Real McCoy's are closing down..?

[Mark Ricketts]

The reason most Chinese goods are crap is that N. America and Europe demand products built to a price, not built to a quality. It is our fault, not theirs! Allow the Chinese the freedom from these Wal Mart style demands and they can make the best quality in the world, and still even come in cheaper.

 

[Big J]

Umm, yeah, ok.

I'm sorry, but despite (what?) 6000 years of history, most of which as the most advanced culture in the world, the vast majority of the Chinese population are just one generation from hand to mouth subsistence farming, and many of the current generation still do it. It's not 'our fault' at all. Before 'we' opened factories in China, (and I'm talking before 1996) 98% of China's export was Tsingtao beer.

The vast majority of Chinese people's lives have improved because we need them to build things 'to a price', and that has forced China to accept massive social changes, that we would call civil society. This is good. Increased trade dependance means decreased risk of war.

 

[Blackadder]

A lot of high end international brands are now made in China. Almost all RRL save for the denim are made in China including their leather jackets. Lost of Coach's leather goods are made in China, so are a lot of Frye models (curiously all their harness boots are still made in USA.) I agree that there is a QC issue with Chinese made products but we also see lots of QC issues with the often talked about companies here. The WPG, ATF QC issues may come from the companies desire to maximize their profits by seeking cheap low quality products to sell for a bigger margin. There are a few local repro brands that do the same here sourcing cheaper inferior goods but selling them at a slightly lower price than the Japanese brands.

The issue is with the seller not the manufacturer or craftsman.

There are a few repros brands in China but they are reluctant to move into the high-end market themselves. So the point is if Ralph Lauren can trust Chinese manufacturers to make his high end repro products, why are there still the general mistrust amongst the consumers. The answer may lie with the brand name in stead of the workmanship. Chinese companies are reluctant to go into the high end market themselves because they do not have the brand name to demand the high price of excellent quality products. So they start with the lower end, lessor quality repros. As for buying original jackets, that is not a problem. If Good Wear, Eastman and BK etc make such perfect repros, the Chinese can simply copy the perfect copies and they will still be near perfect. Not to mention the fact that the Real McCoy's tweaked the cutting on their repros but they are still very popular and highly regarded. I just bought an A-1 from a Chinese repro maker and compared it to a Eastman. It was actually a pretty well made jacket for the price.

 

[Big J]

A lot of high end international brands are now made in China. Almost all RRL save for the denim are made in China including their leather jackets. Coach leather goods are made in China, so is a lot of Frye models (curiously all their harness boots are still made in USA.) I agree that there is a QC issue with Chinese made products but we also see lots of QC issues with the often talked about companies here. There are a few repros brand in China but they are reluctant to move into the high-end market themselves. So the point is if Ralph Lauren can trust Chinese manufacturers to make his high end repro products, why are there still the general mistrust amongst the consumers. The answer may lies with the brand name in stead of the workmanship. Chinese companies are reluctant to go into the high end market themselves because they do not have the brand name. So they start with the lower end lessor quality repros. As for buying original jackets, that is not a problem. If Good Wear, Eastman and BK etc make such perfect repro, the Chinese can simply copy the perfect copies and they will still be near perfect. Not to mention the fact that the Real McCoy's tweaked the cutting on their repro but they are still very popular and highly regarded.

That's a fair point; Burberry and LV make everything in China now, I think. For me that's not what I pay for when I pay for high quality european brands. It's the same reason that I have a downer on Japanese 'luxury' products.
It's a race to the bottom.

 

[navetsea]

I don't mind a prewashed anything really, including jeans, however I'm not into pre distressed edges on a leather jacket though, I'm more with loved/ well cared aging look instead of abused/ neglected aging look.


about made in China products, I think there are different grades of products, some are really low quality, but some are really impeccable. I guess Asian market just have much wider spectrum of buying power compared to the west.
if you ever buy 1/6 scaled model figures, they are really meticulously built and all made in China, amazing to see stitching of a jacket or pants at 1/6 scale. So if they don't try to compete on the price, they really can make high quality products, since that 1/6 pleather jacket would be priced more or less the same with a cheap pleather 1/1 scaled jacket.

 

[Blackadder]

That's a fair point; Burberry and LV make everything in China now, I think. For me that's not what I pay for when I pay for high quality european brands. It's the same reason that I have a downer on Japanese 'luxury' products.
It's a race to the bottom.

