How about that for a cop-out of admitting that Made-in-Chinaness is inevitable? So yes, I’ve just purchased this lovely Chargrill grill/smoker:

I read that using a charcoal grill is a horror, but the idea of having my own magical slow-cooking smoked magic meat was way too enticing. If anyone has some tricks to make this supposedly steep learning curve a bit more acute, help a sister out.

**Note: This grill will make its grilling debut this Sunday, June 15 at my house for a bbq bonanza. Come one, Come all Ohioans!

So I didn’t really make any purchases this past week – the things I did buy (mostly groceries) were all China-free. I learned that the plastic container my mushrooms came in was made in Canada. eh?

I am, however, investing in a grill this week. We shall see if my China-free living can span into the third week of June. In the meantime, read this somewhat related article on Eco-labelling in Europe.

I just finished reading the June issue of Fast Company, which includes an extensive series of articles on China’s infiltration of Africa (which has been going on for a while) to establish optimal resource-guzzling relationships to supplement their own dwindling supply. A good majority of the dwindling is done by consumption of Chinese products by other countries, namely the US (surprise, surprise). Perhaps the scariest part is that China is kicking everyone’s ass in developing these relationships due to how well they understand (or cater to) the needs of these African nations. They don’t care about “spreading Democracy,” instead they care about supporting whatever that country needs – whether they agree with it or not – to form an alliance. Our American Ideals sure are paying off now, eh?

Also – buying products made in China is not only damaging on the raw resources end – it takes quite a bit of resources to then get products from China to the US (namely that “oil” stuff everyone is talking about these days). This then makes for more greenhouse gas emissions and may or may not contribute to global warming (depending on your view of that, which I’m really not getting into) – but it most certainly makes for an unpleasant haze on the horizon.

So, I’ve decided to try and be China-free for a little while. There have already been observations on how difficult it would be to do this, so I am doing this more as a study to personally see how my seemingly-aware consumerism is affected when the manufacturer is in question. Originally, I was going to shoot for a month of China-freeness, however Dan laughed at the idea, so I figured it more reasonable to try for a week and go from there. So here goes – June 1, 2008 = Day 1.