Could YOU pull off a Christmas without buying anything made in China? Xmas Without China (2013)

➡ The 2013 film “Xmas without China” is a social experiment where Tom, a Chinese immigrant turned American citizen, challenges a family to celebrate Christmas without using anything made in China. The film explores the difficulties and costs of avoiding Chinese products, such as the high price of non-Chinese Christmas lights. It also highlights the family’s struggle to adapt, with the father eventually breaking the rules to retrieve his Xbox from storage. The film provides a unique perspective on the reliance of American consumers on Chinese goods and the complexities of globalization.
➡ The text discusses a family’s attempt to avoid using products made in China, especially during Christmas. This experiment was challenging due to the prevalence of Chinese goods, and it led to increased costs and stress. However, it also sparked a deeper understanding of consumerism and the true meaning of holidays like Christmas. The experience seemed to have a lasting impact on the family, particularly the children, who became more aware of where their goods come from.
➡ The text discusses a man using video games as a coping mechanism after his mother’s death, which others find inappropriate. The story evolves, suggesting he might be realizing his behavior. The text also critiques a documentary for not providing enough factual evidence and being more like a reality show. The documentary’s message is perceived as highlighting the difficulty of avoiding Chinese goods, even if desired, due to convenience and cost.
➡ The text talks about a comic on NASAcomic.com that suggests Stanley Kubrick, a famous director, was involved in staging the Apollo space missions. The comic is recommended for fans of Kubrick, comics, or conspiracy theories. The text also includes a rap verse with themes of struggle, success, and defiance.

All of these news reports are like made in China Made in China Made in China. Under the docks yeah under the docks Buried deeper we breaking the locks. They collect the dots under the docks under the docks, yeah under the docks. Ho ho, ho Merry docsmiths Under the docks Paranoid American Sean Chris where we watch the documentaries and tell you if you should or shouldn’t watch it. Jingle, jingle baby yeah, we’re make. We’re making a list, we’re checking it twice and we’re going to tell you which documentaries are worth watching. Xmas without China 2013 film directed by Alice Dwayne and narrated by Tom G.

But I, I don’t know how to pronounce Tom’s real name. That’s just his American name. Just so like people know Tom is a now American citizen. I believe this film dives into. I thought it was important that we got this one around the Christmas time and it’s from 2013. And it’s always good to go back and see what was going on in this film. It’s like a social experiment where Tom coming from China, being a Chinese citizen, becoming American citizen. And they’d say that towards the end, spoiler alert, he grabs a family and wants to see if they can live Christmas one Christmas season without anything made in China.

And that’s pretty much the premise of the whole film. Well, the catalyst too is that he’s watching pretty much Fox News, but it was any of the mainstream news at the time. And they’re all freaking out about these toys from China that have lead in the paint or that they’ve got these toxic chemicals. And he’s watching these and in his mind he’s like, man, the American public is just all worked up about these Chinese toys are going to kill their babies. And his dad is sitting there next to him, his super Chinese dad, right? Like they’re straight immigrants.

Like he’s a first generation immigrant to America. And his dad’s like, why are they hating on China? China doesn’t have bad stuff. So I was also like, I don’t know, guy. I mean, maybe, maybe the reason why there’s so much manufacturing over there is because they don’t, they don’t have to the guys to check to make sure doesn’t have. So anyways, the premise of the movie is that Tom goes out and he’s like, all right, if everyone’s freaking out about China, let’s find someone. And he puts these flyers together saying, we’re looking for someone that’s going to celebrate Christmas without anything from China.

Including anything that’s already in your house has got to go. Plotting the course. Now this is going to be some crazy terrain because it’s not our typical breaking down analysis of like, hey, boom, claim, claim, point, point, right? It was more like a social experiment. That’s how I kind of looked at it as. And I like the film direction, like at first, like where they’re trying to find the family, like as you spoke earlier, like, they’re trying to find somebody that’s willing to do this because he’s kind of feeling like pride, like, hey man, like, you know, China has a lot of good products.

