Tag: Beijing

Signs and signals

Jackie Chan delivered again in Chinese Zodiac. The 12 Animals.

The East learn to tell fortune from symbols. The West teach others to “read” people. Animals or People. We all want the advantage of foresight the next outcome.

People commit to New-Year resolutions: lose weight, take up lessons in this and that, get off a bad habit like smoking, shopping and swapping old wives’ tales.

Others use the turn of the calendar as a bookend to their failed relationship or business attempt (valley of death).

Good idea. It’s about time. Turn out the lights.

Something never meant to last forever.

Mismatched personalities, mismatched commitments.

The usual: people hurting people in a chain of downward spiral, of self-sabotage.

Those who last are those who never went in deep and are quick at damage control.

Pull out while you still can. Salvage and survive.

As long as you can read the signs and detect the signals.

People and events do send signals (favorable or unfavorable). Semiotics.

We need to know ourselves, when to hold, when to fold.

Enough hurt, enough loss, enough bad tastes in the mouth.

Unfortunately we can only “see” in looking backward.

That’s why people would rather invest in pre-mortem than post-mortem analysis.

That’s why people tell fortune by reading those zodiac, the Twelve.

With Jackie Chan, rumor has it that this was going to be his last picture (at least one which he did all the stunts himself).

For us, we still miss a sign here, a signal there.

Those who are skilled and savvy to detect them will reap a windfall. Others are still in denial even after the facts (that it’s over).

Welcome to the New Year, a bookend to all those missed signs and signals of year past.

Confidence

2.5 per cent. That’s US growth figure. Enough? Confident? Could be better?

I am glad we are growing even when it feels like we are running in place.

Perception vs Reality. Like how they feel now at Microsoft, at Yahoo. Even at RIM and Facebook.

Something is missing. Mojo? Passion and Pride. Exuberance and Exhilaration.

Grown men are sleeping on Mommy’s couch. Grown women too, to make it equal.

Crushed right out of the gate. Austerity.

Where is that needed confidence I used to see on Seniors’ faces on their first-job interviews.

It’s like dating back then on campus. Except it’s on weekdays, and you get to put on a suit. You could always tell they were experiencing “senior panic” : get a job, get settled down, bought into the American Dream with white-picket fence and automatic sprinklers.

Now, it’s the couch, not sure where it was made from.

Trickled-down economy. Wealth imbalance. Daddy brought wild animal kingdom home for Daughter’s surprised birthday. While others waiting in line at county food bank.

1939 all over. This time, with Bernanke, not studying the phenomenon as an academic subject. He is handling it, and inadvertently, helps shape the textbook of the future.

How are we looked at from year 2020’s vantage point? That we mishandled this “opportunity”?

In crisis, there is always opportunity. Electric Vehicle? Wind and Solar? Software for the mass and medical world?

C’mon. Exercise a little imagination. Muster up some courage. Be confident again.

Build that high-speed railways. Don’t let me want to learn Korean (broadband-envy). Don’t let Friedman keep writing about Beijing and Shanghai modern airports. Build them and be proud again. Make me USA-proud and the world USA-envy.

Paradox, dilemma and irony

Paradox: doomsday for all is not coming, doomsday for one, anytime (especially when you are old).

Dilemma: too big to fail, the book then the movie (might not make it big at the box office).

Irony: got to have a job to land a job (hence, the growth of internship i.e. free  labor).

Underneath it all, we still act out our primal instincts e.g. sacrificing a virgin to appease the gods (common good) via new forms: NINJ loan, TARP and foreclosure (sub-prime borrowers are enjoying free rent before the eviction notice got nailed on the door – yet, the process flows just one way: driving people out on the streets where they were supposed to belong in the first place).

Meanwhile, debtor’s nation will soon face intense competition from China, whose agriculture population now stands at mere 10%.    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/433041d0-8568-11e0-ae32-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1NHwUmam0.

Their service sector is growing and scrutinizing every loose brick in the American fortress: from refrigerators to automobiles, from helicopters to pharmaceutical research.

One interesting note from history: during a visit to Pakistan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger faked a sick leave to take a side trip to China. From there, the Cold War was practically neutralized, setting the stage for today’s multi-polar world. Recently, we saw how Pakistan was once again used as staging area for America’ s new battle ground.

Pakistan, our new dilemma (Please return the SEAL helicopter, and do not forward to the reverse engineering lab in China).

Vietnam, our new irony.

America, filled with paradoxes (loose sex and loose religion, long list of millionaires and high level of national debt, highest incarceration rate yet land of the free).

