In Liberia allow a loud or ear drum-piercing sound of cell phone (made for citizens at the lowest ladder of social or economic class) burst out in a gathering of (Liberians) and some of those in the group would say to the phone owner, “No secret in China”, Or “Whose disturbing with that Chinese phone?” Or “Take that made-in-China phone away from here.”
In most cases (98% or above) these mockers later discover the name of a different country on the manufacture information in the phone. Not China!
What any of the above comments of the ‘lousy’ mobile phone implies is only China produces/manufactures ‘cheap phones’ (plural)
Electronics are not the only things these economically biased Liberians’ attention is to. Fabrics (cloths) and automobile (cars) have been placed under the perceptively negative radar, too. To them, any ‘new cloth’ that tears on the wearer is from ‘China’.
The same thought to any ‘new’ car that breaks down in traffic. Even Liberian women who had forced their ‘swollen body’ (huge stature due to obesity) in a ‘small dress’ at their houses blame a ‘Chinese person’ who made the dress (wearer’s perception).
And careless Liberian drivers who consciously leave their houses with a low gas tank or an engine-faulted car from their homes hold the ‘Chinese car builders’ responsible for the break-down of the cars in the traffic.
I call each of these blame-situations an ‘economic affront’ by the mocking Liberians (they are in the millions) against the People’s Republic of China who is passionately reconstruction Liberia’s infrastructure which had been destroyed by Liberians during their Country’s civil war.
The mockers only know the ‘ugly things’ about China in Liberia—our opinions we cannot provide proof for.
They can’t see the ‘good things’ China has done or is doing in their Country—renovation of the Nation’s international football stadium (Samuel Kanyon Doe Ports Complex); the construction of the new Ministry of Health & Social Welfare, reconstruction of the Monrovia-Gbarnga road (asphalted); renovation work Liberia’s National Legislature Complex, construction of the Ministerial Complex on Congo Town, free teaching services in Chinese culture (Confucius Institute) at the University of Liberia’s main campus on Capitol Hill in Monrovia, offer teaching services at a national vocational school called “Liberia Opportunities & Industrialization Center (LOIC)……. (list goes on)
If Chinese (business people) are manufacturing ‘cheap things’ – If China is manufacturing cheap things …
A few decades ago, China was a Third World developing Nation—like our 170-year-old Liberia is today.
Today, China has fully matured in all sectors and measuring arms with the World’s current Superpower—United States of America. Chinese business men and women played a pivotal role in this economic maturity by focusing much on their Country’s poor masses (socially called third-class citizens) on the manufacturing of electronics and cloths (among goods produced).
These manufactured goods for the third-class citizens’ are economically referred to as ‘cheap things’. Goods for the first-class citizens (rich men and women) were beside those made for the poor.
After manufacturing enough for their Nation’s poor, these wise Chinese business men and women turned to Liberia; one of Africa’s poorest Nations, with one of the continent’s largest communities of people living on less than USD 1 a day and cannot afford buying an electronics or cloth manufactured for the first-class people.
However, these Chinese are not coercing the third-class Liberians to buy any of these third-class products. This is similar to a situation of a person selling something and a buyer looking for the thing being sold where the seller tells the searcher, “I have this for sale, you may buy it if you wish.”
If the searcher consciously bought the item—not under any form of durex from the seller—would the buyer have any moral premise to tell the seller, “What I bought from you is cheap”? This is the character of most Liberians—consciously buying or accepting something from another person and later condemning what they took on volition.
The next time, before we sadistically link our Nation’s major international development partner (People’s Republic of China) to any ‘cheap phone’ causing irritating noise in a public area, we must first check the phone’s manufacturing information.
How long will my compatriots (Liberians) keeping economically affronting our Nation’s major international development partner (People’s Republic of China) and forgetting Main Land China’s ‘infrastructural blessings’ (some listed above) to Mama Liberia?
Samuel G. Dweh, Journalist, Fiction Writer,
886 618 906/776 583 266 – [email protected]