How A Chinese Glycine Manufacturer Went Viral ft. Louise Matsakis and Tianyu Fang

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2:18I need a saga. What's the saga? It's glycine, industrial food-grade glycine, and its associated memes. In the last few weeks, TikTok and other social networks have been flooded with memes like this. Then she gave me some glycine and I was like, this ain't no Dong Hua Ji Long. If you call this industrial strength glycine, then this glycine's got to hit the gym. You know what I'm saying? And this. Are you tired of being cucked by inferior industrial and food-grade glycine suppliers who don't adhere to FCC, E640, USPBPEP, and JSFA production standards? Fear not, glycine girlies. Edge yourself down to Donghua Jinlong.

3:00All inspired by an innocent promotional video created by Donghua Jinlong, a manufacturer of food-grade glycine used to improve the taste of things like soy sauce and juices. Introducing Donghua Jinlong's food-grade glycine. Unlock Donghua Jinlong's food-grade glycine in 2024. Based on my research and talking to people smarter than me, Donghua Jinlong and the wider Chinese society doesn't really seem to understand why this is happening, nor why it's funny. And it appears to have taken root in a combination of harmless banter, treating an extremely specific industry and its byproduct as a thing we discuss in our regular lives, and semi-ironic support of Chinese industry, just as the American government seeks to ban TikTok.

3:44So I got together with two people that found themselves just a little too deep in this story.

3:54Joining me today to talk about this extremely strange phenomenon is the writer of You May Also Like, Louise Matsakis, and writer and researcher Tianyu Fang. Thank you so much for joining me, both of you. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here. So, Louise, you've been tracking Chinese factories for several years, which is a great thing. I love saying it. First of all, why? But also, what have you seen from these factories on social media? So I would say around 2020 or 2021, I started noticing that Chinese factories were opening TikTok accounts and posting there. I don't think it's unusual that they picked TikTok.

4:35You know, they were posting on Facebook. They had WhatsApp accounts. These are manufacturers that need to court overseas customers, and it's perfectly normal for them to have social media accounts. But I think what was happening is that a lot of them were starting to work with marketing agencies who were saying, Hey, you know, it's not a bad idea to post on this platform that's getting really popular. You know, we have a version here domestically. And they started posting these mesmerizing clips. One I think about a lot is it's gardening gloves being made. So you see these like fabric gardening gloves that are being, you know, dipped in liquefied rubber.

5:16So they get that rubber coating on the tips of the fingers. So you can, you know, dig in the dirt or whatever in your garden. They reminded me, I don't know if you guys have ever seen that show. I think it was called like How It's Made. You know, it was a show on cable TV probably, you know, a decade, a decade and a half ago. I think it's just sort of fascinating to get a window into, you know, the world of manufacturing, which Western consumers are so divorced from. So that's kind of like the history of this trend on TikTok. And how about Donghua Jinlong itself? How did that manifest? So what's happened recently is that these factories have seemingly started using what I think is probably some sort of AI software where they're translating a script and then doing some sort of like text to speech.

6:08So these videos sound really funny. And Donghua Jinlong is this company that makes high quality grade glycine, which is a type of nutritional additive. And I think the name, the videos they were posting, which were sort of like these like graphic edited videos of like drone footage of their factory, was just really, really funny to a lot of people. You know, it was sort of like, you know, high quality grade glycine means sort of nothing to most people in the West. So I think it was just it was just sort of this funny moment. And I think it also ties into this existing trend on TikTok where a lot of younger users make fun of the concerns in Washington about the app being Chinese owned.

6:54You know, I've seen people like joke about praying to Xi Jinping or, you know, like rubbing statues of Mao. and there it's just a joke but i think that um it sort of ties into that as well like this idea of it being this chinese platform and and sort of like you know western users you're joking on that and joking about sort of the hysteria over it in washington and chen you you were talking to me earlier about how what was like 60 percent of glycine that comes out of china is dong hua jinlong is that what is the scale of this this company what is this thing yeah sure so uh actually i think the real scale is smaller than that globally uh glycine production is about uh uh i think 800 thousand uh tons uh per year and don't watch along makes about 120 000 tons uh so it's not that much but it specializes in sort of industrial grade right so it's not the normal like food additives that we see in day-to-life, but sort of the kind of glycine that you use in herbicide and other forms of sort of more industrial production and less consumer.

