Wooden Toys

My son received a few wooden toys from his grandparents for Christmas. They are mass-produced toys made in China. They are found in every toy store large and small in the Boston area. Their appeal (for my family anyway) is that they are not made of plastic. Oddly enough though these wooden products aren't more expensive than the "cheap" plastic ones. I sometimes wonder where the pine comes from. It is no secret that an estimated 50,000 North Korean slave laborers are working in logging camps in Siberia. According to defectors who worked in Siberia (and NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/world/europe/north-korea-russia-migrants.html) the Kim family and their mafiosi seize most their earnings outright and whatever crumbs these laborers see will be taken away by their North Korean managers for various fees such as rent and food. As a result in addition to working long hours at the camps they must find other jobs to earn money for their families. Think about this: In North Korea these laborers are considered fortunate. I remember how envious everyone was when a man in my neighborhood was "chosen" for this job and his family received a black and white Russian TV from him a year later from Russia.