His dad’s telling him, like, hey man, you know, they can’t live without China. Like, you know how much, how important we are. Like, so you seeing these two perspectives of like the Americans of like, what? We don’t make anything, man, anymore. And, and then like, but the other guy, like, China’s not as bad. They’re not. There’s not lead in everything, you know, so on this one there wasn’t as many points. But one of the points I thought that was interesting is, is the fact of having the perspective of the American citizen and then the guy that’s transitioning from Chinese citizen to American citizen as well as having the first generation immigrant.

It’s. The thoughts are pretty interesting. I liked how they spoke about China and it made me think of like, this was 12 years ago and think of how different it is now. Well, it’s the sort of the same mentality now though, of like, we need to stop buying everything from China and we need to. So in this movie they do a really good job of, okay, here’s what that looks like. Let’s say that you were gonna go cold turkey. No, China. It’s not even that. And one of the examples comes, the first one that comes up are the Christmas lights.

The guy has to go out and buy Christmas lights for the house. And normally when you go to Target or Walmart or Dollar Store, wherever you would go, Amazon and just order whatever lights were suggested, right? Well, 99 of those things, they’re going to come from China in some capacity. Either the, the gel that covers the lights and makes them color, the light itself, the plastic housing, the wiring, some part of this is likely coming from China. They, they actually find lights, but they have to get them from Mex, like a Mexican created light strand. So it’s still not from America, but it is from.

Well, it’s not from, you know, the United States, it’s from Americas, but it’s 100, 5 or $15. It’s. It was over $100 for us for just one little strand of lights to put up around the house. And I think the equivalent would have been. It would have been 20 to 30 bucks max if they had just gone to Walmart and got something off the shelf. So the very first thing that they do when they go out to buy stuff, you immediately realize that this is not tenable. No. No one on the planet would go out and just spend $150 on $20 worth of lights just to prove a point and give the money to Mexico anyways.

And that’s funny, because when he asked him, he goes, hey, how much you think this was? He’s like, I don’t know, like, maybe like 30, 50 bucks tops. He’s like $166. And he looks so upset, like, because in the initial, I think the family. The Jones family that they’re following in this, I think they were like, oh, easy peasy, right? Like, And I don’t know if money was offered because it seems almost like there was a prize, because I’m like, why are you trying? Or maybe it was just the pride of, like, oh, America, like, we’re gonna do.

It’s just because they were doing it so hard, like, where they’re like, oh, man, this is rough. You know, there’s a point as where Mr. Jones is Ruth drawing from Xbox, and he’s like, I gotta go into the. The storage unit. He rips open the. Because to backtrack a little bit. They got a giant storage unit and put it on there. And they said, put everything that’s made in China in your house into this lock, this storage locker. And pretty much like, there’s like, what, 60 to 70% of their things, like coffee makers, all their toys.

Like, you have the kids crying like, oh, give me my bunny. Or like, my little. Everything was made in China. And I don’t think the family really. It shows like, the family. New things were made in China. And there’s that joke going around. But, like, when you actually physically took the stuff, I think they were like, overwhelmed. Like, oh, man, we don’t have anything. And it comes to a point where the dad goes and breaks into the storage locker, and it’s like, yeah, I had to get Xbox out for a little bit. You know what I mean? Like, he couldn’t take it.

And this was like three or four weeks in. He just couldn’t make it. But also, I feel like they smoothed over some of the stipulations for I Guess the ground rules. So, a, there is no prize, there’s no money, there’s no financial assistance. You’re just making your Christmas harder for really no huge payoff other than, hey, look, we did it. We made an attempt. We did it. Although, spoiler alert. Yeah, the dad doesn’t even make it at a certain point in like, three weeks in and some change. He’s like, I had to go into the storage unit shows.

