Today was one of those days when you realize how much we use foreign goods. This morning my wife's Scion xB (a Japanese car) needed to be inspected. Rather than burn gas in the Plymouth (the sole American vehicle) I followed her on my big scooter (Chinese) to the garage. Later I rode into town to retrieve the car on my Giant brand bicycle (Chinese), loaded it into the car and drove home. A set of circumstances had me needing to go back into town, so I took the Bashan scooter (Chinese) as it's quicker and easier to ride than the 50cc motorcycle (also Chinese).
I'm old enough to remember when all the cars were American, except for some British brands, as were bicycles. My first bicycle of note was a Schwinn built in Chicago. I bought one of the first Japanese brand bicycles in 1974 when Panasonic labeled bikes made in Japan. Now all the talk is about Chinese vehicles. Bicycles started to appear in the 1980s, motorcycles and scooters in the early 2000s and rumors of cars appearing any day now from the People's Republic are swirling. They already sell cars in Iran and other countries in Asia, could the United States be next?
Unlike many people I find my scooters to be of adequate design and when I total up the mileage I've put on them in the last five years I come up with close to 16,000. Far from the "Junk" people call them they have all been faithful servants only hindered by mistakes on my part. My longest trip on one of them is 200 miles without a problem.
I can only wonder how soon it will be before the highways on America will be clogged with Chinese cars, vans, pickups and motorcycles. If my luck with them is any indicator it should be soon.