The CEO of Change.org is also the director of engineering of the iPhone
Posted: February 10, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: adam cheyer, apple, change.org, china, factory, iphone, petition, working conditions Leave a comment »
I was doing a bit of snooping on the Change.org wikipedia entry today:
- Change.org currently have a great petition calling on Apple to improve working conditions of their iPhone factories in China.
- One of Change.org three CEOs is Adam Cheyer.
- Adam Cheyer is also co-founder of Siri and is currently a director of engineering in the iPhone group at Apple.
My mind = blown.
Image (cc) Tambako the Jaguar
Three slices of an Apple, in China
Posted: February 9, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: apple, china, e-waste, factories, foxconn, guiyu, iphone, mike daisey, this american life Leave a comment »
1 Foxconn factory where iPhones are produced 2 Apple iPhone 4S launch in Beijing 3 Phone parts for recycling in Zhejiang Province
China has such a weird relationship with the iPhone. The world is having major guilt pangs about their iPhone habit ever since This American Life did a piece about factory life in China. And there is currently a petition doing the rounds that has attracted over 200,000 signatures calling on Apple to name suppliers who have violated standards.
None of this has put the brakes on sales in China itself though.
Frankly, I feel sorrier for the poor bastards in Guiyu who live in mountains of e-waste, sorting through electronic trash that is imported from around the world, for recycling. Their working conditions and pay are far worse than Foxconn factory workers.
The iPhone comes full circle.
A peek into the office of Greenpeace Hong Kong
Posted: January 16, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: china, chinese environmentalists, environment, greenpeace, greenpeace east asia, greenpeace hong kong Leave a comment »I recently attended training at the Hong Kong branch of Greenpeace, and snapped some photos of my co-workers, who had also come from the Beijing and Taipei offices. The Hong Kong office is pretty funky – smooth concrete floor, open space office, big windows looking out over Hong Kong’s signature high rises. And the reception features a sculpture that spells out “anti-nuclear” in Chinese along with a stack of yellow nuclear cans.
The dude in the second photo, Miles, looks like the baddest mofo on the planet. But in reality is the gentlest most chilled guy I’ve ever met.
A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that the very large majority of staff in all the East Asia offices are locals, not foreigners. Yes, there are Chinese environmentalists, and they’re a very committed, talented and passionate bunch.
Chinese whispers
Posted: January 11, 2012 Filed under: TRAVEL, WORKS | Tags: china, chinatown, chinese culture, chinese food, feature, jetstar magazine, Sydney, travel Leave a comment »Jetstar Magazine
We go in search of Sydney’s secret tastes of China.
Hong Kong and Taiwan as “alternate reality Chinas”
Posted: January 9, 2012 Filed under: BLOG | Tags: china, chinese government, hong kong, june four, one country two systems, tiananmen massacre 1 Comment »Hong Kong and Taiwan. Previously regions of China, but at some point in the not so distant past, were split from the mainland and taken on different paths. Putting aside the regional cultures of Hong Kong and Taiwan, the two could stand as alternate reality Chinas. What would China have looked like had it embraced capitalism earlier? Had it chosen democracy at all?
At times Hong Kong doesn’t seem so different from China’s southern most province, Guangdong. They are both Cantonese, with Hong Kong the cashed up, cleaner, more fashionable cousin. But every now and then you see something that reminds you you are definitely not in the Mainland. Things like an Occupy protest. Things like this:
This is a monument to the hundreds (thousands? we’re still not sure) who died at Tian’an’men Square, on that fateful day, June 4, 1989.
When Hong Kong was handed back to the mainland in 1997, the Chinese government promised she would be governed with a ‘one country, two systems‘ mentality – or at least for the next fifty years. But as China’s economic might has grown, so too has the financial ties between Hong Kong and the rest of the country. Rather than by force, it is a glimmering river of cash that is bringing a long-lost relative back into the fold.
What will be the fate of Hong Kong’s clean human rights record and freedom of press? I predict we will see one of two things:
1. The monument to the victims of the Tian’an’men Square massacre currently erected in Hong Kong University (HKU) will be quietly removed.
2. In addition to the one at HKU, a monument to the victims of the Tian’an’men Square massacre will be erected in Peking University and other universities around the country.
For those of you who have trouble understanding the Chinese government’s incredible sensitivity regarding Tian’an’men, think of it like this. The government is like a heavy handed patriarch, who, in seeing his children come of age – ready to leave their nest and take control of their own destiny – freaked out and decided the reasonable reaction was to kill/imprison their children.
The patriarch is now extremely bitter about these children he considered wayward. Not to mention very sensitive about the issue – the slightest mention will set him off. He is also extremely paranoid and obsessed with control over the remaining children. He is determined to infantalise them by only letting them know as much as he feels they need to so that they remain in the house and under thumb.
Remains to be seen if Hong Kong will have any influence on the future of the mainland.