8:04So yeah, the scale is pretty big. China now produces about half of global glycines in total. And previously, that was an American and European production in the 90s. But starting in the early 2000s, there was more Asia production. So Donghua Juno is based in Hebei province, which is right outside of Beijing. That's where a lot of today's industrial grade high quality glycine comes from. So does this mean, do you think any of this is connected to the Chinese government? I don't mean that in a paranoid way. Is any of this deliberate, I think is the question for both of you. Yeah, I would say no, in a sense that it seems just like privately owned companies.

8:48I checked the corporate records. I didn't go that deep. But, you know, it is a private company that came out of the Chinese 80s and 90s and seemed to have done pretty well. And if you look at these videos on TikTok, there's usually a version on WeChat or other Chinese platforms that's kind of similar in Chinese as opposed to English. So I imagine these videos were originally made for people to share on Chinese social media platforms with business partners so that they can advertise their business to business people in China who are a lot more interested in using short video apps than I think their American counterparts.

9:28So I think there is a direct translation of that intention into the American market, which I don't know if it's working as intended. Yeah. Is it very common for Chinese businesses to actually use this method, though? Even these industrial ones? Yeah, I think so. I think there is a TikTok equivalent that's built inside WeChat as well. And I think because WeChat is a multi-purpose app where you use it both if you're a person who's just very online or a person who actually runs a real business. So by being on that short video platform that FinCent has, on WeChat, you can very easily share these videos with other people for business or entertainment purposes alike.

10:13I think what's happening here is you're seeing sort of TikTok's algorithm collide with this content that otherwise, you know, American memers would never see. When I looked into it, I saw that Donghua Jilong also had a Facebook account where they actually had more followers at the time than they did on TikTok. But the thing is, with a platform like Facebook or Instagram, these people don't know what glycine is, let alone are they like searching for a manufacturer in China that specifically produces it, right? But with TikTok, the way that the platform works is that you sort of get fed this content and you decide whether you like it or not by paying attention, commenting, liking, sharing.

11:03And over time, the algorithm will feed you more of it, right? We all know this. And the reality is that you don't know that you might think glycine is funny. You don't know that it might be interesting to see how gardening gloves are made or whatever. So I think this is just an instance where the design of the platform meant that this sort of strange thing started bubbling up. Of course, you see this on Twitter, on YouTube, on other platforms. But I think in this case, it sort of happened to happen on TikTok. And I think it would be a mistake to say it's just because the platform is Chinese-owned that these Chinese factories are doing well there.

11:39Although I will say, I think maybe some of these marketing agencies and these bigger factories that are doing this themselves maybe have more familiarity with TikTok because of Doyin, which is the local version also owned by ByteDance. But I also think what's happening here is that you're seeing Americans, you know, people in Europe connect to this stuff, particularly because it portrays sort of like a more camp, sort of like sillier side of China. You know, a lot of these factories are really old school. They're maybe owned by guys who I don't know about this case in particular, but when I've talked to these factories, they're often owned by like, you know, old school guys who are sort of products of the cultural revolution who, you know, chain, smoke cigarettes and, you know, drink tea all day long.

12:29But that's not really reflective of social media in China. You know, it's very sophisticated. There's just exactly the same kinds of, you know, hot girl influencers, you know, people with hot takes on those local platforms. But I think it's not a coincidence that what's resonating is more of sort of that like old school manufacturing, maybe like more foreign vibe than like, you know, a typical, you know, Chinese fashion influencer who also has no reason to post on a foreign platform. Right. Whereas like these factories are actually looking for customers overseas. And I wouldn't be too surprised if maybe there is somebody out there who was looking for a glycine manufacturer and, you know, now they found one.

