013. Chronicles x Jessie: Tales of Rebellion, Freedom, and the “Wild West”

If you’ve been feeling the itch to travel and explore the world, and pandemic is cramping your style, this episode might just the fix you were looking for. We mentioned at the start of season 2 that we’d be launching a new episode format we’re calling Chronicles. Think of it as story time, still relevant to our goal of diversifying sustainability narratives, but a lot more personal.

For our first foray into Chronicles, Jessie takes us to Hubei province around the turn of the 21st century. She tells us tales of a rebellious student on a quest for freedom which ultimately landed her in the garment industry. Is the garment industry China’s version of a “Wild West”?

To answer that question, we look back fifty years ago, political convulsion unexpectedly paved the way for China’s embrace of capitalism in the 1980s, creating a hotbed for younger generations to cultivate values totally different from their parents’. Check out this Guardian article for an overview of the cultural revolution.

From time to time, some or many of us feel our own culture or families are ‘alien’ to us, and we feel lost on our path. Educated, a memoir by Tara Westover, comes highly recommended by Jessie. It’s sure to warm your heart and cheer you up in those low moments.