Yesterday I tried to buy a garlic press that wasn’t made in China.
Literally, anywhere but. After looking at Amazon listings for maybe 15 minutes, I could not find one.
And, to be clear, I don’t mean “made in the USA”. I mean, made in any country other than China.
But, among 20 Amazon listings examined, of the half that had explicit country-of-origin information, all of those were made in China.
Its not a huge surprise that I failed.
The only thing of interest was the breadth of the failure. China, Inc. doesn’t just cheaply mass-produce a single, widely-sold model. As might have been common perception in my youth. Today, by contrast, on Amazon, as searched below, China produces every make-and-model for which country of origin information is listed.
Source: Gencraft AI. The prompt was … Rosie the Riveter holding a garlic press.
Methods: (As if anyone cares.) Two searches on Amazon for “garlic press” (less the quotes) are shown below. Top is “featured”, which is how Amazon presents it to you, by default. And then sorted by (descending) average customer rating. (Other sorts were examined, but were uninteresting, e.g. cheapest first).
Aside from the occasional lemon (squeezer, N/A below), I slashed through those products for which China was explicitly listed as the country of origin, on Amazon. And question-marked the ones where nothing was listed, or only a coy “imported” or similar non-specific phrase was listed.
Featured by Amazon:
Sorted by top customer rating:
Of the listings for which explicit country-of-origin information was given, all said “China”. With red slashes above. With one exception (U.K.?) which turns to be an error. That’s actually made in China, but you have to work to ferret that out.
The bigger surprise was the about half the listings don’t show any country-of-origin information. Once upon a time, I thought there was a legal requirement of some kind, that anything sold retail, and not made in the U.S., must show country-of-origin information.
As with many things, I may mis-recall that. Or it’s one of the quaint laws from my youth that has been allowed to pass into irrelevance. Further, that might only strictly apply to the physical package. And may be unenforceable (see, e.g., Pur canning lids at Ace Hardware, Post (G22-002).
In any case, the device listed with the U.K. as country of origin was wrong. I finally tracked the same item down on the Williams-Sonoma website, where they plainly say that China is the country of origin. A letdown, for sure, but at least Williams-Sonoma didn’t dodge the issue.
No coy “imported” from Williams-Sonoma. They named names. That’s laudable, if perhaps not profit-maximizing.
Conclusion: Pardon my Future Shock.
Source: My back porch.
The results of my search are even more boring than they first look. Or scary, depending your your viewpoint. No shock that every (fill-in-the-blank) you can buy on Amazon is made in China.
But, having grown some garlic, I now would like to buy a device to let me use it without peeling it. (Fresh, I find it like-onto-impossible to peel it. As if peeling garlic were ever a pleasant chore to start with.) It appears that my sole option for a garlic press is to buy one manufactured in China. (Or get an ancient one in a thrift shop.)
Upshot: I can have any garlic press I want. As long as it’s made-in-China.
This is just a small contributor to my permanent state of Future Shock. Which, briefly, is an unsettled feeling due to the rapid rate of change of your own culture, by analogy to “culture shock”, for a displaced person. It is culture shock, but the culture I am unfamiliar with is my own.
(I think Future Shock is a good part of what drives Trumpism. But that’s for a different post. But trends are what they are, no matter how much you yack about them. U.S. coal industry employment, below:
Partly, I experience a lot of Future Shock just because I’m old. E.g., I will likely never get used to (e.g.,) electronic restaurant menus, to be read on-the-fly, on a phone.
But partly, it’s just plain weird out. Here in the U.S.A.. What passes for weather here. What passes for politics here. And so on.
Universal mandatory made-in-China is just a tiny part of that. Not the most disconcerting thing in my world. Not by a longshot. But it’s off-putting.
I’m stubborn enough that I’m going to check my local thrift shop(s) before I spend a dime on a made-in-China garlic press. Even a well-made-in-China press. Just because I’m old, I guess. I’ll see if I can find a functioning antique in my local thrift shop.
The Functioning Antiques. Great name for a rock band, as Dave Barry used to say.
