Thursday, May 31, 2007

Behind the Chocolate Bar


I'm sure everyone has shopped at a department store at least once in their lives. I'm assuming that since you're reading this blog, you have access to a computer and the internet, you're probably not living in a third world country. What runs through your mind every time you buy a chocolate bar from Wal-Mart or a t-shirt from American Eagle? Slaves harvesting cocoa beans? Somebody working for ten hours a day sewing shirts in an unhygenic enviornment for ten hours a day with pennies as wages? I certainly never thought about that until I read an article about sweatshops in an old issue of Times or Macleans or something like that the other day.
A sweatshop, for those of you who don't know, is basically a factory that offers no benefits for its workers, pays them in pennies, makes them work ten hours or more a day, offers little and badly organized bathroom/lunch breaks, and is usually located in a developing/third world country (i.e. Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, etc). Many of these countries have very poor labour laws to protect workers, which is why major brands such as Ralph Lauren and Banana Republic establish factories there to lower the cost of producing their products. While they pay their workers pennies for working ten hours a day, they charge you $60 for a t-shirt...
A very depressing bit of information for me was that 80% of all cocoa beans (main ingredient of chocolate) is harvested by slaves. I'm a chocoholic, I eat alot of chocolate, especially the cheaper candy bar variety such as Kit Kat, Coffee Crisp, Aero, etc. The candy bar types usually aren't Fair Trade chocolates.
Besides slavery and sweatshops, child labour is also another nasty side of producing goods. Children are paid even less to work longer hours since owners believe that smaller bodies = smaller pay. Children are often hired to make things like soccer balls and baseballs because they have smaller fingers and its easier for them to do detailed sewing. Here is the extremely famous picture that proved Nike used child labour to manufacter their products:

Now, I'm not saying that we should abolish child labour in these countries. Before your eyes widen and you re-read the sentence or think that I made a typo, let me explain why. In developing countries, people often have large families and everybody in the family needs to work in order for the family to meet their basic needs. If the government decides to not allow children to be hired for jobs, what will the families do? What we need is labour laws to protect those working children, make sure that they can go to school, they are paid fairly, and they work reasonable hours.
The opposite of slavery, sweatshops, and child labour is products produced under fair trade policies. These policies protect workers' rights and the products to be labeled as "fair trade" so consumers can recognize these products. Fair trade products are usually a bit more expensive than the regular products, but come on. I'd pay fifty cents extra for a chocolate bar knowing that I'm not supporting sweat shops. But I'm not innocent from all of this, let me look at what I'm wearing right now and see where everything is made.

  • t-shirt: Mexico
  • shorts: China
  • bra: Bangladesh
  • underwear: Honduras
  • socks (technically I'm not wearing them right now, but I was wearing them earlier today): China
  • Shoes (same situation as socks): India (Nike brand! I'm ashamed...)
None of these countries have very strict labour laws to protect workers' rights as far as I know. But, the good news is that I found a few sites with info:

Definition and more on Wikipedia
Sweatshop Watch
IFAT

I just searched "sweatshops" on Google, you could probably find alot more info looking up sites yourself. I only found sites on sweatshops but haven't looked up some about child labour and slavery in the chocolate industry. Perhaps somebody could do that and send me a list?

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean 3- At the World's End

Ahh, all good things must come to an end eventually, eh? Unfortunately, the reason for that may be that the quality of "good things" tend to deteriorate as time goes by until they can no longer be labeled as "good". Now this rambling and not-too-logical introduction to this review basically sums up my opinion of this movie: better than "Dead Man's Chest", not as good as "Curse of the Black Pearl". I liked the added romance bits in the plot, especially the ending, very bittersweet. There was a confrontation scene between Elizabeth and Will that I really liked, very romantic. However, the action sequences got pretty repetitive after the first forty minutes. Attempts were made to add humour to the plot by having Jack Sparrow talk to himself...with the different sides of his personality appearing in front of him. It was funny the first time, after that, it just became plain weird. I liked the little bit of plot between Davy Jones and Calypso, except the accent of Calypso made it difficult to understand the dialogue at times. Will Turner doesn't have a very big part in the story in this movie as the plot is centered around Jack Sparrow and the Pirates vs English Navy storyline. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Orlando Bloom in there... Anyways, if you stay until after the credits are over, there is a teeny weeny additional scene .(by teeny weeny, I really mean teeny weeny)

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Spiderman 3

Okay, I'm writing this review because my mom has decided to constantly remind me that being a journalist is a difficult job and apparently, girls can't do it. Well, I'm going to try my hand at being a critic and write some reviews...

