The younger members of our audience might not know/remember this, but back in the late 50s and early 60s, pretty much any product made in Japan was considered garbage. It got to be so much of a stereotype that it was rumored a town in Japan was renamed USA – so that people considering purchasing products stamped, “MADE IN USA”, would not think it was crap.
Nowadays, Japan is known for their quality. Companies such as Sony, Toyota, Canon and others have become synonymous with quality. Not so for Chinese products – generally speaking of course. There are so many Chinese products of dubious quality flooding the markets these days that they have now taken over the stereotype of poor quality. In fact, at least one social media site we know of refers to anything cheap or of poor quality as, “made with Chinesium.”
