Apr 26

Made in China: Inside Our Factory’s Toy Museum

Posted:    Monday, April 26, 2010 in Made In China
   April 26, 2010 11:53 AM 
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Apologies to any folks who were looking forward to a bit more coverage from our trip: we’ve been quite preoccupied running around both Hong Kong and China and we’ve hardly had a moment to blog.

Anyhow, last Thursday we went to visit one of the factories we work with in China. They had just begun production on our Little Giants sculptures, and we were actually able to see most of the process. While I’ll save the photos and explanation of that stuff for later this week or early next, right now I’m happy to offer a glimpse into the factory’s trophy room. Over the years they’ve kept a literal museum of most/some of their products, including a number of thirty-plus-year-old toys they made for the Japanese market.

But I mean these guys had everything — from LeBron James action figures to Popeyes and an old-school Fred Flintstone. The absolute gems however were the silver Mega Men Ultraman characters shown above on the top shelf.

Many thanks to Terrance for his hospitality and for showing us around. Look below to check out our favorite toys from the museum. More stuff to come…

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  • http://www.enginenumber09.com jonny

    hey, i think you mean Ultraman, not mega man. At least all of the silver toys were ultramen….stuff.

    but I love these odd ultraman toys…

  • Christopher N. Jones

    Working conditions for the Chinese workers making these toys? Wages? Ability to unionize or otherwise influence their place in the production process?

  • J*Rock

    Christopher, you can actually see the conditions in the factory for your yourself in this post: http://thejailbreak.com/2010/05/03/feature-made-in-china-little-giants-come-to-life/

    While the work is ridiculously repetitive, it is not torturous by any stretch, if that’s what you’re wondering. Overall, I’d say the conditions are decent. The wages are the standard Chinese factory wage of about $150 a month plus overtime. Housing and meals are covered by the factory and medicine is covered by the state. Unionizing in China is forbidden so that’s off the table but the owner of the factory – a very nice guy in his late 30′s- walks the floor every day and collects worker input.

    It’s very easy to maintain stereotypes about the Chinese factory system as a brutal machine of oppression but the fact is that that is a gross oversimplification of the truth. What gets lost in that line of thinking is the understanding of a culture and an economic model that’s vastly different to ours. The fact that it’s different does not necessarily mean that it is inferior or inhumane.

    Remember, they’re trying to keep 1.3 billion people fed and employed over there. It’s hard to understand the enormity of that figure and its implications until you go to China. And, by the way, it’s not too hard for the Chinese to look at our model right now and say that we don’t know how to keep our workers employed, housed, or healthy. It’s all relative.