Eight years ago I started my new life in Shenzhen. At the time, I was hired as a foreign teacher at a public school in Nanshan. I chose to buy a car for commuting to and from school, and decided on a Chinese-made one, although I had no knowledge of the durability and reliability of those.
My only motive was to support a product made in this country, out of love, and maybe in the long run I would also convince and motivate others to follow suit. I discussed my plan during lunch with my Chinese colleagues at school. To my astonishment and surprise, I received 100-percent disapproval from my fellow teachers. Their immediate response was “not to buy a Chinese car,” followed by reasoning that “Chinese cars are no good.”
At the end I informed them that I would buy a Chinese-made car, and I would prove to all of them how wrong they were on their assessment and judgment. One week later I made my purchase and got a new low-priced car.
Five years had passed. I drove it hard, including taking it on very rough rural roads in Guangdong, and I never experienced the slightest issues. Until I lost my mind at one point and decided to replace my loyal trouble-free Chinese car with a second-hand luxury German car in tip-top shape. This time, eight months had passed, as well as seven trips to repair shops on major items such as the transmission and engine, consuming RMB and time and frustration, not to mention regret and remorse.
It was an expensive lesson learned in a very hard way. I bought my third car, exactly the same brand and model as the Chinese car I had six years before, but two generations newer. Like a pet, I touched the dash and verbally promised my new car that I cherish it and would never depart from it.
Here are the morals of this story: First, Japan or South Korea, for example, while in the infancy of their automobile manufacturing, did go through many trial and error phases, but through time and relentless efforts they overcame obstacles and maximized the efficiency, durability, reliability and safety of their vehicles. Chinese car manufacturers are no different, and China’s automobile industry and its development has proven to achieve remarkably fast-paced improvement, from design to efficiency and reliability. My inexpensive 50,000 yuan car is a testament to that.
Secondly and most importantly: claiming or stating that a Japanese, Korean, French, or American car is of a higher quality and better-made is not far from the truth. However, disregarding, bashing, ridiculing and belittling a Chinese-made automobile, to the extent of labeling them “not good” is far from accurate. What is worse is that such statements came from the mouth of a Chinese citizen, while responding to the willingness and honest intentions of a foreigner who proudly planned to buy a Chinese model.
And making the matter even worse is when these negative and unfair statements were made by teachers. Teachers are supposed to be training the future souls of this country.
There’s no fault in choosing a foreign-made automobile; it’s simply freedom of choice. But Chinese people, collectively, must be proud and supportive of the efforts and the intelligence of Chinese designers and engineers.
Instead of buying Japanese-made pens, computers, cars, TVs and cameras on a daily basis, Chinese nationals have a more noble responsibility to be proud of China and Chinese, not blindly supporting everything foreign. We all have obligations to our own heritage, not to misinform others and be overly protective, but to promote our own, to harmonize our words and actions in defending our motherland in a realistic and responsible manner. We must show character. After all, it’s character that counts.
(The author is a retired American educator with a Ph.D. in business administration residing in Shenzhen.)