A Year Without "Made in China"

A Year Without "Made in China" provides you with a thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining account of how the most populous nation on Earth influences almost every aspect of our daily lives. Drawing on her years as an award-winning journalist, author Sara Bongiorni fills this book with engaging stories and anecdotes of her family's attempt to outrun China's reach–by boycotting Chinese made products–and does a remarkable job of taking a decidedly big-picture issue and breaking it down to a personal level.

Foreword ix

Acknowledgments xiii

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER ONE

Farewell, My Concubine 5

CHAPTER TWO

Red Shoes 31

CHAPTER THREE

Rise and China 47

CHAPTER FOUR

Manufacturing Dissent 63

CHAPTER FIVE

A Modest Proposal 79

CHAPTER SIX

Mothers of Invention 95

CHAPTER SEVEN

Summer of Discontent 111

CHAPTER EIGHT

Red Tide 127

CHAPTER NINE

China Dreams 141

CHAPTER TEN

Meltdown 155

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The China Season 175

CHAPTER TWELVE

Road’s End 191

Epilogue 219

About the Author 229

Index 231

SARA BONGIORNI is a writer and journalist who has worked at news-papers and business publications in California and Louisiana. Her "beat" has included international trade and its impact on local economies. Bongiorni has won local, state, and national awards for her articles, including a 2002 Best in Business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for her part in a series on the impact of out-migration on the Louisiana economy. Bongiorni graduated from the University of California, San Diego, and holds a master's degree in journalism from Indiana University.

Praise for A Year Without "Made in China"

"A wry look at the ingenuity it takes to shun the planet's fastest-growing economy." — Bloomberg News

"A wry look at the ingenuity it takes to shun the planet's fastest-growing economy." —Bloomberg News

"The West's dependence on Chinese exports neatly summed up."—The Daily Telegraph

"What the year-long experiment did achieve was to switch on Bongiorni as a consumer and make her alive to the complexities and shifting power of the international economy." —Financial Times

"A fascinating and entertaining look at just how much of??a challenge an average consumer faces . . . to avoid buying Chinese goods."—Supply Management

"Bongiorni is a graceful, self-deprecating writer, and her comic adventures in self-imposed inconvenience cast an interesting sideways glance at the personal effects of globalism."—Publishers Weekly