Post #457801 by The Gnomon on Mon, Jun 1, 2009 7:27 AM

I learned how to eat with chopsticks about the same time I learned how to eat with a fork (11 o'clock I think). Chinese food has been part of my diet since infancy actually. I don't plan on giving that up any time soon. Decades ago I began studying martial arts and have many years' experience studying arts of the Japanese, Okinawan, Burmese, and Chinese systems. In the Chinese system, I practice a southern style kung-fu and a northern style taijiquan. Probably once a month I'll visit the local Asian markets to pick up hard-to-find ingredients. I spent some time in Beijing in 1996... Suffice it to say, I have no qualms about buying things made in China, especially, if I want lead in my paint and msg in my food.

The reason you find so much stuff all over the world made in China is because companies from other countries hire them to make it all. I wouldn't dis the Chinese for making and selling any of it. If the same things could be made at reasonable cost in the US, far less would be farmed out. For the most part, stuff made in the US is of higher quality than the same stuff made elsewhere. When price is not a consideration, I go for the higher quality. Usually, that means buying US, but not always. The US essentially invented free enterprise. If US companies want to let other countries beat us at our own game, well... that's one of the options in free enterprise.