This morning our Product Manager told me that our most recent newsletter on why we don’t carry Chinese products elicited more response than ANY newsletter we have ever sent. All comments were positive about our stance.

Today I found an article talking about how over 13 million Chinese babies are killed through abortion every year. That number does not include those killed in rural areas or those killed by the 10 million abortifacient drugs sold in China each year.

And those reports about China relaxing its one-child policy?

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has affirmed that its one child policy will continue. The official state news agency reported that despite media-generated rumors of a relaxation to the rules, the policy will “be strictly enforced as a means of controlling births for decades to come as overpopulation is still a major concern.”

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Despite claims by the United Nations Population Fund that the Chinese program no longer employs coerced abortion, an investigation by Population Research Institute (PRI) found earlier this year that the government continues to employ “crippling fines,” intimidation, pressure for sterilization and even the seizure of “illegal children” to force local people to comply. PRI’s Colin Mason, who headed up the investigation, told LifeSiteNews.com that “any and all official action concerning reproductive health and/or population control was entirely coercive and administrative in nature.”

Again, why wouldn’t you avoid buying as much as you can from there, especially Catholic products?

Ironically, we found out this morning that Catholic Book Publishing, a huge supplier of kids books and children’s missals, is moving all of its children’s products to China for production. Would you be willing to pay an additional .50 for a book if it wasn’t produced in China? We are but not enough people have expressed concern with publishers and manufacturers to convince them that their bottom line will actually suffer from these types of decisions.

If you like the Catholic Book Publishing children’s books, now would probably be a good time to buy them because we are going to be discontinuing all of them over the next few months as our supply runs out.

We had the opportunity of talking to Bob Siemon of Bob Siemon Design at the International Christian Retailer’s Convention.  He discussed his line of handmade Bible covers and reaffirmed for us why buying American is a better choice whenever possible.

Transcribed interview:

Bob: Thirty year ago I bought… there was a little craftsman here and he was making handmade leather Bible covers, by hand.  And he just didn’t… you know how a lot of times an artist just doesn’t have any business sense?  This was this individual.  He could make a really nice Bible case but he couldn’t run a business.  So I bought his machinery, I took over a couple of his employees and we started making Bible covers.  So in another part of our factory you’ll actually see a whole area of all these leathers and all this stuff.

Okay.  Here’s what we do.  This is the finest top grain leather.  This leather here [spine] comes from Brazil.  This leather [sides] comes from Italy.  So we actually shop the finest leathers.  We go to leather tanneries and supply shows.  I know it’s kind of like wierd, but then once we get the leather we actually design the case.

But this is all hand made in America.  The reason why no one’s doing this is because they can’t…  everybody in this industry thinks things have to be cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap.  My thought is that, how about everything being unique and wonderful, well made.  I mean, if I’m an enthusiast or something, whatever it is, if it’s running or biking, or if it’s reading my Bible, don’t I want to have really good running shoes if I’m going to compete?  If I’m going to compete against Lance Armstrong don’t I want to have a really good bike?

Ian:  Right.  That’s the philosophy we’ve taken since we opened the store.  We don’t have to carry cheap stuff, we want to carry quality stuff that’s beautiful, that people want because it’s beautiful, not because it’s affordable necessarily or really cheap.  And we’ve found that people like that.  And it’s also given us the opportunity to work with vendors that people wouldn’t have ever heard of because most stores take the easy way of, “I’ll carry these things from China because everybody carries them and they’re inexpensive.”  And we’ve found very wonderful products, statues and other things, that are not Chinese and they’re wonderful and they’re not necessarily out of reach pricewise either.

Bob:  Well it’s like what you’re doing is you’re driving… think about this.  Do you want to have a business with high sales volume or low sales volume?  I say you want to have high sales volume.  So why not sell things of better quality, priced fairly… you’re not trying to get something that you don’t deserve…

Look, this is die cutting.  So what we do is after we design it on CAD we make these dies.  This is actually right in our factory and they’re there every day of the week.  And so there’s the big skins of leather.  We’re laying them on that machine.  And this is a razor  blade die.  Imagine razor blades on a big thing…  And they take this press and is pushes the button.  And when he does that it stamps out… he’s stamping out the spine right here.  So then we stamp out all the pieces and once we get all the pieces we start stitching them together.   It all has to be hand sewn.  We even design and cast these [decorative grommits] out of pewter.  We make this [zipper pull].  So every part of this case is unique.  And I’m just excited about you guys that you appreciate it.  Thank you.

Ian:  Well it’s been our mission from day one to carry quality stuff like this.  We’ve always had a policy about where we buy stuff.  And we’ve had vendors that we’ve had to drop half their line from and they don’t usually understand why we’re not carrying their stuff from China.  We can find higher quality stuff at a reasonable price that isn’t from a country that’ persecuting Christians and it works fine.

Bob:  Well, not only is it persecuting Christians but it’s like polluting the world.  It’s like, hey how about if you had this sitting on your couch or bed and your child starts putting their head on it or biting it as kids do and then you find out that this is a toxic paint.  What about if you had a cross that somebody was wearing and you found out that that cross is made with lead.  And you know how kids do this [chew] all the time?

Ian:  Yes, my kids constantly, having to take things out of their mouth.

Bob:  What you’ve been doing is you’ve been killing your child with the lead that’s in that piece of jewelry.  That’s one of the main reasons we stopped dealing with China.  We just, you know, let’s not do it anymore.  They pollute the earth.  They dump all the toxins in the water and then they water all the food the people eat.  I mean, it goes on and on.  So that’ why we’re really proud to do things in America.  All of our Bible cases… we’re not trying to compete with the Chinese.  We’re trying to give you something for the enthusiast.  The Christian believer that wants something unique.

Watch our detailed product demo:

You know things in China must really be bad when the secular media starts to take note of China’s abortion and child labor practices. HBO is showing a documentary next week that includes film shot by people posing as tourists about the Chinese child slave trade and the forced abortion and selective abortion practices in China.

There really isn’t any excuse to be buying Catholic products from a country that has such a horrible anti-morality pervading the country.

Isn’t it funny how these things work?

It’s the same situation with that cheap plastic statue you just bought at your local “Christian” store.  You may be against the whole situation in China, but you can’t really can’t change it on your own.  That dinky cheap crucifix you just bought (you know, the one with the “Made in China” sticker on the back) they can’t even buy in China.  How about rosaries, bibles, or scapulars? They can get you in trouble, even jail time and beatings.  So why is a country that tries really hard to stamp out Christianity and Catholicism the largest producer of cheap religious articles?  Maybe we should try to figure that out.

Hi Everyone,

We have been purchasing books from Catholic Book Publishing for years now. We have been in an ongoing discussion with them about their move to print more and more of their products in China. The official answer from the company is that low cost trumps any human rights violations that China engages in. Today we had to discontinue eleven more books that have switched printing from Korea to China.

Could you politely write to Catholic Book Publishing and let them know that you would be happy to pay a couple of dollars more per book if they would stop printing in China?

Posting this on our blog could result in them canceling our account as they have threatened to do in the past over this issue. However, we believe that the Chinese problem is far more important than our ability to order their products direct.

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