''China Blue'' is a 2005 documentary film directed by
Micha Peled. It follows the life of Jasmine Li, a seventeen-year-old worker from
Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
, in a Chinese
jeans factory, ''Lifeng Clothes Factory'' (丽锋服饰制衣有限公司) in
Shaxi, Guangdong producing Vigaze Jeans (a company based in
Istanbul
Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
,
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
), hence the title. Jasmine earned about half a
yuan for one hour's work (which amounted to about six US cents).
The documentary discusses the
sweatshop conditions in factories in China and China's growing importance as a global exporting country. It's part of Teddy Bear Films' ''Globalization Trilogy'' together with ''
Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town'', that focuses on
consumerism in the U.S., and ''Bitter Seeds'', that looks at the raw materials – the crisis of the farmers in India who are growing the cotton exported to China's garment factories to be used for the clothes sold in the West.
At the
2005 Amnesty International film festival, it won the
Amnesty International-DOEN Award. In April 2007, ''China Blue'' aired on the award-winning PBS series ''
Independent Lens''.
The Vigaze Jeans Company went out of business sometime around December 2011 and January 2012 according to the last archived version of their website on
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...
.
References
External links
Official website for China BlueBlue''
webpage for Independent Lens on PBS
Audio interview of filmmaker Micha Peled
wit
host of
Against the Grain
' on KPFA ( Pacifica Radio), August 7, 2007
*
American documentary films
Documentary films about globalization
Documentary films about business
Documentary films about China
2005 films
2005 documentary films
2000s American films
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