I’m playing Xbox online. I had to go to the storage unit for just an hour or two, whatever. Like, I’m going to. I’m going crazy here. But I also feel that there was. They didn’t really spell out the rules exactly, like, precisely in the documentary. But I feel that anything part of the actual house itself maybe didn’t get included because they make a big deal at the very beginning once they get everything into the storage unit. And by the way, they get it all back. Like, they’re just doing it for just December, and then life kind of goes back to normal.

So they put everything in the unit. But then Tom’s like, how about those lights? Are those lights made? And he’s like, damn it, Tom. They unscrew the lights, and sure enough, all the lights are made in China. So they’re like, okay, we’re gonna start tomorrow, or whenever we can buy new lights that weren’t made in China so that we’re just not living in the dark. And right as he was saying that, I was thinking, I mean, what about the wall plates? What about the outlets? What about the wiring that’s actually going through the house? So if.

If it’s not an old, you know, build from the 60s or something, and chances are it’s got all sorts of material insulation, you know, the hinges. So granted there was. There was some sort of cut off, and it was anything that could be removable. But I was also wondering, what about the dishwasher, the washing machine, the stove, all of your. Your pots and pans? Like, they don’t show them going out and buying all new everything. So maybe it was just limited to, I guess, consumables, right? Like food and things that you’re going to be using on camera in that short amount of time.

I thought, too, that when they changed the lights, I thought they were like, all right, man. I think they, like, had a. Off camera, like, we can’t take everything, right? Yeah, that was the light. Because you see the dad break down a few times where he’s like, we’re not getting paid for. I’m just spending More money and stressing ourselves out. And this is supposed to be Christmas that we’re enjoying with the family, not this stressful time. And that was some of the excuses that he’s making when he’s playing the Xbox 2. But you can feel that frustration building over this entire time as he realizes even if he wants to do it without China, in some cases, you just can’t.

There was this one toy that the mom bought her kids. It was like this big pirate ship and she did all this research and couldn’t figure out if it was made in China or not. She orders it and they unpack it and then sure enough, they find it’s got like a little made in China sticker on it. One of my thoughts though is like, you knew. You knew that was when you saw the price tag and you saw all the stuff it came with. There’s no way you were like, oh, this was probably made in Sweden or Germany because they show one part of the movie where she actually does find one shop that has non China stuff in it.

And a stuffed frog or like a stuffed bear was $150 or something. And they had a stuffed pig that was like $99. And that’s what they end up getting. They end up spending like 460 bucks on it and watching it. I was like, this 2013, so that means in today’s money that would be $982. So like, I was like, oh my God, like I’m buying everything from China. I was like, I’m not getting it. Hey, I want to get American made. But like, you’re like, okay, well if it’s $5, I could throw it away. I’ll take it.

But also, they walk out of that store with a couple stuffed animals and maybe a wooden puzzle, right? And for that amount of money that they spent at that time in 2013, you could have gotten yourself another Xbox and three or four games and an extra controller. So it, it was like, sure, they did it, but they got a tiny little pile of presents the kids probably didn’t even want. And I do got to say, man, I was impressed with either the editing or the kids themselves. The kids were on board from day one. There was a little bit of no, that’s my favorite stuff.

But as soon as that initial period was over, they were probably better about, wait, Mommy, like, isn’t that made in China? And they were doing so much better. And I would love to see like a 10 year follow up on those kids. Like, they’re in college now, right? Or they’re graduating high school. And I wonder, like, hey, do you avoid China? Are you more cognizant of when you’re spending money on Chinese goods or what? Yeah, because they even do an 18 month recap. Like, hey, let’s revisit this. And they come back and she’s like, yeah, they’re still like, hey, that’s made in China.

Like, I wonder if it’s ingrained in them. Like this social experiment. Yeah. Probably affected the kids the most. I think the parents felt the weight of it because they’re like, going to work and all that and they don’t do the research. Right. There’s stuff you could probably find at better prices that are American made. Not granted, there’s tons. Like, we’re like you said, there’s. There’s ways we can’t get away from China. But like, some of, like when they were doing the gift shopping, I’m like, how much good research. There’s places you can go reuse stuff. But kudos to the parents as well, because I think they also, like, were pretty good to their kids because the kids also, what they got for Christmas were like, super excited.

