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Editor’s
Note: This article
appeared in the online edition of the Newport News, VA dailypress.com
From Dalian to you.
October 5, 2008
Think of a product you use everyday. An electric razor. A laptop computer.
A television. A telephone. Your bed. Chances are, those products were not made
in the United States.
The electric razor? Made in China. Laptops? China. Televisions? China.
You get the picture. Take the Louis Phillip-style sleigh bed. It carries a
French name. It might contain wood products harvested in Asia, South America or
the United States. It's sold by countless furniture stores across the U.S.,
Europe and Asia. But where did it come from?
You guessed it: Made in China.
Dalian, China, to be exact, a burgeoning manufacturing hub east of Beijing
with a growing metro-area population of some 6.2 million people. Even though
you've probably never heard of it, the area's population would place it as the
fourth-largest metro area in the United States, behind New York, Los Angeles and
Chicago.
What explains the meteoric rise of Dalian? The answer is simple: cheap labor.
In Dalian, the minimum wage is about $95 a month. In contrast, a full-time
worker earning minimum wage in the U.S. makes more than $1,000 each month.
Dalian Huafeng Furniture Co. has been manufacturing furniture for more than 50
years. But it wasn't until 2000 that its U.S. export business took off and the
company shot into international prominence.
Its more than 10,000 employees at 20 factories can produce enough furniture to
fill 5,000 40-foot steel shipping containers each month.
Many workers are young people from small rural villages, drawn to Dalian for
higher-paying factory jobs. They live in small, dormitory-style apartments on
the company's complex. They work, live, eat and socialize within walking
distance of their factory jobs.
The city is home to China's northernmost ice-free port, and the country's
third-largest. It also boasts a large information technology manufacturing base
and garment factories, including one that made 1,800 uniforms for the 2008 U.S.
Olympic team.
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christopherqiu
shymadmin