On the day after the release of Spiderman 3, I eagerly headed to the theatre to watch the long-awaited third installment of the Spiderman series. The movie was not exactly a disappointment, the action sequences were great, it was the storyline that I thought was a little messy. Now its not that I don't like the drama aspect of the plot in the Spiderman series, in fact, one of the things I enjoy most about the Spiderman series is that unlike alot of action movies, they actually have those sentimental-y life lesson plots that actually work and don't leave me exclaiming "oh man, not again!". However, the romance plot between Peter and Mary Jane was just pushing it. When I walk into the theatre to watch a Spiderman movie, I don't want a chick flick with all the "Peter, I love you but...", "Peter, Mary Jane and I kissed...", etc. He kissed her but then she was actually with somebody else...too much chick flick drama! The whole Spiderman becoming evil and dark didn't work out too well either. It was more comedic than suspenseful and the fact that Peter ended up looking like Hitler without the mustache in the cafe scene didn't help matters much. However, I did like the new characters of Sandman and Venom, the fighting sequences were great, especially that scene where a section of the building fell off. The storyline with the tension in the friendship of Harry and Peter was great. I must admit, I could feel myself tearing up a bit at the ending.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Sunday, May 20, 2007

The Unbalanced Scales of Love


Why is it that in a relationship, one person always loves or cares about the other person more? I've been on the side of the relationship where I care more, many, many times. It sucks and I know it. Now I'm on the side where the other person cares more, should I be happy? Maybe I should, but I'm not. Every time I am told something that should theoretically go weak in the knees or blush or be flattered or just something, I just don't feel anything. I feel so guilty every time this happens and I don't feel anything, instead of standing there in awkward silence, I just say something back or I kiss him or something like that just so I feel less guilty. I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm incapable of loving anyone but myself or maybe I'm just a cold and hard-hearted girl.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Undefined: Redecorated

I think people who regularly check out this blog (and there aren't that many of you out there) probably have noticed some of the changes made to the blog. In case you haven't, I figured I would point them out to you. By the way, take a minute to visit http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com if you would like to make changes to your blog, this site/blog makes everything so much easier with simple instructions.

Layout Change
I changed the template from "snapshot" to "minima" and the page has three columns instead of two. I played around with the colours of the titles, etc. I also made a header banner, it doesnt look that great but I'll make a better one later. The picture of the banner is from the Ralph Lauren Romance perfumes. Since it has a pink undertone, I used a bit of pink in the banner so all the text, etc of the blog had to match and now everything looks so girly.

Sidebar Changes
Theres quite alot of new things in the sidebar. There's the "Song of the Moment" box, where I change the song regularly according to how I feel and I also write a little blurb explaining why I chose the song. The song won't play until you click on the "play" button and you can also stop the song or change the volume whenever you want. I know how annoying it is to arrive at a page and have a really annoying song playing loudly over and over again while I read the contents of the page. There's also the "Google Translator" where you can view this page in another language of your choice using Google Translator. Beware of the fact that literal translations don't always make sense though! There's also quite a few tiles in the "Thanks to..." box. Since I wanted more traffic to this blog, I've listed it onto several blog directories and they require blog owners to link back to their directory so I put all the links there.

There will be more changes and updates coming soon!

Mother's Day


By the way, I didn't make this cake (actually, it looks more like a pie...) for my mom, I got the picture from Wikipedia. Well, its Mother's Day today, so I figured that I'd blog a bit about mothers and my mom. Whereas I don't think I'll ever be a mother and I actually don't get along that well with my mom, I do respect the mothers out there. Its a 24/7 job with no breaks or holidays and you don't get paid in any type of currency except for smiles and love. As cheesy as it may sound, I think my mom has made the biggest impact in my life. Its through her that I've learned how to be strong and believe in myself. When my family first came to Canada, neither of my parents spoke English and we came here because my dad was offered a job. Well, it turns out that my dad's employer was cheating him of money and since he didn't speak English, there wasn't much that he could do. Well, my mom stormed to my dad's boss with the newfound knowledge of Canada's labour laws and in her fiery temper, demanded that my dad be treated fairly in accordance to Canada's laws. Another instance where I really admire my mom...her cooking skills. I'm salivating just thinking about those meals she cooks.
Like I mentioned before, I argue alot with my mom and I do feel bad for it because part of it is my fault and sometimes (actually, a lot of the times), I'm too caught up in my own problems to think about where she is coming from before I open my mouth and start yelling back.
Anyhow, while you're thinking of ways to show you appreciation to your mother, why not read about Mother's Day on Wikipedia?