The point I want to make is there is no difference between the Chinese made LV and the old European made LV or LV will have lost its customers. We consumer are not happy about Chinese made RRL because we know that the costs savings (switching production to China) are not passed onto us. It is less about the quality but more about the actual costs. These are not high tech products with some special secret technologies or manufacturing process. Those perfect stitching, matching full grain leather, good quality talon repros (my guess is many of the talon repros used nowaday are in fact made in China) are just basically hard work and the ability to absorb the costs of rejects (we see lots of rejects and return on the various sale page of European companies). With the huge garment industry in China now, there are easily tens of thousands of skill workers who can do that but without an established name, who would risk it.

 

[Big J]

The point I want to make is there is no difference between the Chinese made LV and the old European made LV or LV will have lost its customers. We consumer are not happy about Chinese made RRL because we know that the costs savings (switching production to China) are not passed onto us. It is less about the quality but more about the actual costs. These are not high tech products with some special secret technologies or manufacturing process. Those perfect stitching, matching full grain leather, good quality talon repros (my guess is many of the talon repros used nowaday are in fact made in China) are just basically hard work and the ability to absorb the costs of rejects (we see lots of rejects and return on the various sale page of European companies). With the huge garment industry in China now, there are easily tens of thousands of skill workers who can do that but without an established name, who would risk it.

I see your point. Yeah, I wouldn't pay LV or Burberry prices knowing that my purchase isn't paying a living wage to UK/European workmen, but rather padding out the companies pockets. The brand image is 'luxury european craftmanship', not 'made in China for 5 bucks a day', for me, that just kind of bursts the bubble, because you are right, I could buy a non-brand made in China product, made to the same standard, much cheaper.

I have a couple of friends, one works for Seiko marketing, and one for Toyota marketing, and they are always complaining that 'Japanese luxury brands are looked down on by the world'. I always tell them that both of their companies are constantly changing their product, and adding more 'features'. Good design doesn't need constant 'facelifts'- only a real enthusiast can tell the difference between a vintage rolex and a modern one because the design has changed so little, and RR has only made what, 10 models of car in 100 years? The Japanese can't compete with that because they haven't got the product heritage.

I feel that China has a similar image problem. It takes decades to develop the heritage that allows your own brands to stand up to high-end competition in the luxury goods market. Maybe China can pull it off when my generation is dead and gone?

 

[Blackadder]

Yes, heritage, the ability to survive over the years. There were many established firms in China but sadly the chain was broken when the present regime took over.

 

[Edward]

Buying a predistressed jacket is phoney and is like adopting a teenager who's already been through a lot; it'll never truly be yours.

I can understand why people think this way, but I find it hard to really feel sympathetic to the view... I mean, is it really any more phoney than a fat, bald, middle-aged guy like me wearing a reproduction of a leather jacket originally worn into combat by a twenty year old kid seventy years ago, odd? Where should the line be drawn?

That said, I do prefer to break a jacket in myself. I've nothing against the 'timeworn' look per se, but it's notg what I want, really. I want a jacket that, if it were made in 1942, looks like it's still 1942 or 43, maybe 45.... and the jacket is still in nice shape.... I feel much the same about Fender's 'Relic' series guitars. Nice, but I much prefer a 57spec Strat that looks as it would have in 1957... It seems to me that most of these artificial aging processes are designed to ape these things, A2s especially, as good originals appear now. Fine for the airshow crowd that can't afford an original or want a jacket that looks liked their originals which they don't want to wear out to shows forf fear of damaging them. Nothing wrong with that as a choice, it's just not my preference or aesthetic. I do think it's a shame if Eastman aren't offering some of their jackets in anything other than a pre-broken look, which ups the price.

I have begun to wonder recently if perhaps the market is reaching saturation and we may start to see some manufacturers squeezed out. Before starting to lurk around here, a number of years ago, I had no idea there were so many manufacturers. However, there are even more now and the internet has raised the awareness for anyone interested. I have no understanding of the repro market but would be interested to hear what those who do think.

Possibly. I began to suspect the A2 market in particular was oversaturated when Bill Kelso, after originally pushing themselves hard as an A2 maker, started moving into the civilian jacket market.

