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07.10.2009 Feature Article

From shoddiness to decorum

From shoddiness to decorum
07.10.2009 LISTEN

EXACTLY SIXTEEN years ago, whilst I was on annual vacation, a friend trailed me to Ghana from Taiwan. She was not yet one week in our Republic, when I took her one morning to a friend's office in the nation's capital.

The friend has always been an utterly outspoken person, and seems not to care much in making room for the sensitivities of people he may meet for the first time. He and I had met in school more than fifty years previously, and the way he is, and the way I am, we have managed to stay friends for our time on this planet, and if given time, beyond. I doubt if we would mind.

My female guest on the day in question was a well trained laboratory technologist, who, after some years of experience in hospital, had decided to join her brother who manufactured model Ferraris for export to EU-countries from Taiwan. She obviously loved the latter job better than the former.

After the introduction, my friend called the guest to our Republic, a Taiwanese, “the Industrialist”. We spent the latter part of the morning together in his office, and he then offered to host my guest and me, for lunch. To make it simple, or so he thought, he chose Chinese cuisine. And I must say, it was such a spruce place to dine in.

As we enjoyed the meals, our host was spotted by a man who had also come for lunch. He thereupon got his table drawn to join ours. When it came to introducing my guest from the Pacific rim, my friend jocularly said, “O, Tom, meet Kofi's guest from the land which has become rich, sprinkling 'shoddy goods' into every country.”

The eating continued uneventfully, and we ended up not returning to his office, but continuing instead to another classmate who had planned dinner for us. The day ended for us, as we got home, around mid-night. Ming Fong, as she was called in her native Mandarin, asked me what the word “shoddy” meant.

She was not necessarily peeved hearing it, but it must have been one of such situations, where the question was to register one's distaste, in the absence of the source, (the source being my abrasive school mate and friend), who did not mean any harm though.

I was re-assured nothing had been taken in bad taste, because, the word “shoddy” kept dropping more out of her mouth than mine, sometimes, as a mere malapropism.

So, Taiwan, which came more into commercial importance, following Generalissimo Hsiang Kai Shek's fleeing out of the Mainland China, with as many as five million soldiers, had started making “shoddy goods” and selling them to all countries, or let's say, almost all countries, after World War II.

In the USA, the joke was in Hollywood as, “sell something from Taiwan to a friend, lose your friend.” A Saudi building contractor filed a law-suit against a supplier who served him electric cables from Taiwan, and the house caught fire the very day the light was switched on. Textile items change colour, when first dipped into water for laundering. The list is long, almost interminable.

An Egyptian surgeon, smart and working in the Middle East, made an experiment. Let us share his experience: He picked a “statuette” in the flesh of a Taiwanese lady, made a wife out of her, and you bet that worked superbly!!! That was fine. Shoddy goods?

I could assure my readers they have been seen before. Just be patient, and follow me. In the early fifties, I was in a middle boarding school somewhere in the Eastern Region of Ghana. It was a habit that Saturday afternoons, up to ten boys, all good friends, would sneak out of the compound, and each armed with a knife, which we called most often, “pen-knife.” Okapi was a trade mark, which every boy had held in his hand, or kept in his pocket before.

Every half-year, parents had to sponsor several pen-knives, (unknowingly, perhaps) because, nobody could keep pace with the rate the Okapis broke down, JUST WENT APART. Shoddy goods! My lilac-red sports-shirt I had earmarked to bluff with at the girls' boarding school nearby, when it was time for my school to visit, turned white the first time it was laundered. The trade mark was 'Ivanhoe'. Okapi and Ivanhoe were both made in Japan, not Taiwan.

The first Toyota and Datsun, (Nissan) motor cars were bought in the early sixties in the young independent country called Ghana, by people who wanted cars, but really could not afford any.

They were happy with the Japanese-made cars, and nicknamed them, “denkyire,” for the mere reason that they were cheap. Denkyire is the Twi word, which means, “a cage for keeping birds”. Japanese cars don't need any introduction today, do they? But, I can assure you, they were shoddy before.

Well, for your information, countrymen/women, Taiwan now manufactures the best “luxury yachts” for the rich and famous, and they can hardly meet the demand. ACER Computers are second best in the world.

Taiwan is about one-third the size of Ghana in surface land area. The population is about the same as that of Ghana, (22 million). She has a per capita income of US$25,000, and has been the sixth largest economy for over ten years running. Taiwan has one of the foremost healthcare deliveries and standards in the world.

All children are screened for Hepatitis B on delivery, and those found negative, are immunised outright.

(Ghana is in desperate straits, as far as this viral disease, a potential forerunner of liver cancer, is concerned).Let us attempt to offer a humble conclusion: An opinion that doesn't sound palatable is easily branded “criticism”. In Ghana, we hate to be criticised. We love to say, “If you compare us to other member states in the sub-region, we are not doing badly.”

Where you hear this best, is from any member of the two largest political parties, because, it seems one is almost always in a state of standing in line, to take office. Any other alternative is unthinkable.

But, let us all, (all of us), say that Taiwan engaged the gear of industrial development in 1949, and we became independent in 1957. Perhaps, since we haven't started any industrialisation as yet, let us start today, even if with “shoddy goods” like Taiwan and “sprinkle” them into the rest of the world! If we don't, Taiwan will soon be selling “KENTE” to Ghana. That ain't gonna be nice.

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