American Factory

Jesus fucking Christ watching that today set my teeth on edge for a couple of reasons;

1 - Chinese corporations are the epitome of neoliberalism.

2 - Working class people voting against Unionisation is inexplicably stupid.

There's so much to say about this. From the politicians who made it so that jobs would go overseas, to the shareholders and corporations (who will often call themselves patriots) who shuttered the factories in America to open elsewhere with lax safety standards so they could make higher profits while blue collar workers suffered, to the billionaire foreign investors who come back to reopen factories while paying slave wages and expecting American workers to work in unsafe conditions, to the Judas Americans who lick those billionaire boots and suppress unionization efforts.

The politicians and corporations have squandered the quality of life and workers rights that were won with literal blood and it's a goddamn shame that we Americans let our slight differences divide us so that we could be conquered. The greedy people at the top won't be satisfied until we're putting nets around buildings (to catch people commiting suicide) like at Foxconn in Shenzhen.

Vote for workers rights, hold politicians accountable, think critically, and tell the robber barons of all ilks that you are a human and you don't exist simply to funnel money up to the top while only making enough to survive and come back to work.

Run-on sentences for workplace justice! 😂

I realize this is vaguely tied to PLCs (manufacturing in general) and we have a international presence here.

It’s a good documentary about a shutdown automotive plant that was bought out by a Chinese company and transitioned into an automotive glass supplier. Really highlights the differences between the cultures.

As an American who has worked on projects all over world, I’ve experienced these cultural differences a lot. I always found it amazing on how poorly operators were treated in SE Asia.

I've always grown up thinking that the reason the factories left was that other countries were more productive and had cheaper labor. I've always just connected Unions to that fact. Unions continue to ask for higher wages and then eventually the company (GM) just gets fed up and leaves. After not having that mentioned in the documentary American Factory (a film following the journey of our glass factory here in town) I wanted to ask if anyone was under the same assumption. The film was very good at not playing Unions up or shooting them down. The film was mostly interviewed and I liked that. However, it did bring up a point for unions that I had never considered before. Towards the end of the film, the Chinese Glass Company fired the top American managers. This left mostly Chinese people in managerial positions. Language and Culture barriers are hard. Americans working at the company felt like their managers weren't listening to their complaints. During this part of the documentary my brain was like "wow, this might actually be a situation where a Union is needed." I've always blamed Unions for the empty factories in Dayton. However, this is where I open the table to you.

Are Unions to blame for the empty factories in Dayton?

Is there a scenario where Unions can be good?

Do any of you work in the glass factory and how is your experience?

This article is a review of the new Netflix documentary "American Factory" which I haven't seen, but seems to get into Yang's territory of expertise. The Politico article could use some thoughtful attention from the Yanggang, imo.

This is a great documentary on the future of the American Factory.

In the final shots of Netflix’s new labor documentary, which follows the plight of workers at a Chinese-owned glass factory in Dayton, Ohio, a manager proudly presents to the company’s CEO his newest employee: a mechanical arm, swiveling and nimbly picking up a sheet of glass. “I’m going to get rid of four workers here,” the manager gleams. “We can’t get the work done now. They are too slow.”

The portentous scene gives way to on-screen text that encapsulates the open-ended question posed by the movie—and by the modern-day working world. “Up to 375 million workers globally will need to find entirely new jobs by 2030 because of automation,” the script reads. “How workers, governments, and businesses tackle these seismic shifts will define the future of work.”

Some chinese to english translation choices might make certain comments in the film sound far more offensive. The differences might be small, but we all know that small hiccups in communication can create huge misunderstandings. Small differences can change the tone of a sentence, and tone changes intention, and intention changes meaning. I speak mandarin chinese fluently, but I am not chinese, and I do not support the chinese government, especially with what’s happening in Hong Kong right now. I believe political freedom should be a basic human right. Anyways, hopefully, we’ll all understand and treat each other better eventually.

Spoiler alert.

At 13:27, a chinese supervisor tells the bossman that american workers are not as efficient, and offers his explanation that it’s because “他們手指頭比較粗” which is translated by the film to “they have fat fingers”. The explanation doesn’t make much sense btw. But, “粗” means thick, and “比較粗” means thicker. There’s a different word for fat, “肥”. A better translation would be “they have thicker fingers.” Obviously, “fat” means thick within the context, and this is probably how it would have been said in english. But I don’t know. “They have fat fingers” just sounds so much worse than “they have thicker fingers”.