You could be right. Demand for the perfect repro and material costs have driven prices way past what most would consider to be the normal price for a leather jacket. I understand that currency issues were causing 40 % more costs for RMNZ.
It's surprising that the Chinese haven't started producing repros, or that existing companies haven't moved there yet.

The Chinese manufacturing argument has been hashed over again and again.... the fact is, as already noted, that the Chinese are perfectly capable of making fantastic stuff, but, for the most part, that's not what Western custom wants from China. Things will change. In the fifties, anything Made in Japan was considered rubbish, now Japan is at the forefront in many industries. In the scant twenty-three odd years I've been playing guitar, I've seen guitars made in Japan go from 'rubbish' to highly desired (and the best of what's made in Japan never leaves the country), Korea become the new cheap rubbish, transitioning to another country manufacturing repsectable instruments, and now China is going through that transition. Of course, they'll always have to contend with marketable branding - "made in the USA", in some markets, carries a cachet out of any genuine refleection of the quality of the goods themselves. Same as designer branding, really. It'll change, albeit slowly, in some cases, at least here in the UK where there isn't much in the way of manufacturing industry, and US-goods, as a for-example, are no less foreign imports than Chinese. Things will, naturally, be different in the US where there's more of a home manufacturing industry to support.

It's like asking why Savile Row hasn't got up en masse and moved to Beijing (except that I can see Chinese nouveau riche wearing suits, but not WW2 US flight jackets).

WW2 isn't big, really, for the Chinese. They're not really into retro en masse, at least not yet. It'll come, though. Suits-wise, there's definitely a Chinese insterest. There are some great tailors there if you know where to look (not the 'suit in 24 hours, delviered to your hotel' types, which abound, of course). It'll be interesting to see how that market changes over time. Savile Row isn't going anywhere, though it is increasingly owned by the Chinese. I'm on the fence about the implications of that. Personally, I think it seems less of a threat to the Row than the horrendously misguided decision to permit Abercrombie & Fitch a retail outlet there, or the trendy, RTW big name places that appeared there in recent decades.

It would actually be really interesting to see what a Chinese take on vintage would look like. Western style are very popular in China, but there isn't the same fetishisation of vintage Americana as is popular in Japan. The biggest problem for a Chinese manufacturer in the internal market, of course, would be the Chinese themselves placing more cachet on the established US brands than on emergent Chinese alternatives. That could change over time, though again I think it'll always look different in that there isn't the Hollywood glamour of WW2, or the cultural fetishisation of that conflict that's been so engrained in the West for generations now. Maybe they could reproduce some cool, older Maoist army jackets or something. I really quite fancy a silver-grey Mao suit myself.

I think a western company could very easily set up a company in the far east and make very high quality goods. The made in Scotland, England, New Zealand, and USA would be missing though. Isn't some Buzz Rickson's stuff made in China ? Look how good their product a are.

Yes, in terms of what they can sell to the West, that's likely the way it'll go, long term. They'd still be up against the perception that "Made in China = lower quality", however unfair that might be, but time could change that. After all, from a time when you couln't get a Japanese guitar taken seriously, most would now recognise that the Japanese make better Gretsch or 'Mosrite of California' guitars than the originals ever were.

 

[Blackadder]

With regards to the Chinese repro community, in addition to the Japanese repro most of the Western brands we talk about here Aero, Eastman, Lost Worlds, Julian boots, Wesco, White's all have had dealers in Taiwan for quite awhile. They are also starting to have dealers in Mainland China as well. In fact, a repro and real vintage dealer/manufacturer in Hong Kong have just announced they are going to carry BK A-2s. There are forums dedicated to repros vintage wear in Taiwan and Mainland China, one is called 33oz, it's just that they are in chinese.

 

[Blackadder]

Maybe they could reproduce some cool, older Maoist army jackets or something. I really quite fancy a silver-grey Mao suit myself.

