For almost 15 years I imported furniture and artifacts from Indonesia to America, where I had a small retail store. The goods I purchased were almost exclusively from very small “mom and pop” people. I would spend perhaps $25,000 and ship those goods in a container to the States. Sometimes they were shipped in American owned containers but always the port of entrance was Long Beach. From there they were shipped by rail, and finally by a local trucking company. The goods were cleared by a local custom agent, and since I had only 4 employees, 3 of whom were women, I hired a local labor company to unload the container. Of course I paid rent for the store, taxes to local, state, and Feds, and wages. I did not become rich, but it was a living and most importantly for me, kept me on the road in Asia for 4 months a year. My point, is that yes, I did move currency to Indonesia but it also “spread the wealth” along the way. When I first started, my driver was a young kid who rented the car and gave his “boss” part of what he earned. After 4 or 5 years, I was able to buy him a good used vehicle and gave it to him. That in turn, changed his life and now even though I am out of the business, Nyoman has a family and is middle class in his society. Interestingly enough, what I have done for him was not maybe in one sense all good. For now, he has home phone, cell phone, TV, DVD, and yes two lovely kids that are growing up in a much different world. He now has stress, since his life is not the simple one when we met many years ago, but he is much better off in many ways.
Over the years, I was in most everywhere in S.E. Asia and I really did not see the “sweat shops” that you hear about. That is certainly not to say they do not exist, because they do. Many in the big cities in America, but for the most part, whether India, Nepal, Burma, Cambodia, Laos------you get the picture----I saw many poor people but almost all took as good or better care of their children as anyone. In Burma, on Lake Inley-----a large lake that people live in stilt houses----I saw very small children sitting on the floor learning to weave. But they were well fed, and their mother’s were near by and although perhaps strange to us, not to them.
My point is, just because it says “made in China”, does not mean there has been no economic value in America. I am NOT trying to say that our imbalance of trade with China is not serious, just that there are jobs in America because of that trade. Before someone jumps on the human rights issue of even being in Burma/Myanmar, it was a decision that I gave a lot of thought before going. I had never been and at my age, it was probably then or never. We avoided, where possible, government controlled business, and I can tell you that the local people were not only amongst the friendliest I had ever met, they were very glad to have us and the support we gave with dollars. I fully acknowledge those that would not go and respect their decision.