Dear readers, you got the gist. Connect the dots for yourself. Think, think, think. Apple “think different”, so they make the I-pad 2 through Hon Hai, whose subsidiary Foxconn kept having its factory blow up or employees jump the dorm’s rail. Tell me there is no modern-day sacrifice of human being to appease the gods of consumption (last year, we just wanted an I-pod, now we want an I-pad) and I will tell you to think again.

Here they come!

Chinese buyers, that is.

Not a bid for 76 gas station, or IBM hardware (now Lenovo).

A GM unit then Symentech.

On seeing David Stockman on TV. I thought I were back to the early 80’s. This time, just one just needs to replace the word Japanese, for Chinese (remember Michael Keaton and his gold fish?). Now, it’s Wolf Pack in Las Vegas, w/ Chow.

A 30-year cycle, deja vu.

Beijing is rolling out cars on mass. Then the Olympics. Then the Summit near the shooting.

Welcome to the Pacific Century, when personal income and saving are on the rise, this time, across the pond.

From the Olympics to the World Fair, from space to supercomputer, Beijing is flexing its muscle.

This time, we’d better get used to seeing our new competitor outside of traditional type casting i.e. China town, kung fu and acrobat.

When the Wall came down in Berlin, another stood stall in Beijing.

America needs a balance sheet. And the “For Sale” signs are up, for any buyer with cash. Chinese have saved up. Under the mattress. And this time, they go shopping. Cash or charge? Cash. Here they come again. Shallow the pride and give our customers the respect they deserve. It’s time for an American pragmatic approach to a pressing economic problem. Um coy, it’s thank you. Anything else you want to buy?

Powerful women

World’s oldest woman. 115 years old. Oldest man, from Japan, 116 years old. Life expectancy in 1900 was 47.

World population has increased drastically. (Bio tech century). At the nano level, we can detect early symptoms of all sorts of disease (nano pharma).

Ironically, as the West is more aware of health issues and is taking preventive measures (diet, exercise and environmental retrofit), China with a huge population has to shallow the consequences of rapid industrialization , urbanization, obesity and pollution.

Asked on ABC News why Chinese children are much fatter than early generation, Ms Lee replied “because of China’s increased milk consumption.”

Charlie Rose asked Yang Lan, coined Chinese Oprah, about her agenda. The reply: capacity-building and to realize a civil society.

I believe she will see it realized. After all, she commands 200 million viewers each show (compared to O’s 7 million).

BTW, she was among the speakers at Fortune 2010 Most Powerful Women conference. Being in Media, and being a woman in today’s China , she signed up with Creative Artist in Hollywood which helped land interviews such as Charlie Rose’s and a piece in Fast Company. In Vietnam, I heard a story that all three powerful media owners are females who got their start as receptionists of a hotel on Saigon’s main tourist hub.

Our 21 st century produces not only media moguls, powerful women as heads of state (see portraits here

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Current-women-heads-of-state )

but also longer life (TIME Nov 15 documents a larger percentage of women making electronic purchase decision as well as watching NFL football).

In marketing, we calculate CLV (customer lifetime value). These numbers will only grow larger in both breath and depth. Who would have thought cell phone penetration as now is.. First, the voice call.

Then come the apps. The village ladies in India and Africa could walk for miles as mobile pay phones to make a small profit on each call. To them, it’s nothing, compare to whatever they have carried on their heads for centuries. Once every one has a mobile phone, these early adopters will have moved on to owning a coke stand then a beauty salon.

Three cheers for technology and globalization but also, for  women progress, for in Ms Yang Lan’s words, capacity-building to realize the Chinese dream. Amelia Earhart would have been proud. She would have been 116 years of age today.

 

Sustainable Vietnam

The leadership of World Economic Forum met in Vietnam a few years back.

Concerned parties already discussed Green Vietnam.

http://www.good.is/post/how-vietnam-is-going-green/

These days, if you are late into the Industrial game, at least you can leap-frog in thought leadership and learned from others’ mistakes (China is overtaking Japan as number 2 economy, but it faces Hon Hai‘s workers’ suicides among other things).

China and India got a head start in development, but as the Olympics in Beijing went underway- with pollution – everybody realized that you can’t have a strong eco-nomy without a healthy eco-sphere.

Vietnam could use bamboo as a symbol of sustained economic development.

The plant is sturdy although not strong as an oak.

And it’s green. Soothing and self-sustaining.

