As a 14 year-old, my family migrated to the People’s Republic of China (in February 1991), back when China was an afterthought in the world economy and communism was crumbling around the world.
I was lucky enough to attend the #55 Middle School in Beijing, China, where I befriended other international students in a Chinese public school intentionally segregated so non-Chinese students couldn’t mix with Chinese ones. (Perhaps my Public Enemy cassette tapes didn’t sit well with local authorities?)
Essentially, #55 Middle School was the school for poorer international students in Beijing – i.e., the ones from countries or backgrounds that couldn’t afford the expensive American International School. (My parents were teaching English at a college in Beijing, and it paid enough for food and four bikes; so no private schooling for my sister and me. But we did get free room and board at the Friendship Hotel.)
This experience changed my life more than anything else. This little Minnesotan lad was now sharing classes with the Somali Ambassador’s son, who lived in an embassy no longer representing any government (it had collapsed).
I became great friends with the Yugoslav students – all of them. Unfortunately, I was also there when Slovenia, Croatia, and other states announced their independence from Yugoslavia. At lunch one day I stood in horror as my two (now) “Serbian” friends pummeled my (now) “Croatian” friend into near unconsciousness. In hindsight, it makes me morbidly curious what actually happened behind the embassy walls when they all returned home that evening.
But nothing compared to the North Korean students. Let’s leave it at:
“The dear leader invented LPs and therefore LPs are better than western CDs, because they are bigger, sound better, and they were invented by our very own dear leader.” (paraphrased)
Who am I to disagree with that logic? After all, the current President of my country claims to be making America an economic powerhouse again and bringing manufacturing back at an unprecedented clip. And I have some friends and family that believe him.
I’ve resigned to the fact that people will believe what they want to believe. So be it. It’s the way we are programmed. Facts don’t really matter in most cases – much to the consternation of many people who fashion themselves as scientists.
The point is this: it was the China experience that solidified for me that the world is a much bigger place than what national governments try to frame it as.
- People are awesome and quirky no matter where they are from.
- Everyone is just trying to survive and improve their lot in life based on their given social and environmental context.
- Communism tends to lead to shoddy housing solutions such as the Friendship Hotel.
- Most people, when given the choice, choose autos over biking, i.e., Beijing ditched its 12 million bicycles for cars almost immediately.
- Nationalism is daft (i.e., Marx is right that it is a idea-meme used to manipulate the masses against one another, in my humble estimation).
But most importantly, the concept of American Exceptionalism and American economic superiority that many of my contemporary neighbors and colleagues in the US carry about with pride feels irrational. Because it’s not true. And that’s why this day irked me when I saw it on the calendar; because why shouldn’t I buy products from other countries? In fact, I may have more close friends living in other countries than here (as shown in my best friend map earlier.) It seems like a banal and juvenile day compared to others like… well… okay, some others but not compared to Banana Cream Pie Day… that one was daft too.
Over the past 20 years, America lost manufacturing dominance at an incredible pace. There literally isn’t much that’s made in America for me to buy anymore – aside from WeatherTech car mats. (And my rusty, Canadian-built Chevy Sonic hatchback already has a set of those.)
In 1991, China was a less-developed country running on coal bricks and manual elbow grease. The stores used abacuses at checkout. The country represented a tiny amount of overall global manufacturing.
Today… the entire world – including the US, as today’s map shows – depends on China’s manufacturing capabilities.
So, before we celebrate Made in the USA Day, I want to give a shoutout to China for the most epic, unimaginable economic turnaround in modern history. It’s been breathtaking to see it happen in my lifetime.
Now, with that out of the way: Happy Made in the USA Day.
(I reckon those who celebrate today should enjoy it now, because it may continue to become more and more difficult to celebrate as the years go on, unless the current President is speaking the truth, in which case I stand corrected.)
Post Script
A note to any former North Korean peers at #55 Middle School who are out there. I want to give you all a shout-out, because you were absolutely right and I was wrong. I can’t vouch for who invented the darn things, but LPs are better than CDs.
Today vinyl outsells CDs globally, and very few of these are pressed in the US.
Strategic economic brilliance by the DPRK! I tip my Vietnam-made baseball cap.
WebMapGPT Prompt (with design schema attached) Try this tool here
Tomorrow is “Made in the USA” day. I would like to make a map for this day showing just how much US manufacturing has declined since 1990 or 2000 compared to the rest of the world.
Please take a look at the dataset and come up with several good design concepts to highlight US manufacturing decline compared to the rest of the world as a map – perhaps even a centroid-based multi-temporal cartogram if that is a thing? Then we will proceed to create the map.
Also, I’m experimenting with designing maps based on pre-built schemas. For this one, I would like us to try and design the map like a 1970s Soviet Propaganda map. I’ve attached the schema to try and help you as you come up with a map concept. Thank you!
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Note: I’ve added the same datasets twice. One is a “wide” version and one is a “long” version. We will likely only need one, but we have options. 🙂
Spatial Dataset Doctor Prompt (to create the dataset) Try this tool here
I would like to make a satirical, poignant map for Made in America Day showing just how much US manufacturing has collapsed since the early 1990s until now. Or perhaps even earlier…