Imagine if you were an immigrant from China living in the states right around the time when toys and food products were being recalled due to the discovery of lead paint and other hazardous material in the products. You’d be a little annoyed, right? Well the Young Tom Xia was rightly annoyed about all the China bashing and decided to conduct an experiment, he decided to challenge his suburban American neighbors to see if they could survive the Christmas season (Dec. 1 to Dec. 25) without ANY Chinese products. During the 63 minute duration of Alicia Dwyer’s documentary, Xmas Without China, we discover if the Joneses have the wherewithal to accomplish this seemingly impossible consumer diet.
The film starts off with Tom defending China and coming up with this idea to challenge his community. We witness him talking with some hardcore Americans who give the idea a thought and then deny the challenge. What makes it more difficult is that he isn’t offering any money as an incentive but eventually he meets the Joneses (go figure right?) and they couldn’t have been a better find. The husband Tom is a musician and the wife Evelyn is a school teacher and they have two young children, a son and a daughter along with a dog, a cat and a couple of ducks (which is funny since Chinese folk eat ducks on the regular).
Things get started and it’s amazing to see how many of the items in the house have to be removed because they were “made in China.” Items like the light bulbs, the coffee maker, the X-box and more have to be put in the storage container outside their house, leaving them living by candle light and without joy. Tim tells his father, Victor, that “all the kids’ toys are gone and so are their plates. They have to eat off paper plates,” his father replies “you are terrible,” and to an extent it’s true. Due to a lack of understanding about the Christmas season, Tom later begins to question the challenge further when Victor says to him that Christmas is American’s favorite holiday, you shouldn’t ruin it for them.
As the days go on and things start to get tougher, you begin to feel bad for the Joneses. Evelyn is finding it really hard to make memories for her kids during, what’s supposed to be, the glory years of childhood while Tom is having trouble coping without his X-Box, his distraction from the memory of his mother’s passing during Christmas time a year ago. Throughout the film we get to witness the evolution of both Tom and the Joneses perception of the challenge change. Through the wise words of his father, Tom realizes that the Christmas season might not have been the best time to challenge people to do this.
While the challenge of not using Chinese products is the focal point of the film, half of the film also focuses on Tom’s family and his parent’s mission of achieving the American dream. Even though he moved to the states at the age of eight, Tom never actually applied to get his citizenship so while he’s more American than his parents; he’s the only one of the three who technically isn’t and at one point he lies about being one but eventually fesses up because he felt terrible for lying. What makes this part of the film fascinating is that while we witness the Xia’s American dream becoming reality, we witness the demise of the Joneses’ American dream and it’s really fascinating when the two sides come together.
There are a few areas of the film that didn’t sit well with me. Firstly, Tom isn’t the most exciting character to follow around nor is he the most enjoyable narrator. The guy is smart and shows some form of personality when he is hanging out with his friends but he comes off like a very monotonous person during his other interactions which unfortunately makes him the least interesting of all the subjects in the film. Secondly, while I personally enjoyed and appreciated how focused this documentary was, it would have been nice for Tom to discuss other variables after the results came in. For example, what would happen if the experiment was broadened? Thinking about getting lower class families and upper class families to participate would have been an interesting conversation. Tom returns to the family 18 months after but this is the type of study that universities should consider to show the country just how reliant we are and how expensive it would be to live without Chinese products in such an interconnected and globally reliant society.
Xmas Without China isn’t the most exciting or compelling documentary, but the idea is brilliant and is something that should be explored further. Tom was onto something when he decided to conduct this experiment and I think this film should be showed in all college classes that have to do with cultural sensitivity and understanding as it’ll show that even the most American of products might have some foreign aspect to them.
Rating: Not the most compelling doc but definitely a fascinating study of America’s reliance on others (6/10)
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