They don't need to reproduce. Like any good old communist countries, they have tons of surplus lying around. There are rumour that they make their airsoft rifles with real AK parts. Here is their vintage surplus Navy boots relast and resole for sale.
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.1.kiTVE0&id=35328888636&ns=1&abbucket=7#detail
and the Maoist army jacket
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm...294&pvid=3ea27c43-fdd7-497d-b6af-68f2c6542458

 

[Justhandguns]

The Chinese manufacturing argument has been hashed over again and again.... the fact is, as already noted, that the Chinese are perfectly capable of making fantastic stuff, but, for the most part, that's not what Western custom wants from China. Things will change. In the fifties, anything Made in Japan was considered rubbish, now Japan is at the forefront in many industries. In the scant twenty-three odd years I've been playing guitar, I've seen guitars made in Japan go from 'rubbish' to highly desired (and the best of what's made in Japan never leaves the country), Korea become the new cheap rubbish, transitioning to another country manufacturing repsectable instruments, and now China is going through that transition. Of course, they'll always have to contend with marketable branding - "made in the USA", in some markets, carries a cachet out of any genuine refleection of the quality of the goods themselves. Same as designer branding, really. It'll change, albeit slowly, in some cases, at least here in the UK where there isn't much in the way of manufacturing industry, and US-goods, as a for-example, are no less foreign imports than Chinese. Things will, naturally, be different in the US where there's more of a home manufacturing industry to support.



WW2 isn't big, really, for the Chinese. They're not really into retro en masse, at least not yet. It'll come, though. Suits-wise, there's definitely a Chinese insterest. There are some great tailors there if you know where to look (not the 'suit in 24 hours, delviered to your hotel' types, which abound, of course). It'll be interesting to see how that market changes over time. Savile Row isn't going anywhere, though it is increasingly owned by the Chinese. I'm on the fence about the implications of that. Personally, I think it seems less of a threat to the Row than the horrendously misguided decision to permit Abercrombie & Fitch a retail outlet there, or the trendy, RTW big name places that appeared there in recent decades.

It would actually be really interesting to see what a Chinese take on vintage would look like. Western style are very popular in China, but there isn't the same fetishisation of vintage Americana as is popular in Japan. The biggest problem for a Chinese manufacturer in the internal market, of course, would be the Chinese themselves placing more cachet on the established US brands than on emergent Chinese alternatives. That could change over time, though again I think it'll always look different in that there isn't the Hollywood glamour of WW2, or the cultural fetishisation of that conflict that's been so engrained in the West for generations now. Maybe they could reproduce some cool, older Maoist army jackets or something. I really quite fancy a silver-grey Mao suit myself.



Yes, in terms of what they can sell to the West, that's likely the way it'll go, long term. They'd still be up against the perception that "Made in China = lower quality", however unfair that might be, but time could change that. After all, from a time when you couln't get a Japanese guitar taken seriously, most would now recognise that the Japanese make better Gretsch or 'Mosrite of California' guitars than the originals ever were.

Edward, from the perspective of a person with Chinese heritage, I can tell you that things are not going to change, at least within our generation(s). Like Blackadder said, all the good things were completely wiped out by the Cultural Revolution. The current mentality in China is making money fast no matter what's the circumstances, that is why you have milk with "industrial grade" emulsifiers, soya sauce with "industrial grade' salt, veggies with 'industrial grade' colourings. There is no such word as 'perfection' (even though they always have so many cloned products around). There is also no comparison with Japan, they are a nation full of creativity and most importantly, dreams. Japanese kids are all taught to chase their 'dreams', I am sure Big J can confirm this. Chinese kids only have only one dream, make more money then leave the country. What can a nation do while you do not even trust your own produces? Japanese, Korean, French, German, US, UK people take pride of what they produce, ask any Chinese and see what they say?

Do you how much QC and inspections you need if you need to start up a high-end clothing factory in China? It is almost like hiring law enforcement offices to be stationed at the manufacturing, full time. That is how it is in China.

 

[Blackadder]

Edward, from the perspective of a person with Chinese heritage, I can tell you that things are not going to change, at least within our generation(s). Like Blackadder said, all the good things were completely wiped out by the Cultural Revolution. The current mentality in China is making money fast no matter what's the circumstances, that is why you have milk with "industrial grade" emulsifiers, soya sauce with "industrial grade' salt, veggies with 'industrial grade' colourings. There is no such word as 'perfection' (even though they always have so many cloned products around). There is also no comparison with Japan, they are a nation full of creativity and most importantly, dreams. Japanese kids are all taught to chase their 'dreams', I am sure Big J can confirm this. Chinese kids only have only one dream, make more money then leave the country. What can a nation do while you do not even trust your own produces? Japanese, Korean, French, German, US, UK people take pride of what they produce, ask any Chinese and see what they say?

