I'd better hurry or I'll miss the boat (pardon the pun)

Do you have prejudices, at least subliminally, against certain countries?  I remember my dad would not buy a German or Japanese car, saying "I fought those bastards in WWII, and I'm NOT going to drive one of their cars today!"  His reaction was obviously a generational thing as my generation loves both German and Japanese cars.  I've had Audi's and Honda's and Mazda's and loved them all.

It's hard to imagine that one of the worlds absolute finest luxury SUV's...

...and most iconic sports car marques are both owned by an Indian company, Tata Motors (even though they are designed, engineered, and built in the UK).

My generation seems to have a problem with Vietnam and China.  I cringe when I pick up a coat, for example, and see the tag that says it was made in Vietnam.  And now I subliminally rule out Volvo as it is owned by a Chinese company, even though they are still Swedish in origin.  As we all know (?), most Chinese companies have their strings pulled by the Chinese government, the Chinese COMMUNIST government.  Ewwwww!

A few years ago I was given a private tour of the Boeing complex in Renton, Washington.  We were on the back loading dock where my guide asked, "See anything unusual about those shipping crates" (each the size of a small house)?  Turns out they were made of bamboo plywood, because they contained the empennage for a 737 (in this case the horizontal tail assembly) which was made in China...COMMUNIST China.  Aren't these the same folks that gave us kids toys made pretty by lead paint?  Ouch!  

Today I read the Chinese company, Haier, is buying the appliance division of General Electric for $5.9B.  It's hard enough trying to understand the customer service rep in India.  I shudder to think...

Now more than ever, it looks like the old saying "you can't judge a book by its cover" holds true. The terms "old"  "mature" and "change" sometimes are hard to reconcile.  *sigh*

S