Like, they weren’t like, oh, man, where’s my. Where’s my. This is not the Johnny Five. Like, this is not the top, like, whatever toy. This is not Tickle Me Elmo. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they, they seem like a good family that was together, so it worked. But the main thing too, I liked was when the dad, the. The immigrant dad, Tom’s dad, started saying, like, hey, man, don’t ruin their Christmas. Like, you know what I mean? Like, this is an important holiday to Americans. And like, I thought that in retrospect, it’s cool to see, like, another point of view from like an immigrant, like, he still loves China.

And then like, you have this middle guy, which is Tom, and then you have the Jones family, which is like America, which is. But you still see the thought process of, like, look, man, I know, like, we’re not a Christmas people, but, like, man, that’s important to them, man. You’re getting about. You’re ruining it for them. Yeah, the. The dad was. Everyone was exceptionally rational in this movie, which is one of the reasons I could tell that it wasn’t a NETFLIX documentary or it wasn’t some other big mainstream. It was really just this one kid that had a, an idea and decided to film it.

And it’s a little early on too, because I would have loved some straight up ground rules. Okay, here’s what we’re including as made in China, here’s the exceptions you allowed to keep your house. And then when the original catalyst was reports about lead poisoning and toxic chemicals, I would have loved to have seen a little bit of. And here’s the actual number of reported, you know, deaths or. Or recalls based on. In 2013 or in 2010 or whatever that time was. It’s missing a little bit of that part. But you do get to see that it’s.

It’s not just him trolling. He’s legitimately interested if someone can do it. But the dad, his immigrant dad, is like, you can’t do that. Like, there was not a question in his mind. He was just telling him, like, son, it’s impossible. And you’re asking these people to do something that is literally impossible during Christmas time. And he struggles a little bit, but I think part of him is like, hey, if. If they want to voluntarily sign up for this and he’s not on the hook to pay out any sort of reward or anything like that, then why not do it? I think we should start under the docks.

Life without China Island. Yeah. I don’t know. As I was watching this, I’m just thinking the kids are probably taking the swell, because if I was one of those kids, I’m like, all right, I’m going to Johnny’s. I’ll see you guys later for dinner, right? And then I’m just playing PlayStation at Johnny’s house. Hidden treasures and overboard moments. I’ll start with my hidden treasure. Like, it’s not really. There wasn’t, like, a lot of statistics or facts, but I thought the hidden treasure was. Was towards the end where, like, you kind of see this connection being formed between the Jones family and Tom, where it’s kind of.

I don’t know if it was meant to be this. And this is, like, one of those, I think, natural things that happens. It. It kind of showed you, like, what Christmas is supposed to be about in general, or, like, the thought of any holiday or thing is where you connect with people you care about, remembering people that were important in your life. And when they start going through, like, the pictures of, like, you know, when Mr. Jones, the dad, was kind of going through withdrawal from Xbox, and he kind of, like, goes, hey, you know, my mom passed away during Christmas season.

It’s like, an intense time. I thought the movie really flips right there, and it makes it so humanized. And Tom’s kind of like, dang, man, there’s more involved in this Christmas thing than I thought and it really made them closer. And I thought it made the film even. It resonated more with me personally, because I’m like, you know what? That. Like, who cares about the presence at that point? And I think they kind of, like, went past that. Like, you know, we can do this. And I think that’s why when they did the recap in the 18 months of, like, hey, how you been? I think everything was better.

I think that was a breaking point of, like, you know what? I’m using all these things to mask, like, Xbox. Not saying you can’t play Xbox or have fun, but it just kind of, I think, revealed to the dad, like, hey, I’m kind of masking a lot of this stuff. And maybe I’m not saying he did improve. We don’t know, but it just seemed like it would be on that way, and it kind of made it more of a. A heartfelt story that way. I don’t want to take away from the heart felt part of that, because I actually agree with you.

