Fake it ‘til you make it!

All the things we buy everyday…where do they come from? Do we know? Do we even care?  We buy brands – do we really buy brands? We buy fakes, produced god knows where under awful conditions, but we still buy them. Fake, refake, overfake.

A good exhibition I have seen. Got me thinking and reading, until I found a chilly post in the NY Times.

A woman in Oregon randomly bought a Halloween decoration at a supermarket and found the following letter in it:

Here's an excerpt from the letter, grammatical mistakes included:  

"If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persecution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.

People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month).

People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others."

10 yuan = 1.61 $

The letter has been written by a Chinese worker, who has been identified by the NY Times. The worker described how he was imprisoned in a labor camp where "inmates toiled seven days a week, their 15-hour days haunted by sadistic guards." The worker claims to have written 20 letters over the years. The people are imprisoned in one of many Chinese labor camps, Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang.

Of course nothing happened, the camp still produces, fakes, refakes, kills...

If you want to be informed about Chinese Labour camps, visit Chinaview and think twice about what is written on your label...'Made in China'.