Far Away From Home

“From Japan! From Japan!”, the salesman preaches.

Try randomly enter retail shops from the average commoners to the splurging ones, be it furniture or technology products, you will find a good number of them telling you it is made in elsewhere you know so you know its credibility, except China. That is all you need to know. The country name is enough to charm you into believing it is safe.

And “Made in China” means that you should avoid it, get away from it right now, and dump it right away!

As a Chinese, I can tell you it is kind of sad to hear that. Implicitly, even the locals know “Made in China” is a synonym of bad quality. The last time I was scouting for a house, I was preached repeatedly with tiles from Germany, taps from Sweden and air conditioners from Japan. I know some part of the house must be from China, but that certainly is not a point of interest, like affairs you would not want to mention of. “Made in China” has made itself a synonym of piracy and low-quality. Fabulous.

Why? Why such well known issues is unaddressed?

I am no good in this, but I guess corruption and culture. Corruption, well, we all know the government officials are good at getting cash, and cash hides a lot of things. Find a piece of newspaper and get the evidence, you should have no trouble picking a few. Culture, as my friend LP mentioned, why have not the CEO come out to apologize, instead of hiding and blaming other causes immediately without solid evidence? Because, Chinese culture, in chess terms, likes to trade a rook for a king, and, in idioms, “sacrifice the little for the grand”. That was rooted from the far old ancient history.

Sad but true. It will still be like that for a while. And, if you do not know, bonus for you, there are pirated pirate goods as well. Isn’t that incredible?