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15:27I'm not sure about on TikTok per se, because I don't follow that much glycine content on TikTok. But on a Chinese platform, you know, I just got started. But I think on Chinese platforms, it's a lot more common to see this sort of stuff. As in, I do think that when I encountered this video in Chinese, I was like, oh, this makes so much more sense. Because people just post, I think there's a culture of posting a short, like two, three minute ad of their company or their factory to show sort of the working conditions of workers or the kind of products that they produce. Just a very popular thing on Chinese social media, even though it sort of caters to a particular audience, that is, their potential customers.

16:16But at the same time, I think there is an increased interest, as Luis said, about Chinese factory videos on Western platforms. One guy I've been recently following is Tony from LC Sign. And he is a guy who works at an electronic sign company, like Lights and Billboards. And he does weird English accents. Yeah, I now know who you mean. he has a peculiar accent and i said this is someone with a peculiar accent yeah he does all different sorts of accents and people just loved him uh and i imagine it was the same intention but he was doing it more successfully you know than than glycine uh producers mostly because i think more people were interested in buying billboards and posters than glycine why do you think that it's so common in china to post like for these videos to exist because i can't think of an American equivalent of this.

17:15I guess you get people who post tractor videos and such, and there is that niche thing, but almost this industrial pride doesn't seem to exist over here. Yeah, I do think that's right. I think the difference is the completeness of supply chain in China, where your target customer is somebody who is above you in your supply chain or below you're in your supply chain. And you have so many companies, so many factories, and so many workshops that are in the business of supplying to herbicide manufacturers. So in that sense, you do have a much bigger intended audience if you're a manufacturer on one specific part of this process.

18:02So obviously, China has a much larger industrial base, much larger manufacturing capacity and a lot more small businesses that are like Donghaji alone trying to buy products from other Donghaji loans. So in that sense, it makes a lot of sense. I think another thing too, is that there's just sort of a culture of documenting all aspects of sort of what's going on in the factory via video. You know, a good example is it's very common in China for recruiters or for, you know, people who work at these factories to sort of take videos of like, what does the dorm look like? You know, what is the cafeteria like?

18:41What is daily life like if you work at these factories? And those videos are often designed to, you know, recruit more people to work there. But we've seen in the U.S. that if you record your life at Amazon or your life in a factory, you're probably going to get fired. And that's not to say that, you know, if you film stuff that was painted your employer in a bad light, that you wouldn't be punished for that in China. Of course you would be. But I think there's a sort of more of a culture of documenting all of this. And I think it's also a result of people being much closer to manufacturing and having a much more deep understanding of how these supply chains work.

19:21Everybody in China knows somebody who's involved in manufacturing in some capacity, unless like, I don't know, you're the most elite person in Beijing who, you know, only knows other intellectuals or something. You know, there's somebody in your family, a relative, a friend who is involved in this world. And so it's much more normalized, I think. Whereas for Americans, it's like we had a whole TV show 15 years ago or something about how stuff was made because, you know, it was interesting to people because we didn't know because that was already an industry that was being offshored. And this is not necessarily saying this kind of culture is good, but at the same time, it does feel like there's almost more connection to more blue collar labor there.

20:04And there's not so much an obsession with, maybe I'm wrong, please correct me if I'm wrong, but far less of an attempt to escape those trappings. I feel like America has a degree of shame for factory work while also kind of lionizing the working class. And it's weird. It's weird watching this happen. And it's weird watching Americans kind of celebrate the glycine lords, even ironically. It's been peculiar to watch. I think actually what you're seeing in China now is exactly what you just described having happened in the U.S., which is that there's way more college graduates now who don't want to have sort of the same factory jobs as their parents.

20:47I think that this work is really difficult. It often doesn't pay super well. And now it's terrible. Yeah, but you're seeing like horrible. I want to be clear about that. For sure. But you're seeing, I think, like this manufacturing labor pool in China starting to age, right? Like younger workers don't want to do this anymore. And, you know, China has said like, oh, yeah, we're having problems sort of recruiting people to go to these factory jobs. And I think that's also because you often have to live there, which is a really big difference, right? Like, you know, no one lives on site at Amazon, I hope.