I think my overboard moment was that same exact note, though, because they walk in with the, you know, video camera recording, and dad’s just posted up on the couch playing Xbox, and. And then he’s just like, yeah, my mom died of cancer. And I was just like, bro, don’t be throwing your dead mom dying of cancer as the reason why you get to play Xbox. Like, it was just. It was weird for me the way that he was like, oh, let me just play this card real quick. That means that I can play with my Chinese goods again.

Although I wasn’t watching on the same lens that you just described it. Yeah, the way you describe it is that maybe he’s trying to revisit an earlier time. He’s trying to get, like, that nostalgia going to, like, carry him through the storm a little bit. But when I was watching it, I was like, this dude really just use his mom’s cancer as the excuse of how he gets to play Xbox right now? No, I agree with that, too. That’s where. But then as soon as. When they started getting into, like, the pictures, and I think they, like, kind of forced it again.

I don’t know. I’m. I’m putting my own, like, you know, sauce onto this, a little bit of how I perceived it. But once they started, like, opening it up, I felt like they kind of. Maybe it kind of seemed like the dad was like, yeah, maybe I’m being a jackass. Like, and. And using a deniability of, like, yeah, I’m just Gonna play Xbox, bro. My mom died. I’m like. So, like, when I first seen that, I thought the same as you, but as it transitioned into the, you know, opening up the pictures and what things were and like, it.

But I could totally see where you’re coming from on that. You’re right. You’re right on that. And I think the. I wouldn’t say, like, a hidden treasure or anything. There’s nothing really hidden or kept away from you that you kind of discover at the end. There’s no big twist ending. It pretty much plays out exactly as you think it would. The dad lapses and plays Xbox, and then at the end of the movie, the experiment’s over. And as you mentioned, they do keep that little storage unit for another six months, plus. Right. Because when he goes to revisit them 18 months later, they’re like, well, we’ve got this storage unit out front because we’re still trying to keep ourselves isolated.

And in my head, I was like, y’ all are just hoarders. You probably already filled the space up with more because you didn’t want to have to go into the storage unit and find something in the back. So we didn’t get any confirmation if they had really moved on. But. But my. I guess my one hidden treasure was that Tom, the guy that makes this documentary, he mentions that his name is Tom just because when a teacher was asking everyone their names on, like, the first day of school, I guess he just didn’t want to put out this name that everyone’s going to look at or teacher wasn’t gonna be able to spell right.

And he just really liked Tom and Jerry, so. So he just said Tom because of Tom and Jerry. And now that’s his name. Like, that’s the origin story for why he’s called Tom and not, you know, some derivative of his. His Chinese name. And my overboard moment is kind of similar to my hidden treasure, because my overboard moment is that sometimes it could. Like, in some of those scenes, they get a little melodramatic over things like where you’re like, all right, man. Like, it’s. It is just Xbox, bro. Like, and the guys kind of around, like, probably a little bit older than us, right? Like, I would assume, because that was 2013.

And I’m like, dude, I can go. I didn’t even have a cell phone until, like, 2009 or 2000. Like, I didn’t. I didn’t care. I just had a house. I’m like, yeah, just call me on the hospital. Like, you know what? I mean, like, none of that really bothered me. Like, yeah, I like to play video games too, but like, I would just like you said, I’d be like, all right, well, I’m just gonna head out or I’m gonna go do something else. But like some of the scenes of like where you’re like, they were attached to things that we were like, all right, man, like, it’s just a thing, bro.

Like, well, I guess because you could say that no Xbox, what that really means is no electronics, period. No Internet. Like, you’re not getting on the Internet if you’re going to cut China off. Right? All right, it’s that time. Sink or swim. I got to give this one a sink. Not because I didn’t like it, but just because after it was over, I thought this could have just been a TV special. This could have been a reality show where they did this with six different families or something. It didn’t necessarily have to be a full on documentary.

