Japanese fire drill

[sagehen]

 >>I wonder how being from
> >Pittsburgh would have transformed it from 'Chinese" to "Japanese."
>~~~~~~~
 > Some US-ans who are not scholarly types might not perceive any distinction
> between China and Japan, either in reality or in stereotype.
~~~~~~~~~~~
 If this had been a decade earlier it could have been attributed to a
holdover from the parental generation that had grown up with the varieties
of stereotypes that were prevalent before & during WWII.  Before the war &
the proliferation of propagandistic imagery of evil, hostility, treachery
&c., of all things associated with Japan, there were other disparaging
ones.  "Made in Japan" meant  cheap knock-off, inferior materials, workers
with no self-respect, &c.  The ingenuity, beauty, usefulness counted for
nothing.  "Made in China"  on the other hand, meant artistic, beautifully
made, &c., by people of respectable, even admirable traditions.  Some of
this, no doubt, reflected  our attitudes  toward the Sino-Japanese war that
had been going on ten years before Pearl Harbor,  but I think antedated
even that.
A. Murie