Asahi was a great company, that made superb glass and wonderful state-of-the art cameras. IMHO, none of the corporate successors to the Pentax brand have lived up to it.
For those who may not be aware of the name, "Asahi" is a popular brand name in Japan, including Asahi Beer (which is wonderful) and Asahi Shimbun, one of the major newspapers. It means morning sun (Asa+morning, Hi=sun or fire, as in hibachi). It also however means "Rising Sun," as in the red disc that appears on the Japanese flag and Japanese military aircraft. As such, for years the company used other brands to sell their cameras in the US, because of the ill will many WW II veterans and others felt for the Rising Sun symbol. Thus, the Pentax was branded as a Honeywell when it was initially imported to the US. A similar feeling led to Nissan cars initially being marketed here as "Datsuns," to avoid the bad taste that Nissan (another version of Nihon or Nippon, ie, Japan) still had for many Americans. Times certainly have changed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJmXtGp86m4 Dan Matyola *https://tinyurl.com/DJM-Pentax-Gallery <https://tinyurl.com/DJM-Pentax-Gallery>* > -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
