs that spring is quickly approaching. 

Vacation in Vietnam, Part II: The City

We only spent a very short few days in Saigon, but wow, it made an impression on us.  I'd love to go back when the kids are older, or at least a lot better at crossing streets. 

Sidewalks are for losers.