Do you how much QC and inspections you need if you need to start up a high-end clothing factory in China? It is almost like hiring law enforcement offices to be stationed at the manufacturing, full time. That is how it is in China.

Just to clarify, I think Justhandguns is referring to the products for local market. For exports, the chinese products have to comply with the various international health and safety standard not to mention to pass the QC of the buyer.

 

[Justhandguns]

Just to clarify, I think Justhandguns is referring to the products for local market. For exports, the chinese products have to comply with the various international health and safety standard not to mention to pass the QC of the buyer.

Of course.

 

[Blackadder]

Of course.

Incidentally, I find some of the made for local products better suited for my use. For example, the non energy efficient electrical appliances are much more powerful and effective than the made for Europe energy efficient appliances. LOL.

 

[Stand By]

My 2 cents: I don't care how nice a product may be - mentioning no names at all, I just don't like to buy anything from any country who has my neck of the woods targeted with nuclear weapons and engages my country in cyber warfare and floods us with spies who don't have our best interests at heart; Nor any country that is actively working to plunder my country and take away as much natural resources as it possibly can, also exporting the profits, and leaving Canada with barren land where lush forests once stood, and in so doing, impose unthinkable "deals" that last a binding 38 years whereby they set the local labour laws of that enterprise, not Canada - and import workers from abroad and don't give any work to Canadians. I do not support any country that routinely hacks our defences, nor those of our allies, and sells weapons to hostile rogue states, and simultaneously conducts blatant industrial espionage on Canadian companies and also works stealthily to undermine my country's heritage and language; Nor any country that tortures cats and dogs prior to killing them barbarically and serving them up as food and also fosters the ivory trade.
So I don't care how well an A2 could be made in certain places nor for what price. Other things matter to me and I'll gladly pay more to support Canadian business and those of our allies in the UK and US.

 

[hpalapdog]

Well, I think the current time worn Eastman B-3 .50 cal looks very good ! The RMJP jackets I've seen are very high quality, heavy duty items, but don't look particularly like originals, or at least the originals I've owned or seen. The current Eastman's are lighter to wear. They still need extensive breaking in though to be at their best.

New

My Perry type B-3 after 2 Winters

 

[Sloan1874]

Got to say, it took a while, but the mixed-batch thing really has grown on me. Great looking jacket.

 

[Big J]

My 2 cents: I don't care how nice a product may be - mentioning no names at all, I just don't like to buy anything from any country who has my neck of the woods targeted with nuclear weapons and engages my country in cyber warfare and floods us with spies who don't have our best interests at heart; Nor any country that is actively working to plunder my country and take away as much natural resources as it possibly can, also exporting the profits, and leaving Canada with barren land where lush forests once stood, and in so doing, impose unthinkable "deals" that last a binding 38 years whereby they set the local labour laws of that enterprise, not Canada - and import workers from abroad and don't give any work to Canadians. I do not support any country that routinely hacks our defences, nor those of our allies, and sells weapons to hostile rogue states, and simultaneously conducts blatant industrial espionage on Canadian companies and also works stealthily to undermine my country's heritage and language; Nor any country that tortures cats and dogs prior to killing them barbarically and serving them up as food and also fosters the ivory trade.
So I don't care how well an A2 could be made in certain places nor for what price. Other things matter to me and I'll gladly pay more to support Canadian business and those of our allies in the UK and US.

+1

 

[Big J]

Edward, from the perspective of a person with Chinese heritage, I can tell you that things are not going to change, at least within our generation(s). Like Blackadder said, all the good things were completely wiped out by the Cultural Revolution. The current mentality in China is making money fast no matter what's the circumstances, that is why you have milk with "industrial grade" emulsifiers, soya sauce with "industrial grade' salt, veggies with 'industrial grade' colourings. There is no such word as 'perfection' (even though they always have so many cloned products around). There is also no comparison with Japan, they are a nation full of creativity and most importantly, dreams. Japanese kids are all taught to chase their 'dreams', I am sure Big J can confirm this. Chinese kids only have only one dream, make more money then leave the country. What can a nation do while you do not even trust your own produces? Japanese, Korean, French, German, US, UK people take pride of what they produce, ask any Chinese and see what they say?

Do you how much QC and inspections you need if you need to start up a high-end clothing factory in China? It is almost like hiring law enforcement offices to be stationed at the manufacturing, full time. That is how it is in China.

