[AlexGuitel]

somebodyfamous, Neha,
What ever suits you is fine.
The good news is that we live in a democratie, free of what we think, free of what we buy, eat, not buy or not eat.

One last thing and I'll be out of this conversation way out of my hands: There is cases of salmonela, people dying because vegetables are grown with chimicals or infected waters. There is cases of toys which parts have been ingested by children and have caused them intestinal perforations. There is cases like this. It's not everybody, not every farmer, not every factory worker, not every toy but there is problems in China, probably more in China than in other countries right now and there is problems very probably because of the need to emerge as a competitive and leading country on the internationnal trading scene.
And sorry to tell you that I dont need to visit a chinese factory to know that there is good & bad in this trading country policy's. There is just maybe more good and more bad overthere than in other country because of the competition.

Good luck & see you in Toy'rus one of these days :-)

[Neha]

For all those people who want to avoid made in china products

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Without-M...7338412&sr=8-1

[mscheerful]

seconded Neha

[Matty]

It's not that we don't want to buy products from China, we just want them to be safe.

Everyone loses in these situations, espescially the Chinese.
I saw some news footage of some very nervous factory workers, who are terrified that they will lose there jobs, and be unable to feed their families because of this debacle.

Of course I have products in my home that come from China, I'm just selective about what those products are.

[somebodyfamous]

Alex, just a sidetrack thought but wasn't there a lot of salmonella poisoning scare in the US recently because of food contamination of US grown food? I guess the safest thing is to grow our own vegetables

[bekyboo44]

It would be pretyt impossible to avoid completely products made in China....especially toys, as I believe pretty much all the world's toys are now made in China.

Despite Mattel obviously having made some mistakes I think it's still ok to buy from brand name companies- because at least they admit when there's a problem and toys are recalled.
I never buy toys from the markets in HK because you just don't know where they've been made and by who, and if there is something wrong with them, who's making sure something is done about it!

I agree with Matty- I have nothing personally against China (I have some issues with the way their govt. works, but that's another debate) and am happy to buy Chinese products as long as I can trust that they are safe!
It is difficult however to know what is safe when the factories and Chinese government do what they can to hush up and hide food, toy scares etc.

So IMO it is a good thing that Mattel finally got on top of whatever problems the factories their toys were having and hopefully have done something about it. I have no intention of throwing away all my sons Mattel and Fisher Price toys, or of never buying their toys again if made in China because to me it's unnecessary. I trust that Mattel care enough about their customers, and if not, then care enough about their brand image and ability to keep selling toys and making money enough to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I think you can ask a playgrp/kindergarten to make sure they have no recalled toys on their premises but to ask them to get rid of every toy made in China, or every Mattel/Fisher Price toy is too much- they'll be left with no toys!

Wouldn't it be nice to grow our own vegetables? But land is rather hard to come by in HK, and I don't think much grows very well in the HK soil, hence why everything is imported. We also have a govt. that is rather anti agriculture!

[bexterHK]

i threw away all of the painted plastic toys that i found in my son's toybox -- regardless of the manufacturer and/or recall status. mattel was honest enough to recall their defective toys. but who is to say that many other western brands don't have the same problem but just don't admit it!

[Neha]

U do get organic home grown vegetables in HK. There are farms out there. There is a store on Caine road selling HK grown vegatables.That way u could be eating safe products and also doing your bit for the local economy.