My Honest Take on Buying Products from China: A Decade of Hits and Misses Let me take you back to 2016. I was a broke graduate student living in a cramped Brooklyn apartment, trying to furnish my first real home on a shoestring budget. That’s when I made my first purchase from China: a minimalist bookshelf from AliExpress. It cost $45, including shipping. I remember the excitement when it arrived—and the sinking feeling when I realized the instructions were entirely in Mandarin. But six years later, that bookshelf is still standing, holding my entire collection of fashion magazines and design books. That purchase changed something in me. I started seeing…