Shelley Rigger

And what are they going to spend their money on?

They're going to spend their money on making a little workshop or a little factory.

And the government also made sure that as little manufacturing industries appeared, they would have what they needed.

So the state took over the upstream industrial sector.

So petrochemicals so that you have plenty of plastic.

And if you think about Taiwan's exports in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, plastic is at the core.

Cement is.

steel, shipbuilding, logistics, transportation, energy, all the things you need to be sure that if you can make a Barbie, you can get her to the U.S.

for sale, right?

So all over Taiwan, people start in their backyards, in their garages, in little factory buildings that they built in the middle of a village.

They start making every kind of consumer doodad you can imagine.

Yeah, right after World War II, your listeners may not remember, but four-year grandparents, everything was made in Japan, made in Japan, made in Japan.

For my generation, 1970s, everything was made in Taiwan.

And there's a funny moment in Toy Story where Buzz Lightyear, who, remember, thinks he is a real guy.

You know, they're all telling him, dude, you're just a toy.

He pops open the cuff of his glove and it says it right there.

Made in Taiwan.

That's when he knows, I'm not a real person.

I'm actually a toy like everybody else in this box.

So it was toys, it was apparel, it was our bicycles, it was, you know, our writing implements, the pens and pencils, the little stationary objects, but also all kinds of things that go into...