原作者：
来源American manufacturing: Sticking it to China | The Economist
译者炫耀至极
ASK someone to write down all the differences between China and rural Georgia and his hand will fall off before he’s halfway done. So let us restrict ourselves to the vista: cranes, skyscrapers, spanking new rail networks and smog: China. Barbecue restaurants, red clay and trees: Georgia. And whereas most rural Georgians are surviving quite well, thank you, without skyscrapers and subways, Chinese diners, who go through billions of disposable wooden chopsticks each year, could use a few more trees.
如果让你写出中国和美国乔治亚州的所有不同之处，那么你一定写不出什么来。所以让我们再把范围缩小一点，四处可见的起重机，摩天大楼林立，密集的铁路新干线，工业烟雾污染，这是中国；烧烤店，红色粘土和森林，这是乔治亚州。然而乔治亚州的乡村居民却过的非常不错，尽管他们没有摩天大楼和地铁，而这一切都要归功于中国那些每年消费数十亿双一次性筷子的食客。
Enter Georgia Chopsticks. Jae Lee, a former scrap-metal exporter, saw an opportunity and began turning out chopsticks for the Chinese market late last year. He and his co-owner, David Hughes, make their chopsticks from poplar and sweet-gum trees, which have the requisite flexibility and toughness, and are abundant throughout Georgia.
乔治亚筷子厂的李杰从前是一个废金属出口商，去年底他发现了一个商机——为中国市场制作筷子。他和合作伙伴大卫·休斯用乔治亚州盛产的枫香树做筷子，这样做出来的筷子有很好的柔韧性。
In May Georgia Chopsticks moved to larger premises in Americus, a location that offered room to grow, inexpensive facilities and a willing workforce. Sumter County, of which Americus is the seat, has an unemployment rate of more than 12%. Georgia Chopsticks now employs 81 people turning out 2m chopsticks a day. By year’s end Mr Lee and Mr Hughes hope to increase their workforce to 150, and dream of building a “manufacturing incubator” to help foreign firms take advantage of Georgia’s workforce and raw materials.
今年五月，乔治亚筷子厂搬到了亚美利卡斯市，这个地方能够提供更好的发展空间、便宜的设备和劳动力。萨穆特县城失业率超过12%，乔治亚筷子厂现在雇佣了81名工人，每天制造200万双筷子。到年底，李和休斯希望将人数扩大到150人，并且期望建立一个“制造业孵化器”，用来帮助外国公司更好的利用乔治亚州的劳动力资源和原材料。
But that is some way off. For now Messrs Lee and Hughes, and their workers, keep busy shearing, steaming, shaving, cutting and drying huge logs into rough chopsticks. They still need to be finished—to eat with a pair of Georgia Chopsticks right off the Americus line you would need tweezers in your other hand and a high pain tolerance. For that they are shipped via the Port of Savannah to China (later this year they will start sending them to Korea and Japan) in boxes with a rare and prestigious stamp: Made in the USA.
但这样的设想尚需时日，现在对李、休斯和工人来说，仍是开足马力制造出更多的筷子粗品，还有很多道工序需要完成，否则消费者就只能一手拿着筷子，一手拿着镊子，边剪筷子上的绒毛边痛苦地进食了。所有工序完成之后，筷子会被放在一个盒子里，打上美国制造的烙印，然后通过萨凡纳港出口到中国去。
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