21:22Like, please, if you know about that, like, get in touch. But it's a different, you know, it's an all-encompassing lifestyle where you're living on the campus, you're working, you know, six days a week, potentially long hours. And understandably, you know, college graduates don't really want to do that. So I think you're right that historically sort of, you know, manufacturing was a huge way that China, you know, lifted a lot of people out of poverty and sort of, you know, increased its GDP very rapidly. But at the same time, you're seeing exactly what you described in the U.S. of like, this is not something that a lot of young people are excited about doing.

21:55But it's still happening on a much bigger scale there than it is here anymore. I do think the long hours that people spend in these factories is very important in a sense that it sort of resembles this socialist legacy where even though, you know, most of these companies are privately owned these days, you know, in these state-owned enterprises and state-owned factories in the 70s and 80s, you did live with your coworkers. You had your own houses. You went to cafeterias with your coworkers. So there was an assumption of some sort of social cohesion with your workplace. outside of work itself. And this is why we're seeing a lot of people posting about their lives in factories, also in part because they have probably very little life outside of the workplace, which could be a terrible thing in many cases because of the long working hours these days.

22:48So I do think that culture is still embedded in some types of factory work in China. Yeah, and it's... The other thing is, as well, is that it feels like some of this is being used to kind of cover up the grosser side. Things like that they live there, and that the hours are horrifying. But it's... Why is it... Why is it you think that they're able to show so much of the living conditions without actually coming up against the fact that you live at your job? like they're able to just skirt the bad parts I guess and it almost feels like this whole Dongma Jinlong thing is kind of covering up parts of that romanticizing this industry that is quite horrible I do think it is worth sort of emphasizing the fact that these are corporate accounts right these are not workers sharing their own experiences these are companies that are able to jump the great firewall and are able to sort of post on foreign social media platforms because they are doing it in the name of like, you know, getting customers, communicating with their customers, advertising their business.

24:05Whereas it would be riskier, right, for a, you know, individual factory worker to actually post sort of, you know, authentic content about their job and about their everyday experiences. You do see some of that, but it's much more rare. And I often find that it's people who are in like a sales job and have a little bit more cover or, you know, a little bit more familiarity with foreign platforms, maybe speak better English. So, yeah, I think that's a good point. It's like, you know, I do also want to shy away, though, from the idea that every factory job in China is horrible and that it's uniquely different from, you know, blue collar labor in other parts of the world.

24:50because I guess I cover fashion a lot. I cover the e-commerce industry. And time and time again, I hear people say, oh, well, I feel better about this sweater or whatever because it was made in America. And I'm like, oh, cool. So you mean the sweatshops here in Los Angeles that are like 10 miles away? I'm not sure how that's any better. Oh, that's the next episode of the show. Literally, that very subject. Because you've got, I think that some of that as well is Shein and Timu and these companies that absolutely do and have grown off of the international terrorists, but also the kind of labor rights violations.

25:26And I know China has tried to clean up its act here. It's just tried. And I mean, tried is something that's mitigated through some degree of propaganda, as we know. But it's, I think your point is salient where it's not so much that China's doing perfect work, but that America absolutely isn't. And the conditions for blue collar workers everywhere are pretty goddamn awful. Yeah. And I think what I always try and say in these conversations is to like, center it more on the agency of these workers. Because I think oftentimes, you know, people say, oh, I feel so bad about like, you know, the stuff I bought on Shein, like, you know, those poor people who are being treated horribly.

26:06But that kind of becomes an abstraction. And it's like, okay, those people are just like, an object of my guilt, right? Instead of like, actual people with complicated lives, you know, some of whom chose these jobs, you know, perhaps because they needed the money, but... I will push back a little bit on that or didn't have a choice. Yeah, or didn't have a choice. Yeah. Yeah. But I think like, you know, for example, if you want to talk about like, you know, complicated embroidery or like certain types of like intricate garment work, right? Like that's a skill and that's a skill that like, you know, companies can't just like get away with by like hiring nine-year-olds to do, right?

26:44Like those are people who, you know, have dignity in their work. And I think like it's important, I guess, just to like center their humanity instead of just being like all those people who are treated horribly. Yeah. And they're not just mindless drones.

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