Justhandguns, I meant to reply to this comment, but completely forgot about it until I just re-read it now.

I agree with all your comments about China, based on my experiences there (spelling!), and the experiences of friends; Chinese manufacturers can build products to exacting standards, but the effort required to constantly police and enforce such standards is hard-work. It's almost as if some people would happily lose out on contract renewal for the sake of pocketing a couple of extra RMB right now. It's self-defeating.

As for the Japanese, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I don't see any creativity (I was just reading today that Japan has fewer Nobel winners this century than the UK, even though it has twice the population to draw on, and limitless 0% interest loans into many fields of research). 'Japan Inc' is famous for sitting on it's hands and preferring to be Overcome By Events than make a difficult decision (see the disaster at Fukushima, where power company workers were sent to the home improvements store to line up with other disaster stricken customers, to buy car batteries to operate critical valves, in a race against the clock, whilst the company helicopter was used to fly cash in from head office to pay for it all). Or how about Sony? What happened to the Walkman? Overcome by iPod and iTunes, and the streaming music revolution, despite the fact that the Japanese virtually invented P2P music file sharing, they failed to comprehend it's significance. In the same vain, take a look at Toyota and the scandals about breaking fails causing accidents; the owner of Toyota (Toyoda Akio) famously told reporters 4 years ago that Toyota was 'the most perfect car in the world' and required no improvement. He is driven to work in an Audi and the Crown Prince of Japan's Toyota has a dedicated team of Toyota engineers who check the breaks every time it goes on the road.
I could go on, how about the Takata airbag scandal, the biggest auto recall in history, whose company president has screaming temper tantrums and goes home for days, when asked by managers what action the company should take.
How about the Olympus accounting scandal, and now Toshiba? Cover-up, deny, 'it's so unfortunate' etc. How about the Tokyo 2020 Olympics logo that was copied from a Belgian theater?

This is a direct result of 20 years of economic slump due to a lack of vision. How do we explain that Japan Inc. suddenly, irretrievably lost it's vision in totality?
The answer is that Japan never had any. It's no coincidence that Japan's economic malaise (known here as 'the lost decade' initially, but now 'the lost decades') started when the Cold War ended. As part of the US 'Reverse Course' there was a concerted effort to pump Japan up economically after the war in the face of Mao's mainland China victory ('interestingly, this was the expressed opposite of Marshall's plan to help Germany recover, but expressed that German should not benefit to a greater degree than it's European victims).

In addition to massive injections of cash to get Japan on it's feet and turned into a functioning consumer paradise, trillions of US dollars poured into Japan during the Korean and Vietnam wars as Japanese companies supplied the US army with everything from uniforms (ever wondered why the Japanese make some good fatigue repros? They made the originals!), rations, jeeps (license built by Toyota and Mitsubishi), and all manner of spares and equipment. And then there's the CIA, who poured money into Japan in all sorts of 'black' ways (virtual one party state since the end of WWII, formed initially of war-criminals).

Dreams? The Japanese learn early on to stamp on their dreams and accept a mundane life of corporate servitude and consumerism to alleviate the mind-numbing pointlessness of life. Work, work, work, buy, buy, buy. That is the dream. The pretense of being able to buy the perfect lifestyle. Of course, now that the conomic slump is into it's second decade, the 'Japanese Dream', the 'Social contract' has been seen to be broken, and random street violence has become an every day reality (One of my uni students had her hand half-severed at the wrist by some crazy guy on the street. But this type of crime is everyday now).

The countries best and brightest (a seriously relative term in a Confucian education system that makes no effort to develop critical thinking; 'the teacher said it, it must be true', 'the TV said it, it must be true') strive to enter the biggest, most backward and glacially slow moving companies in Japan out of fear of change (after Lehmans shock, Japan Railways, was over-run with applications from top university graduates). The only 'Dream' that the Japanese share is that everything isn't as bad as it actually is, and that Japan is still a world leader in robots (based on Softbanks purchase of a French robot company, and Nissans self-driving car developed by Renault).

Japan is trading on it's (frankly undeserved) reputation created as a Cold War remedy to our anti-Japanese wartime propaganda. We were so successful in re-branding Japan that even the Japanese believe it, and can't see that Japan is just a big inflated paper bag of image containing nothing but air.