China Charlie is now the Jetage Bum  

Previous installments of "China Charlie" and "The Jetage Bum" are on our archive page (click on "To our Archives" below).       

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Made in China…. . .  .   .

            In the 1940’s and 1950’s, there was an American Artist named Norman Rockwell that did the weekly covers for the old “Saturday Evening Post” Magazine. Every week there would be a new painting on the cover with no repeats, and in a radio interview he was asked where he got the inspirations for so many paintings.

          His reply was basically that he was a great people watcher, and normally took his ideas from the “little” things of everyday life that he saw around him. He also commented that occasionally even this didn’t work, so he would draw a lamppost, and wait to see what showed up.

          I had been looking for an idea for the China Charlie/The Jetage Bum website, and was about to follow Mr. Rockwell’s lead and draw my own version of a lamppost, when a friend of mine (here in China) commented about hearing a story about a foreigner buying new windshield (or windscreen) wipers for his car.

          Before I get into this story too far, please keep in mind that China has been referred to as the “World’s Factory”, and it’s for good reason. Everything from Abercrombie “T” Shirts to Zippers, and all the “widgets” and “gadgets” in between, are produced some where here in the “Middle Kinkdom”.

          Anyway, it seems that this foreigner had taken his car into a dealership for some routine maintenance, and decided that he needed a new set of wipers. The Service Manager asked if he wanted the domestic wipers or the imported ones, that came from a German company. Having been in China for several years, and going through the time when there were major differences in the same product, between those made for domestic consumption and the imported ones, he was “leaning” toward the “imported” variety.

This particular guy is a great person, and his wife is a delightful lady, but when it comes to money they're “tighter’n Dick’s hatband” (whoever Dick was). In the case of his car, he really didn’t want the lower quality blades, but the original equipment wiper blades had lasted through over two years of South China downpours. After a fair amount of time spent deliberating over the pro and cons, he decided to “splurge” and purchase the more expensive, imported wipers.

After paying for the wiper blades that appeared to be “imported” from Germany, his "bride" was reading the parts of the packaging that she could (she’s a non German speaking individual), and found that they were labeled “Made in China”.  While this would give the indication that these blades were made in the “Middle Kinkdom”, exported to the German distributor, and re-exported back to China, one thing that we've found through the years is that things here are not always what they seem, and there's a good chance that these blades never crossed any borders.

We never really will know if the blades were exported to Germany before showing up at the dealership in China, but his story got a good laugh out of the group

        Until next time, Y'all have a rice week now, ya' hear