Comments on: Pencils on the move

By: Japanese in Yangon | Language on the Move

Japanese in Yangon | Language on the Move — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 00:06:37 +0000

[…] Also, expect to see many second hand cars and trucks from Japan running around in town. Many of them carry Japanese writings on the body of the cars or markings on the windscreen. Why would the car owners leave these writings on? It seems that they function as a symbol of authenticity. While products made in China and South Korea are on the increase, Japanese products continue to be seen as ‘high quality’ and thus desirable. No wonder, then, that Daiso is already there, as well as its local equivalent shops who sell “Japanese products”. […]

By: Asma Fatehali (Karachi, Pakistan)

Asma Fatehali (Karachi, Pakistan) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:25:09 +0000

Thanks for sharing such fascinating narrative. Today’s world is a global village where we may find the products made in China everywhere. It depends on buyers to purchase or ignore like your child. Children are taking keen interest in buying different types of souvenirs for their friends and cousins. They are greatly admired by the things which grab their attention, like your child bought the product made in China but from Japanese store.

By: Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江

Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江 — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:58:45 +0000

My comment here is a bit off the point you are trying to make, but I think transnational Japanese companies like Daiso would make a fascinating site of research on language work and multilingualism on the move. Apart from the Canadian work by Monica Heller and her associates, are there any other related research you’d recommend for us to look into?

PS: Yes, I have bought many made-in-China souvenirs in Japan with a label that says “Authentic Japanese Products” and given them to my friends in different parts of the world, apologizing that it’s not made in Japan while quickly justifying that it seems at least designed by Japanese or possibly the production is supervised by Japanese expats managers who are sent to their factories in China… performing authenticity…such a tiring practice in the 21st century…

By: Jean Cho

Jean Cho — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:53:11 +0000

Hi Ingrid,

Good to hear from you again and I hope that you enjoyed your stay overseas – and welcome back! 🙂
It is impossible not to use stuff made in China as evidenced by Sara Bongiorni’s book “A Year without “Made in China”. It is a headache for me to decide what to buy in Australia whenever I visit my friends and family back home because I don’t want to give them something that they believe represents Australia and yet was made somewhere else. I think your daughter’s decision to buy Japanese products imported from Japan is a smart one and hope that you won’t tell her that they were made in China too!

By: Christof Demont-Heinrich

Christof Demont-Heinrich — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:49:50 +0000

The convoluted production, consumption and movement of goods in the age of globalization is crazy. Here’s one that’s not quite so crazy as yours, but almost:

I regularly order books and DVDs from Amazon.de to help us in raising our daughters bilingual in German and English here in the U.S. Some of the books are Disney stories that have been translated from English into German and the books themselves tend to be printed in China.

So, we see a book “originally” produced in English, translated to German, printed in China, shipped to Germany and then, finally, shipped to the USA.

And — thanks to Hollywood’s maddening region encoding — I end up showing my kids Disney movies dubbed into German on a region-free DVD player made in Japan whose chip has been modified by a U.S. company. Luckily, no one seems to enforce DVD region laws: Amazon.de is in violation of these when it sends me Region 2 DVDs. Then there’s the Net, where content walls limit accessibility based on IP address– arggh!

By: Gabriele Budach

Gabriele Budach — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:55 +0000

Dear Ingrid!! Thanks for sharing this tale and the excitement about objects and their stories. I wonder whether the purchases from Daiso were well received by the Australian friends and whose kitchen will be decorated with a the salt and pepper shaker in the form of an Arab man dressed in a white dishdash (salt) and an Arab woman dressed in a black abaya (pepper). I wish you had time to find out and tell us more about the trajectory of all those intriguing objects.
If anyone shares that passion and feels compelled to dedicate time to a more thourough exploration of objects on the move, please be invited to contribute to the special issue of SOCIAL SEMIOTICS, Ingrid mentioned, and get in touch with me by posting a comment to this message.