Speaking of toilet paper, there is actually another thing related to it that makes Downing find it very interesting. Prior to the toilet paper crisis, there was a very interesting toilet paper inspection in Tokyo.

In fact, the campaign was organized by the Japan Housewives Consumer Association. The origin is that some people complained that the things they bought were not only like fishing nets in Sicily, but also like frozen tofu in Shenyang, but not like toilet paper with superscripts. What these housewives did was to spread out all kinds of toilet paper produced in the market at that time in the gymnasium, and use the sunlight to check and count how many holes there were in the toilet paper.

Although today Japanese products have a reputation in the world for their good quality, in the seventies of the last century, Japanese products used to be synonymous with poor quality, and many products had quality problems, such as toilet paper, and housewives complained that the goods they bought were often unusable because of holes everywhere, and the manufacturers were not ashamed of them.

It stands to reason that the quality of the products produced by Japan before and during the war is still relatively reliable, for example, the Japanese Navy hastily manufactured the coastal defense ship No. 7 in the late war, which was blown up by the U.S. military in the war, and after China's salvage and repair, it was changed to the Nanning frigate, which can be used until the 70s. There are two main reasons for this problem in post-war Japanese goods:

First, Japan was very poor after the war, and the people had become accustomed to using inferior products of poor quality but barely usable. Even had to accept food with lower standards. For example, when there was a food crisis in Japan after the war, MacArthur urgently transferred a batch of expired and expiring military canned food from the United States and distributed it to the Japanese to supplement their food. As a result, the Japanese, who were on the verge of starvation, were grateful to MacArthur. In Japan, there has been an incident of "yellowing rice", that is, the rice sold by grain merchants is adulterated with spoiled and stale rice containing aflatoxin. This time, because the incident took place at a time when the Japanese economy was already improving. Some reporters followed the chase in an attempt to identify the culprit, only to find out that it was officially authorized by Congress......

Second, due to the lack of energy and resources, Japan had to resort to labor-intensive enterprises in order to achieve economic revival after the war. Rely on cheap labor to manufacture a large number of low-grade consumer goods for the United States and other developed countries to fill the gap in the product structure of the other side. Since the target is a low-grade product, the quality will naturally be more relaxed. In any case, Japanese manufacturers at that time were pursuing sales and seizing the market, and did not care about the unit price of their products. In Europe and the United States, Japanese goods are basically the same as street stalls, cheap, but not good. As a result, shoddy habits. It was accepted by the post-war Japanese industry.

However, the quality of the products is low, which makes the lives of ordinary Japanese people very difficult. Think about how embarrassing it is to hold a roll of toilet paper full of holes in the toilet. Who's in charge?

Government? The most important tasks of the Japanese government in the sixties and seventies were nothing more than two – first, to develop the economy and increase GDP, otherwise the leftists who were moving everywhere would organize the people to overthrow the government because of social injustice; Second, fill the pockets of the financiers and also fill their own pockets – this is the era when black gold politics was most prevalent in Japan. Japanese politics, characterized by hereditary and gatekeepers, is rife with scandals of the combination of power and money. Therefore, whether from the perspective of doing the right thing or protecting their own interests. It is simply impossible to expect the Japanese government to strictly regulate the behavior of enterprises cutting corners and shoddy manufacturing.

In the era when counterfeit products were prevalent in Japan, it was not the men who rose up to fight against it, but the housewives consumer association (the name was not uniform, and in some places it was called the Supervisory Association, which was called a miscellaneous name).

Also. Buying things is something that is within the power of women, not men. And most women are more serious, and they have to suffer a loss when they buy something, so how can they swallow this breath without asking for an explanation? The general problem of product quality forced Japanese housewives to organize one after another. Supervise the quality of products from the private sector.

At that time, there was no queen sea in Japan, there was no such thing as large-scale quality claims through rights protection, and Japanese housewives did not use legal weapons to fight against shoddy manufacturers most of the time - everyone was very busy, and there was no time to go to court all day, and they made a big fuss, which is not the combat style of the "small foot detective team".

The best thing these Japanese wives are at doing is "exposure". They usually don't say that a certain manufacturer is good or bad, but they will test or inspect the products that make them unhappy, such as the toilet paper full of holes on it, and then provide the information to the media, and this kind of unique inspection is also quite newsworthy and very popular with the media. Japanese housewives are scrambling to find products of poor quality and expose them in the media, putting a lot of pressure on manufacturers.

Maybe someone will go back to the media to expose it, but this is an old-fashioned approach. In Japan, however, this old-fashioned approach simply works. What are the characteristics of their approach, first, this kind of housewife consumption association or quality supervision association is completely decoupled from the official and is a purely non-governmental organization, otherwise they are afraid that they will not be able to win the trust of the media – which shows the credibility of the Japanese government at that time; Second, all information is supported by data, the inspection process is open, and even the manufacturer is invited to send someone to find faults. They won't say the so-and-so product is good or bad, so the people trust their words very much; Third, allow manufacturers to defend themselves, for example, the wives have tested a roll of toilet paper with 100 holes, and the manufacturer says that we usually only have 10 holes, and you happen to take a roll of very poor quality. As long as what you say has a basis (even if it's an internal piece of the factory), the Housewives Consumer Association will follow you and won't refute it – but whether consumers can accept it or not is another matter.

In Japan, you can come casually to scold the prime minister and even his ancestors for 18 generations, because one of the missions of politicians in Japan is the same as that of the Chinese football team – to vent social dissatisfaction and promote national stability by being scolded, so if you scold him, you are helping him do a good job. However, you must be cautious when scolding a certain manufacturer, because this is related to the lifeblood of people's survival, and scolding the wrong people to find you desperately.

However, these manufacturers are stunned to take advantage of Japan's "small-footed detectives". Most of Japan's housewife consumer associations come from middle-class families, which makes them inherently difficult to deal with. (To be continued.) )