Mar. 23, 2005 - Issue #492: The Assassination of Richard Nixon
Beads of sweatshops
New Orleans trinkets are traced back to their tragic source in David Redmon's
Mardi Gras: Made in China
A matronly woman dressed like a Vegas showgirl leers suggestively into the
camera. Years of celebration are deeply etched into the painted features
beneath her dyed red hair. “You’ll sell your soul at Mardi Gras
for a strand of beads,” she laughs, fingering the plastic finery draped
around her neck. This is the final scene of David Redmon’s documentary
Mardi Gras: Made in China, screening at the
Anarchist Book Fair this Friday (March 25), and its impact is
staggering.
This exquisite final line is the culmination of an exposé of the
migrant Chinese labourers who assemble the trinkets for sale at New
Orleans’ annual bacchanal. Mostly women under 20 who earn up to $1.20
(U.S.) a day, the workers’ stories contrast sharply with those of the
factory owner who makes $2 million per year, the importer who makes up to $25
million per year and the young Americans who couldn’t care less where
their celebration’s accessories come from. Mardi Gras: Made in China
forces viewers to reconsider a renegade capitalist system that seeks the
lowest price regardless of human cost.
The result of five years’ work for David Redmon, the documentary, which
was an official selection at this year’s Sundance Festival, evolved
from subjects he explored in his Masters and Ph.D. dissertations. Redmon
bought his first video camera four weeks before his first visit to the Tai
Kuen Bead Factory in Fuzhou, China; he had no idea what to expect when he
arrived. Through his interviews, Redmon realized that he had touched upon a
story that needed telling, so he returned a few months after being kicked out
of the country for filming without a license. His second visit expanded on
the personal stories of the factory workers and included a labourer’s
visit home for the Chinese New Year celebration, as well as frank discussions
with the factory owner, Roger Wong.
“That Roger was quite a character,” says Redmon, his youthful
voice echoing with laughter over the phone. “I think he assumed I was
there to make a promotional video about his factory that I would show to
American businesses.” The preconception is a relief: otherwise,
Wong’s gleeful focus on strict discipline, drastic punishment and fines
for the slightest infraction paint him as an absurd ogre. Wong is proud of
his working conditions and high production targets, even boasting that he
uses 95 per cent female labour because they are easier to control. In fact,
Wong is so positive and affable that the viewer ends up wondering if the
factory could possibly be as bad as the workers claim. And they have a lot to
claim.
Running 24 hours a day, many of the machines lack even the simplest safety
features. Shifts are a minimum of 12 hours (and usually average 15 or 16).
The factory produces nearly 8,000 pounds of beads every day, and if a worker
doesn’t meet her quota, her pay is cut. She is fined for talking during
work hours and docked a month’s pay for having a male visitor in the
20-by-24-foot dorm room she shares with nine other women. Workers can only
leave the barbed-wire-enclosed compound on Sundays, and only if they are not
required to work.
Redmon says that it took a while to get the workers to open up to him.
“I could only interview people on their days off,” he reveals,
“and we would have to go to an isolated area of the compound.”
Slowly, after days of talking through interpreters, the women started to
reveal the real conditions at the factory. Each one extracted a promise from
Redmon, however: “They were terrified. They said that Roger [Wong] had
warned them I was coming and not to say anything bad. Each one begged me not
to show the footage to Roger, not to show anyone until after they had left
the factory.”
During the interviews, Redmon talks to a dispirited 18-year-old woman with no
plans for her future besides helping her younger brother go to school; a
14-year-old girl who never meets her quota is paid less than $1 a day to
paint ceramic Mardi Gras masks that sell for up to $20 each on the streets of
New Orleans. Somewhat unexpectedly, the documentary shows the workers coping.
Dancing together, playing cards and learning English in the few hours they
have to themselves, the workers demonstrate a stunning ability to adjust to
conditions that were eliminated from Western society so long ago. While
yearning for their families, the girls remember home life as boring and
oppressive. At the factory, they are able to relieve their parents of a
financial burden and even send money home while gaining experiences and
freedom they never would have enjoyed otherwise.
The film highlights a jagged contrast between the Chinese factory workers and
the partiers at Mardi Gras. The products of their bone-wearying labour are
bought 12 strands for a dollar or caught from one of the passing floats, then
bartered for flashes of tit-flesh or deep kisses from inebriated women. The
tradition started in 1978, and on the streets of New Orleans, there are an
estimated 1,000 exposures every three minutes. “It makes me
horny,” claims one reveler. Her friend agrees: “Yeah—all
that attention is on you!”
The funniest part of the documentary, though the comedy remains black, comes
when the factory workers are shown pictures of street scenes from Mardi Gras.
“You mean people expose themselves for the beads we make?” one
girl asks, almost collapsing with laughter. “They must love them very
much.” Another factory worker is more pensive. “On us these beads
are very ugly,” she whispers, “but on these Americans, they look
very beautiful.” The difference is seen as cultural: Chinese girls
would be ashamed to show their bodies in such a way, especially in exchange
for such cheap plastic beads.
Back on the streets of New Orleans, the last thing anybody wants to hear
about is the medieval conditions of the beads’ origins. During the
carnival, Redmon attracted attention by projecting interviews with the
workers onto the walls of the French Quarter. “Don’t bring my
conscience into this!” pleaded a partier from New York as he walked
away to barter his beads. “Ten cents an hour, for them, is a lot of
money,” said one MBA grad from the University of Florida, alleviating
his guilt. (The mean income in Fuzhou actually falls around 60 cents an hour
for an eight-hour day.) The brief twinges of conscience Redmon presents fade
quickly, however, and not a single interviewee gave up their beads.
According to Redmon, the original intent for the film was to convey
globalization from the perspective of the invisible workers. “At the
time I began the project, documentaries on globalization only showed talking
heads who said how good it was,” Redmon explains. “I wanted to
show and tell the other story.” He feels that he has met this goal, but
the results have far surpassed anything he had ever dreamed.
“About two years ago,” Redmon remembers, “I was working,
paying for everything, showing rough cuts of the film to anybody who would
watch. Anything I made went into translating more of the interviews. I sold a
copy for $20 to a couple who couldn’t make it to that night’s
screening. They watched it, came to the screening anyway, and three days
later sent me $5,000 to finish the project!” Redmon sent his tape to
the Sundance Festival two months later, never expecting his would be one of
the 16 documentaries selected from the United States. Since then, he has been
working on putting together a theatrical release of the film while responding
to the unprecedented attention his directorial debut is receiving.
Redmon is enthusiastic about his unexpected success and is eager to discuss
his next project. “I’m looking at the globalized concept of
intimacy as it’s portrayed in the Victoria’s Secret marketing
machine,” he explains. “Behind that, I’m exploring intimacy
from the perspective of the Mexican labourers who actually sew the
lingerie.” Redmon’s camera will continue to seek those who sell
their souls for a strand of beads or a scrap of silk, the global capitalists
who collect the fees and the invisible workers who pay the price.
V
Mardi Gras: Made in China
Anarchist Book Fair • Queen Alexandra Hall (10425 University Ave)
• Fri, Mar 26 (6pm)
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