Chinese knives...am I xenophobic?

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The cow said:
Just like Spydercos being made in Taiwan.
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Spydercos that are made in Taiwan have the best fit and finish in the line . That Spyderco that cost 200 bucks and it made over there would be double the price if made over here .

I grew up with the never buy Chinese knives being drilled into my head . I'm sure a lot of folks here are the same way for years I was told by old timers to stay away from any knife except a USA made knife.

I understand people still not trusting a Chinese knife even though they seem to be able to produce a quality knife .
 
Going to add for the OP or anybody else that cares to read this . Like I said growing up it was preached to me only buy a knife made in the USA .

As I got older it went from knives , to cars to basically support USA made products if you can.

Part of this way of thinking was having the men in my family fight wars in Asian countries ,I know because as I got older they told me this. Both my granddad fought in WW2 and both as far as I remember owned American made cars and everything they bought was USA made.

That was a generation thing , I respect my elders so I listened to them growing up.

When I got grown though I began working for a overseas based auto maker . All the years of hearing only buy American cars because of quality went out the window when I actually learned the business .

I'm still with the same automaker and I know what these cars are ,I know how they are made and I know what goes into the research of that car and we'll as what it takes to roll it off the assembly line .

My grandparents were wrong , maybe they weren't wrong when they were my age but they are wrong now . I understand why they felt the way they did as well.
 
Some day in the near future China manufacturing is going to move some place in Africa . And the Chinese people are going to say what we say .
 
I do not buy much of anything made in China, except for some requisite electronics. Yes, even clothes and basic every day items of mine are made elsewhere. It is a personal choice, and I try my best to stick to it. My nylon gear (gun cases, chest rigs, plate carriers, molle gear and pouches, backpacks, etc...), knives, firearms, optics, flashlights and batteries, camping/backpacking gear, power and hand tools, cars, furniture, and most everything else are made in America, Japan, or a European country. I have no "expensive" Chinese goods. I only buy quality, and, for the most part, other countries do quality much better than China does. Your mileage may vary.
 
miltmaldo said:
Some day in the near future China manufacturing is going to move some place in Africa . And the Chinese people are going to say what we say .
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They're already saying it, as cheap manufacturing moves out of coastal-province China to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

As for the main topic of the thread, Chinese manufacturing is as good as the customer pays for. You want a cheap selling price? They can do cheap. Want quality (at a higher price)? Yeah, they can do that too. But the customer — and by this I mean the US knife company — has to insist on quality and take the time and effort to keep it high.

As someone has noted above, back in the day, "Made in Japan" was synonymous with "crap" and that was often justifed and not just in the Occupation days (ended April 1952). My father, a WW2 Pacific army veteran, was firmly of that opinion when I was growing up in the 1950s. But the last car he owned (1990s) was a Subaru.

As it is with China today, so it was with (South) Korea yesterday, and Japan the day before.
 
Rasco said:
It depends on if it's a low quality item being made in China, or a high quality item being made in China.
There no reason why Chinese people would be inherently bad at making quality products. It's just that America is so addicted to cheap, crappy consumer goods, that tends to be the majority of what they make for us.

You're going to need to dig a little deeper than the "Made in _____" label on a product to know whether it's high quality or low quality.
You have access to the internet, so take like 10-15 mins and do a little research.
You won't find very many negative reviews of most of the offerings from Kizer and Reate and even some of the more recent Chinese companies like WE.

China has figured out that a lot of guys in America are willing to pay $200-$400 for a high quality folder, and so they are responding to that demand.
You owe it to yourself to give some of these brands a shot. If you don't like it, or don't see the value, you can always sell it here.
And try to remember, these companies are run by regular guys making knives. It's not their fault the Chinese government sucks, so why punish them for it?
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Great post, not much else to say on this over-worked subject.

Just one comment on the last line. Compare what China provides for its people today compared to just a few decades ago ...
 
It's hard to intelligently discuss this without getting political to the point of violating the rules. Suffice it to say that anyone who tries to tell you that the economy isn't, and won't forever more be, global, is yanking your chain. If you refuse to buy from China as a political statement, you need to ride a horse named Rocinante.
 
HappyDaddy said:
If you refuse to buy from China as a political statement, you need to ride a horse named Rocinante.
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To the maximum extent possible, I will no longer support communists or their nations especially in pursuit of any hobbies and/or luxury items. One need not be like Don Quixote to take that position.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
Short answer? Yeah, you are.

Edit: To clarify, you are missing out on quality cutlery, I'm not quite judgey enough to call you xenophobic. ;)
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I agree to some extent. Though if you have a bias against the products of ALL other countries, only then you are xenophobic. If you just have a bias against the Chinese, which appears to be the case, then you are "prejudiced," or possibly "racist."
 
Most of the world has been making knives and swords an order of magnitude longer than we have been a country so I think they got it down. Having said that I don't buy Chinese because I have a habit of grumping about the lack of manufacturing in the States and the jobs and wealth it provides so I put my money where my mouth is whenever possible.
 
leghog said:
Or possible neither.
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Sure, if you want to ignore what words mean. But if, like the OP,

Vonderek said:
Whenever I see a product that I am interested in, if it is made in China I automatically exclude it and move on.
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and you act automatically purely based on nation of origin, then those words describe your behavior.

The guy asked, and if the words make him, or you, uncomfortable, then I don't know what to tell you, other than to continue ignoring what they mean. Or don't ask in the first place.
 
I realize it can be hard to do, but these types of discussions always devolve into discussions and critiques about the people of a country instead of simply sticking to the merits or the flaws of the knives themselves. Let's be clear: 'China' doesn't make knives; individual people who work in companies in China make knives. Same with the U.S. And just because it's in China, or any other Asian country, does not mean that all those people who make the knives are mindless drones. It seems very easy, especially for many Americans, to have this monolithic view of people outside the U.S., especially in various Asian countries.

Although my knife preferences tend to be made in Switzerland, the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan, for me it's more to do with the knives themselves than their country of origin. It just happens to be that the knives I like and use are manufactured in those places.

Jim
 
Revolverrodger said:
Go on buying chinese products...
But when your job gets delocalized to asia don't come whining about it
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Never said I bought Chinese goods I just said they can make a quality product.

I work for the Japanese and kind of funny story ,my employer opened up a plant in Mexico . We got a notice that the higher ups and some employees were coming to our plant and we were to train them etc. Well it was not a good day at my job , basically everyone thought they were training their replacements .

I'm not going to go into too much detail about what happened but the Mexican employees never got trained .

The real point of my posts was more of its a generation thing that make us look at overseas products how we do . Some of it is justified now but to say that everything they put out in junk is just false .

Take my job for instance it's Japanese owned but American built and operated . For years it was said don't buy our brand because it was foreign ,now days our brand is winning awards for automakers year after year for quality or safety and it's Americans making these cars . The Japanese make the Japanese version of the cars and that's it our little plant makes the rest of the paticular models we make and they are sold to the rest of the world
 
I have got some China made Kershaw knives (along with Taiwan made Spyderco). I believe that they are not only very good value, but also pretty good quality. I think if I were not into knives one of them would be everything I would've ever needed for a knife. If you are prepared to go through the hoops to keep strictly to US-made stuff that is your choice. But do not kid yourself it is strictly about quality.
 
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