I grew up in an era when everything made in Japan was considered of inferior quality. It was either “made in Germany” or “made in the USA” for an item to be considered a prized possession.

Those days are gone. Japan-made products have not only become acceptable to Filipino households, they have become the gold standard in terms of quality.

Chinese-made products have inherited the dubious reputation once owned by those done in Japan. This is strange since almost everything that we buy was manufactured in China and they have proven to be just as reliable as the other brands.

This bias has manifested itself in discussions on the choice of Covid-19 vaccines. Many people we’ve met said they would rather wait for the vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca than have either Sinopharm and Sinovac now.

Two reasons are usually cited for the refusal to get the Chinese vaccines: one, they’re not as effective as the others and two, they have serious adverse effects. And yet, some countries have already been injecting the vaccines into the arms of their people and we have not heard of the recipients dying as a result.

Maybe, the bias is a cultural thing. Or we have fallen for Western propaganda against Chinese-made products. Whatever it is, the government, which appears to favor the Chinese brand, will have to do a better job of marketing them to the public.

Special envoy to China Mon Tulfo, who has applied for the distributorship of Sinopharm in the Philippines, took a rather bizarre way of promoting the vaccine, claiming that it works wonders for a man’s virility. He swore that after being injected with the second dose, he and his bodyguards felt like they had taken Viagra and the feeling lasted every day for two weeks.

We will know if the message is successful only when we see seniors lining up to get their second doses every two weeks.

Levity aside, the lingering doubts by many on the two Chinese brands notwithstanding, there are still a number of people who are willing to have themselves inoculated with Sinopharm or Sinovac once they become available. We are nearing that point where any promise of immunity from the coronavirus is acceptable.

But when will they be made available to the public?