Korean Job Discussion Forums

[le-paul]

Its the old joke here 'made in china' haha. Which in short means - it is cheap, unreliable and wont work for long.

Since moving to Korea I have done my bit to support the korean economy. I have kept my money in a bank account (when I could have just the same kept it at home considering the crappy interest rate) but mostly, I have tried to support the local economy by 'buying korean'.

Unfortunatley (and i promise you, I am no troll), I am beginning to give this a second thought.
I have had a had a spate of regretting buying korean products ( i dont want to mention companies specifically) recently. This is why;

I bought a motorcycle and it breaks down so much that it is not even worth selling anymore.
I bought a korean ebook reader just before christmas (not cheap - 160,000). It lasted 4 weeks before breaking down completely (last night - my reason for writing this in utter annoyance),and 1 hour before its first crash.
A heater - christmas eve. Today it wont turn on anymore (the second heater in a month.
My telephone - the battery draws from the phone (the same) even when its switched off! Altogether, i get around 3/4 hours from the battery. I have to charge it twice a day (my nokia i used to charge once a week).
a 500 gb hard drive - melted down after 2 months - lost all my music.
Speakers for my pc - 50,000. Got them home and they started acting up almost straight away.
Mp3 player - 140,000. One day just decided not to turn off anymore so I had to take it apart and remove the battery. 6 months old.

However, I bought a samsung camera and in fairness, its been very reliable - two years and no problems (the memory card stopped working month later though).

Like I say, I am not trolling. I always look after my things and usually try to buy a bit more expensive so I dont have to go down the 'buy 3 cheap ones vs 1 expensive one' route. But Im starting to realise, that Im wasting a lot of money. I used to always buy Japanese before moving here and Im starting to consider that was a better idea as all the products I bought were bomb proof (my ds battery lasts for days and its 10 years old!).

so here it is, my drawn out question;

is this just my experience? do people have other experiences so should I keep buying korean (certain products - - samsung for example always seemed to be quite good)?

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

I usually try to buy Japanese.

[sheriffadam]

You might want to actually look where the Samsung and Japanese goods are actually made? Samsung do a lot of production in China as do all the Japanese brands. My old Samsung mobile phone was made in China.

Also take into account there is little importance of where something is made, it is how strict the quality control process is and the manufacturing process. I could make crappy electronics in any factory!

Things like the heaters 'breaking' it's likely to just be a fuse or wire inside, crack it open and take a look! The rest yes, shoddy!

[AsiaESLbound]

I usually try to buy American, but I'm having good luck with Korean and Chinese stuff so far. I'm noticing Korean stuff often says, "made in China," on the back, but Samsung and LG seem to be good quality. Sucks about your music. I'd hate losing my music and pictures so I have 2 external hard disks, a laptop, and it all backed up at work too since my full tower work computer has 2 hard disks not being used.

I think some of it is really good, most of it just average, and some of it is utter junk regardless where it comes from. China makes good quality when the outsourcing company demands it to be good quality, but makes crap junk when the outsourcing company demands it to be the cheapest possible. The problem with this is the inconsistencies so it's difficult to gauge how good it is aside from online reviews.

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

My friend (gyopo) from the states was visiting, and a sales guy told her that some product was made in Korea, not China. She told him that both are pretty low quality.

I have a Samsung phone, though, and it's pretty good. Still, most of my products are from western or Japanese companies, even if they are made in China. iPhones are made in China, but they have to have strict quality control, or the factories would be moved elsewhere.

[sheriffadam]

[eamo]

[carleverson]