China Blue

I watched the screening of China Blue and this film changed my life.

I am by no means a person who does not keep up with the world and its issues, and I am still in shock by my ignorance of the working conditions in third world countries.

According to Micha, this movie did not even reflect the worst and I am disgusted by the inhumanity that backs these factories. Young, innocent women being taking advantage of because they don't know better.

There is absolutely no excuse for this, and somebody needs to put a stop to it. Because the corporations profit from this cheap labor, it is our responsibility, as consumers, to speak up. Afterall, corporations are driven by money, and the money relies on the consumer's purchases.

I have done some research on what organizations exist that are trying to regulate these working conditions. Unfortunately, it is not easy to have a voice, but I am very interested in getting involved with this issue.

Again, it is solely China Blue that is driving me to make a change. If more people would watch this movie, perhaps they would want to take initiative as well.

The movie was shown at our school just two Thursdays ago, May 14th, to kick off the Southwest Labor Studies Association's 35th Annual Conference with this year's theme revolving around the Labor's Role at the Grassroots Level. The director, Micha Peled, was there to watch it with us and to discuss it afterwords. The clip that you saw at Columbia University was about a girl in a sweat shop making clothes, yes, but her name was not Jasmine. Here's the thing, Micha Peled would send clips back to the use for editing during his first unlicensed filming in China. Him and his crew were finishing up the making of this film "a couple of years ago" and went to this girl's house (I think her name meant Little Fish) to finish up the final scenes, but they were caught by the Chinese police and all of their film was confiscated and his crew was thrown in jail. Therefore, they had to start from scratch, in a whole new factory, with different characters, dodging and ducking police even more so than before. This non-fictional documentary is incredibly eye opening and gives faces to the trials and tribulations of the Chinese sweat shop workers. You should feel ridiculous for not doing your research.

This is extraordinary movie we all must see about what we close our eyes and ears to - the exploitation of people for our consumer products. Very well made and a real breakthrough in documentary. Micha the director and his assistant Song Chen went to great difficulties to make this movie. Not easy to do this in China. Very raw story and its not a story - its Truth. We can do something by contacting manufacturers of denim jeans who participate in the exploitation by ignoring it. The movie is not about China or about the young women its about the dangers and disasters that impact consumerism done without thinking with ignorance

goddessfan

I saw this documentary at the Toronto International Film Festival 2005. This is an excellent documentary portraying the lives of textile workers in China. It puts a human face on the workers who make the blue jeans we wear (hence the name "China Blue"), and makes us stop and think about the products we consume.

As a teacher, I think this documentary would work well in enlightening students on the topics of international worker exploitation and the global reach of capitalism. It brings home the ideas that our Western consumer practices actually touch the lives of individual workers in sweat shops around the world. Since the factory workers are primarily teenage girls, a student audience should easily identify with their needs and desires, hopes and dreams, and frustrations and hardships.

I saw this movie at a private screening organized by the producer. It doesn't stint on the complexity of the causes for the really long hours worked by Chinese factory workers. In one amazing scene, we see the factory owner negotiating with an English buyer. The buyer threatens to take his order elsewhere if the owner doesn't come down on price. I came away from this film thinking that complaining about "sweatshop" conditions in Chinese factories is simplistic. That's not what I thought before seeing this film. I also liked the long sweep of the story of one of the factory workers--from village to Shenzhen--and the detailed view of factory life in the dormitories of the workers. The movie makers got great access; they must have spent a lot of time on it.