I’m Done Buying Cheap Chinese S*%T!

Except for a new MacBook, iPhone, Apple Watch and Air Pods

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Okay, it’s the Thanksgiving holiday, aka Black Friday weekend, and I’ve yet to see any rants about it on Medium, so I guess I’ll be first.

Every year, I make a New Year’s resolution not to buy any more Chinese crap, but I rarely make it through Groundhog Day. This year, however, has been different. I’ve scrupulously avoided all things Chinese with the exception of eating at my favorite restaurant.

And then came the specter of Christmas shopping.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I got online Thanksgiving morning in hopes of being able to grab a few special deals without having to stand in a real line somewhere. I couldn't resist being able to pay less for everything on the planet because of a marketing gimmick that has turned the Thanksgiving Holiday upside down and backward.

Why does everything have to be so commercial? Why can't we just go back to the day when families crowded around the TV and watched Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade together?

Oh wait, that’s a multi-hour, billion-dollar ad machine, with barely a minute of anything that isn’t a commercial.

I happen to be a product of World War II parents. I’m a Japanese-Irish American. It’s a fact that I have been reminded of all my life because when people find out they inevitably say, “I knew there was something strange about you!” But that’s a rant for another day.

I mention my Japanese heritage because I remember when I was a kid that everything cheap in the world had Made In Japan labeled across it somewhere. Every carnival reward, every Cracker-Jack prize, and every two-bit cereal premium toy was manufactured in Japan. I even have a few post-war pieces that say Made in OCCUPIED Japan stuffed away in a box somewhere.

Of course, then the Japanese went on to make cars, changed the business world, and embarrassed the hell out of all of us. But, that’s a different story as well.

I’m here to write about the cheap Chinese crap. The difference is that the Japanese crap didn't break right away. I still have decoder rings, space rayguns, and nine-function whistle-compass-sundials from my childhood you couldn’t break with a hammer!

As an adult, however, I have a workshop filled with everything from broken Chinese curtain rings to malfunctioning Chinese-made outdoor shower rigs that have disintegrated within weeks of buying them.

So I’m done!

I’m sick of buying cheap Chinese crap that breaks within hours after I’ve bought it and in the process makes the Chinese economy the second largest in the world. I just came home from a month in Europe where the only people ordering $400 champagne were Chinese.

Oh, wait. I have another problem.

The grandkids need new computers, phones, watches, and earphones.

I guess I have to forget this year’s resolution and just “Apple-Up”. In this world of mega billionaires who don’t give an American crap about anything, I’ll keep my resolution sometime in 2000-never.