At 1:13:42, during a training session, a supervisor quotes a common chinese saying “人都是順毛驢”, which means “all people are like donkeys who prefer to be touched in the direction their hair grows”. This is a saying that can be applied to people in general, from your difficult mother-in-law at home to a stubborn boss at work. But the translation completely ignores the “all people are(人都是)” part, and makes it sound like an insult. What he’s trying to say is that we human beings are all stubborn and don’t like to be challenged directly, as a general rule. He is not trying to insult Americans by calling them donkeys. I mean, what kind of insult starts with all people are? "You are stupid" is an insult. "All people are stupid" is not an insult. Although to be fair, he probably should have avoided using an idiom involving donkeys all together, because it’ll likely cause misunderstandings. Anyways, it just sounds so incredibly condescending with the subtitles provided by the documentary. Idioms are very difficult to convey across languages and cultures.

At 1:13:45, the same supervisor says “在美國這個地方, 哄死人不成”, which means “Here in America, you can not flatter someone to death.” But the subtitle is “Americans love being flattered to death.” See the difference? Prior to the sentence, he talks about how Americans are raised with MOSTLY encouragement(he does NOT say “SHOWERED with encouragement” btw) and thus Americans are overly confident (I do not agree with the sentiment, but it shows cultural differences). And then he says “Here in America, you can not flatter someone to death.” Judging from the context, he thinks Americans are more comfortable accepting compliments because they are more confident in themselves. Thus “you can not flatter someone to death”. IMO, this is very different from saying “Americans love being flattered to death”, which is a direct criticism. Also remember how due to cultural differences, the american employees in the film feel rather unappreciated("no pat on the back"), the speaker is actually trying to get the chinese employees to use more encouragement when interacting with their american colleagues.

At 1:14:11, still the same person says “We need to use our wisdom to guide them and help them, because we are better than them”. First of all, What he actually says is “因為我們比他們強”, which could have been translated to “because we are stronger(more competent) than them”. “強” literally means strong, and could be understood as strong in methods/techniques within the context, hence can be translated to competent as well. Although “better” is not necessarily wrong. It is a tough one. And I don't blame the translators. Anyways, I think when someone says “we are better”, the wording assumes an unquestionable tone of superiority. On the other hand, “we are stronger/more competent”, while still implies better, is more descriptive and situational, and definitely less condescending or racist. Also bear in mind that the chinese were trying to replicate the success they had already achieved back home, and it likely gave them some ground to believe that the veteran workers they brought over were more experienced and competent. And a group of veteran chinese workers are whom the speech is addressed to. So it's entirely possible that when he says "we", the speaker's referring to the veteran workers in their place, like "We veteran workers at Fuyao are more competent. So we veteran workers should guide the new workers." Although it is still possible that he might actually mean "We chinese people are more competent". But I don't think we should read in anyone's words without context.

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These are the ones that I noticed while watching the movie the first time. There might be more.

I think the documentary overall did a pretty good job telling stories from both sides. But it makes me sad that the inaccurate translations might leave a more-bitter-than-it-should-have-been taste in the american viewer’s mouth. It’s especially unfortunate because the goal of the film is furthering mutual understanding, not the other way around. If the chinese people appeared on the film knew their words would have sounded much worse than they intended, maybe they would have said it differently or not at all. They do seem to believe that American workers are lazier though, which is sad, because they don’t see it as themselves sacrificing way way way too much for a company which puts profit over the quality of life of the workers. It’s disturbing to see the chinese exploiting their own people. It’s also disturbing to see how ready the american upper-management were to apply the same methods on American soil.

EDIT: I made a new account for this post, because I didn’t feel comfortable having sensitive topics under my old account. But then I realized that brand new accounts can’t comment in certain subreddit. So I commented with my old account too. It dawned on me that it looked suspicious after someone mentioned that the same comment was posted by different accounts. My bad.

Also sorry for copying and pasting the same message in the comment under different threads. It hurts me to see more divides in this world. And I really want people to understand each other better. I’m not yet sure how to get the words out without spamming the same message or how to fix the two accounts situation.