Originally Posted by
mrbrown
I am genuinely curious here.
Someone explain to me why bicycles manufactured in China or Taiwan are spoken of with derision sometimes on this forum, when compared to bicycles made in the USA.
I have ridden bicycles made in the US, in the UK, in Taiwan and in China, and they all have their share of gems and lemons.
In fact, some of the best bicycles are made in Taiwan.
So why this unhappiness?
I guess as Westerners we only see Japan as producing high quality desirable products. Rightly or wrongly we treat all the other Far Eastern countries with suspicion. We tend to associate them with making cheap, poor quality items or reasonable items at reduced cost due to the availability of cheap labour. Any company based in those countries is seen to be more concerned with profit and overheads than producing high quality desirable products. Also the fact that so much counterfeit stuff comes from that part of the world does not help change our attitude.
If you buy a product from one of these companies (especially a car) you will always be seen to have gone for the budget, less desirable option and to be more interested in cost than the passion of owning what you really wanted.