The Chinese candy bar wrapper atop our Christmas tree

We weren’t planning on doing much to observe Christmas this year until our son and daughter-in-law informed us they are flying in on Christmas Eve with our 21-month-old grandson. That jingled our bells big-time.

Step one was to procure a Christmas tree. Here in south Florida, that means an artificial one. I went online to read up on fake trees (polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene? prelighted or unlighted? metal hinges or plastic? incandescent or LED bulbs?) then visited half a dozen stores to find one that ticked all my boxes. I came home with a pre-lit nine-footer sold under the Martha Stewart brand name.

When I opened the box I was surprised to find something had been inserted between the top and bottom flap, a candy bar wrapper that, when I sniffed it, still smelled faintly of chocolate. It was printed in Chinese: Ms. Stewart, like every capitalist who hawks fake Christmas trees, has hers made in China.

As I assembled the tree, I found myself wondering about the person who slipped that wrapper into the box. It was, I assume, the worker responsible for the final step in the manufacturing process, taping the box shut.

Was that person a he or a she? Young or old? When did it happen? Last month? Last year? Did the wrapper wind up in the box because the worker was careless? Or was it placed there deliberately? Does the factory forbid workers from eating on the job and, not knowing what to do with the wrapper when a supervisor was approaching, did the worker stash it between the flaps to avoid being reprimanded?  

I can only guess.

The one time I was in China, in 1996, I toured a factory that was on the itinerary of a marketing association whose annual meeting I was attending in Hong Kong. We boarded a bus, were driven over the border –  Hong Kong was still British so our passports were carefully checked by armed customs officials –  and taken to a fancy country club for lunch. We then visited the factory, a grey, windowless building where dozens of young women were seated at row after row of sewing machines, poking holes in the heads of cheap rubber dolls through which workers in the next room were to weave strands of plastic hair. Guards stood watch at each door, a grim reminder to the workers that they weren’t free to come and go. We were later told the majority of the factory’s employees were from northern China and had migrated south, where most of the country’s factories are located, to find jobs. In return for working 12 hours a day, six days a week and living in cramped dormitory-styled housing owned by the factory, they could earn money to send home to their families. 

I don’t know if conditions in Chinese factories have changed much since then – I hope so – but have always remembered the workers at that doll factory and wondered what became of them. They’re middle-aged by now. Are they still working at the same factory? If so, do they still spend 12 hours a day poking holes in rubber doll heads or have they moved on to something else?

While many if not most of the presents we Americans will be unwrapping next week come from China, it’s important to keep in mind that the workers who make the smart phones, computers, toys, TVs, games and other gizmos we will be giving and getting are subjects of a totalitarian government that has little regard for them.

There’s no freedom of speech, the media is strictly censored, there are few safety nets for the poor or disabled, and hundreds of thousands of children languish in orphanages because, until recently, a woman who had more than one child was subject to arrest so unplanned babies were abandoned. My niece and her husband eight years ago adopted one of those babies, a malnourished two-year-old who had been left on an orphanage doorstep. Today that little girl, who probably has the highest IQ of anyone in our extended family, lives in a big rambling house, attends church services with a former president, is enrolled in an exclusive private school, plays the violin like a pro, earns straight As, and is doted upon by parents who will always make sure she has the best of everything. Her family’s gain came at the expense of a frightened mother who may well work in a factory like the one that made our tree and will never know what happened to that baby she left on the doorstep.  

Once my wife had trimmed the tree, we added a final decoration to one of its highest boughs -- a crumpled-up Chinese candy bar wrapper that will remind us, as we watch our grandson play with his new Chinese-made toys under our Chinese-made tree on Christmas morning, how lucky we Americans are.

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