Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

To some of my friends, what I’m about to say might seem xenophobic or nationalist, but hear me out. I don’t think it is, and I’m pretty sure it’s nobody in particular at fault.  It’s systemic.  Business depends upon a common set of standards. Whatever the rules and conventions are in a particular place and time define it’s brand of commerce.  Hint, all brands of commerce are not interchangeable.

I found this to be true when I was in the race gun parts business, trying to buy factory parts from Italy so we could modify and resell them.  You simply don’t buy parts in august, and might not get a response to communication with a parts department in Italy in July.  They basically shutter industry for the month of august for vacation.  That’s their culture.  Taking offense to waiting only means you’ll be mad at least a month. It won’t change a thing, and no, they don’t care how we do it in New York, any more than your Kentucky grandma does. Deal with it or take your business elsewhere.

I found many stereotypes true, regardless of offense that might be taken. Germans and Swiss  tended to be technical. If you claim something is three centimeters wide, you better provide tolerances. They’ll want to know.  If you claim something is shipped express, have a receipt handy. They’ll want it.

If I’m ordering from a sporting goods supplier in Tennessee, and my order is getting overripe, the customer service lady might well explain to me how COVID has the shipping department all tore up, and they’re about four weeks behind, and it won’t do a lick of good asking them unless it’s been at least six weeks.  They’ll cap it off with “Sorry, darlin”.

Which brings us to China, current home to virtually all the manufacturing we used to do in the US, and to some extent the carrier of the world’s sack of balls.  China, it is fair to note, has an entire culture and set of expectations that are not western.  Oh sure, the Chinese, particularly in the HK region, absolutely understand how western business is conducted IN CHINA, where rules and conventions and legal protection for consumers are far different from RESPECTABLE dealings in the west.

To the Weaterner, there is an expectation of how a business transaction works.  If I advertise two eggs, toast, and coffee for $7, the expectation is that’s what I’ll give you, and you’ll pay for it when you’ve gotten your breakfast.  If I send the waitress out with one egg and no toast, she better be apologizing for a kitchen emergency, and telling me whatever they did give me is on the house, with their sincere regret. 

I’m beginning to learn that there are a whole bunch of cultural assumptions underlying each scenario.  The Italian worker values his hard won vacation. The Swiss or German will insure he gets every millimeter advertised, and likely want the heat treat report to go with.

The Chinese, having developed from peasant to colonial to authoritarian society, where You’ve only ever got a “deal” if you can hold it in your hand or eat it, there is little understanding of the sacred contract underlying business. There is no expectation of fairness. There is only power, and everything is negotiable until the moment it is consumed.

And so it is the Chinese maker offers a drill start capability in their advertising, fails to provide it, when asked what happened, the engineering people reply it’s not necessary, nobody makes any effort to supply or compensate, and the company is still referencing the drill start option in their current literature.

They don’t see this as a fault.  They’ve never had the right to expect what they’re promised.  One egg, two eggs, toast, no toast, you get what you get, and until you’ve got the product in your hand, know this, you’ll get what they give you, and they don’t care. They don’t care because they don’t have the rights we enjoy.  They’re subjects, and in dealing with them, a customer is a source of money.  They’ll take all they can, and deliver only what they’re forced to. Rights? Expectations?  You’d do better trying to push Maybelle in shipping in Nashville, and she is working sick with COVID, and hasn’t had a vacation in twelve years.

It ain’t gonna get better, folks.  We sent the machinery and the know how overseas when Nixon was trying to get re-elected.  What nobody sent was expectations of what constitutes a basic business transaction where everyone gets treated fairly.  Maybe the west didn’t model that very well.  Maybe we still don’t.  Maybe iPhones are still assembled by kids working sixteen hour shifts? I dunno.  But I know the basic assumptions are not the same.

I dont buy Chinese steam products anymore and haven't in quite awhile, nor will I comment on Chinese engine threads, or Jins threads any longer. All I see is the problem everyone is having with these products and 0 support from the Mfg. And well...its China !