And I don’t know if I really learned anything at all. I knew this going in that it’s not easy to live without any Chinese goods. And even if you want to, there just aren’t US counterparts. There’s not Mexican, there’s not any counterparts to some things. You want to play a PlayStation, guess what? There is no Mexican or American version of the PlayStation. And you can go right down the line with all your favorite stuff. So because I didn’t learn that. And mainly too because it would have been so good to see, here’s the actual statistics. How many kids actually got lead poisoning from China during these years compared to the year after.

And let’s compare it to the toys we get from Mexico or whatever. That extra tiny little bit would have made this into like a full blown real documentary and not kind of a reality show. I agree. I, I like this film, but I still have to give it a sink. Like I enjoyed it. You know what I mean? I enjoyed watching it. I thought it was some unintentional things, but I agree because I’m like, we’re showing me how much money are they profiting off America. Show me some more. Like if you would have chopped it up better and like not, not focus so much on talking back to the dad.

I get where they coming from that like where you get to see the perspective of the immigrant, the, the middle, like kind of like immigrant child but then grew up in America and then the American family. Right? You get three different perspectives. But like I would have liked them to splice in like, hey, China’s gpd. I mean, GDP is blah, blah, blah. Right here. America is this much dependent on China. This is how much products go out. These are the bad product. Like you were saying, you know what I mean? Have more factual evidence, like where we could be like, well, what’s going on? And compare it.

Not just like, hey, can you do it? So it kind of just felt like a reality show, as you said. But I’m going to give it a sink. But I would still suggest people to watch. It’s pretty decent if you had to summarize this documentary and if it had some kind of a message at the end. The message isn’t about whether China is poisoning kids with lead and having toxic chemicals. The message is even if you want to, you can’t. That’s it. That’s the whole message of the documentary. Or that you’re going to make your life so inconvenient and expensive that it’s not even worth trying anyways.

Even if that wasn’t the intentional message, that’s, that’s the only message that you really get from this documentary. And also I also got a message of is this Chinese propaganda? Yeah. Because the guy, the guy even says it’s like all of these news reports are like, made in China. Made in China. Made in China. And they’re all just talking smack about these. And he’s like, I was made in China. We’re in the Christmas mood. You know how we do it. Why don’t you get into the Christmas mood? Go to paranoidamerican.com go grab your loved one. A good comic book.

MK ultra flip book. There’s plenty of things to go there. Go to killthemockingbirds.com disinformation section. Until next time. This is under the docks. Peace. Under the docks. Under the docks. Yeah, under the docks. Ready for a cosmic conspiracy about Stanley Kubrick, moon landings and the CIA. Go visit nasacomic.com NASA comic.com CIA’s biggest com Stanley Kubrick put us on. That’s why we’re singing this song about NASA comic.com go visit NASA.com go visit NASA comic.com. Yeah go visit NASA comic.com NASA comic.com CIA’s biggest con stanley kubrick put a song. That’s why we’re singing this song about nestle. NASA comic.com go visit NASA comic.com go visit NASA comic.com yeah go visit nas.

Never a straight answer is a 40 page comic about stanley kubrick directing the Apollo space missions. This is the perfect read for comic Kubrick or conspiracy fans of all ages. For more details, visit NASA comic.com. I scribbled my life away driven the right page will it enlight to brain give you the thought light my plane paper the highs ablaze somewhat of an amazing feel when it’s real to real you will engage it your favorite of course the lord of an arrangement I gave you the proper results to hit the pavement if they get emotional hate maybe your language a game how they playing it well without Lakers evade them whatever the cost they are to shapeshift snakes get decapitated met is the apex execution of flame you out nuclear bombs distributed at war rather gruesome for eyes to see max them out that I like my trees blow it off in the face you despising me for what though calculated and rather cutthroat paranoid American must be all the blood smoke for real Lord give me your day your way vacate they wait around to hate whatever they say man it’s not in the least bit we get heavy rotate when a beat hits so thank us you well for real you’re welcome they never had a deal you’re welcome man they lack an appeal you’re welcome yet they doing it still you’re welcome.
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