The Story Behind an Umbrella

The rainy season always leaves me feeling conflicted. Recently, I've often heard friends around me complain: yesterday, I carried an umbrella everywhere but didn't use it once, and today I forgot to bring it and got soaked. However, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon: street vendors see this season as a golden opportunity.

These days, every time I enter or leave a subway station, I hear the incessant shouts of street vendors: "Umbrellas for 10 yuan each!" Regardless of the subway station, the specifications of the umbrellas may vary, but the prices are almost the same. They follow a strategy of small profits but quick turnover, and business seems to be booming. Whenever I step out of the subway station and encounter a sudden downpour, many pedestrians, caught without an umbrella and in a hurry, are willing to spend a mere 10 yuan to buy one on the spot. Since it's only 10 yuan, they don't mind the quality or appearance, treating it as a disposable item.

This commonplace phenomenon, upon closer reflection, makes me uneasy. An umbrella for 10 yuan may be cheap, but it's also poorly made. When will the entire industry upgrade? With a retail price of only 10 yuan, considering the wholesale, sales, and other markups, how much can actually be spent on manufacturing these cheap umbrellas? Meanwhile, the costs of raw materials, labor, and energy continue to rise. To maintain profits, manufacturers have no choice but to either cut corners or reduce profit margins, or both. Over time, this industry will remain stuck in a high-resource consumption, low-value-added state, lacking sufficient funds and motivation for technological innovation and product upgrades.

Umbrellas are just one example. In fact, there are many similar low-tech, low-value-added manufacturing industries, which to some extent have caused "Made in China" to remain synonymous with "cheap and poor quality." As consumers, we often complain: the umbrella bought at the subway station breaks after two uses, the ballpoint pen stops writing after one drop, the lighter stops working after a few uses.

Actually, if we think about it from another angle, this is a vicious cycle where consumers also bear responsibility. Manufacturers cater to market demand. Since these low-priced, low-quality products sell well and make money, companies naturally lack the incentive to optimize products and upgrade industries. Even as costs rise, companies complain about low profits and want to introduce higher-priced new products, but we consumers are already accustomed to the 10-yuan price. Over time, the market becomes flooded with cheap, low-quality goods.

Some might say, if there's a willing seller and a willing buyer, there's no need to demand high quality for a 10-yuan umbrella used as a disposable item. But have we considered that producing such products consumes a large amount of resources and energy, generates pollution and waste, and once discarded after one or two uses, it creates significant environmental and resource wastage? If most manufacturing companies are accustomed to shoddy production and low-price competition, how can they change their low-end position in the global industrial chain?

There's a well-known slogan in wildlife protection: "No buying, no killing," which highlights the impact of the consumer market on the supply chain. The same logic applies to upgrading manufacturing. Low-quality consumption habits encourage manufacturers to remain stuck in low-price competition. For example, if more people developed the habit of carrying an umbrella during the rainy season, said no to low-quality, cheap disposable products, and realized that this isn't just about saving 10 yuan, but about national industrial upgrading and environmental resource protection, maybe some changes would happen.

Every time I see vendors at subway stations, I think of these issues, filled with complex emotions. I hope that in the future, we can work together to improve our lives, upgrade our industries, and make "Made in China" a symbol of high quality.