I have been to Ha Long Bay, Nha Trang, Mui Ne, Vung Tau, Da Lat and Mekong Delta.

What I saw was lush green (although hot).

And I kept thinking of my mom who used to save paper.

People in Vietnam and Thailand use green leaves to wrap sticky rice.

Everything is recycled. And mother Nature is truly respected in this animistic-turns-materialistic culture.

Eco-tourism should be factored in to balance out luxury tourism (high-culture French cuisine? Ou est Catharine Deneuvre?)

A blessing in disguise, Vietnam’s weakness (slow development) might be used as its strength (eco-tourism spin).

Besides, it could boast 5th place in the SEA happiness index (just like Costa Rica of the South America hemisphere).

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10650464

Recently discovered world’s largest cave has been a lure. These kinds of attraction can differentiate Vietnam from its neighboring Thailand and Cambodia. Or else, it’s a lonely planet for those “Me too” destinations Westerners can’t tell one from the other.

 

It’s a good IKEA

A billion+  prospects. Wow!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-ikea25-2009aug25,0,3900096,full.story

IKEA in China. More  a  theme park then a show room.

They try, they buy.

Today it’s the A/C and ambience.

Tomorrow, it will be CHIKEA everywhere (not only the font, but spelling change as well!).

One thing China does well is to mass-produce these household items on the scale hard to compete with.

But IKEA will keep reinventing itself, tossing in a satin pillow here and a straw basket there to create the right look and feel for the place. After all the construction “bad” loans comes interior decoration.

China, a hyper power of consumerism. The force of the unleashing wallet.

By 2020, we can expect a new generation of male child, mostly over fed and under exercised (due to the proliferation of automobiles and computer gaming) all want to start their own Alibaba or Baidu.

IKEA would then have to move up the value chain to accommodate Hummer drivers and Lenovo users (or suffer the fate of Sears, whose catalogue was first, just as IKEA’s now the most printed).

It made so much sense to see the Chinese bid for Unoco 76 gas and once failed, they hit the Safari trail in search for oil.

Young overseas Chinese workers will come home with a wealth of knowledge, having been exposed to the latest and greatest from abroad. While at home, their counterparts are still seen napping at the IKEA’s A/C theme parks.

Either the world is coming to China, or China will go out to the world. The Olympic is just a start. Central Casting is on a

look out for a new bad guy to play the role of   X as  “made in X” .

Back in the late 70’s, we used to laugh at “made in Japan” automobiles (remember the Datsun?)

I vote for the Made-in-China solar panels though.

They are quick to smell money-making opportunities. Either that or they will have to ship their workers overseas, as they did with trucks and cars during the pre-Olympic months to “clear out” the smog in Beijing.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention. Solar panel, at this time, is a good IKEA.

Fat pipe, fast food

FIOS in Triple Play, for $79.00 for the first six months.

The last time I looked, it was $100 for the Triple Play package: phone, TV and broadband.

In China, kids played until they dropped dead (unwilling to lose their seats at the Internet cafe and online, where supposedly, they were up against competitors from all over the world. Sort of 24/7 Beijing Olympics).

And the China you and I had in mind (Nixon and Mao, Madam Butterfly and man in front of the tanks) is now replaced by a new generation of only boys, obese and online.

It will be just another step before they are online and home alone (at least, they drag themselves out to the internet cafe around the corner for now).  At home, one has access to Haeir small refrigerators: lactose, sugar, carb diet are in abundant supply. Stressed over a lost game? Have some more sweet!

The chairs and screens grow larger to accommodate larger “young” population. The next Billion ( according to Jump Point).

Marketers always seek to win over the next generation. Well, they are no longer the Generation without the Sun as in Japan, but something resembles Bangalore and Beijing. Without repeating Friedman’s mantra, but they are the ones who will take away my kids’ jobs, if not mine already, while we are asleep.

Their older and rural counterparts might have been mistreated and working under age at off-shored garment plants,

but these Asian urban kids are internet savvy, and fast food junkies.

They could multitask (typing and eating fries at the same time), code, and speak two if not three languages. Hard to beat!

The future prospects are quite frightening, if you can envision the Hongkongization of  China. 1.3B entrepreneurs and consumers of every thing fatty: fat pipe and fast food. It’s quite a recipe for a disaster, if not, obesity and obscurity.

Asians kids are by and large, not that extroverted. Now, they spend hours in front of the screen, developing and playing games. We will have to take old maid’s matchmaking from an art to an industry. Honey.com anyone? Remember now, when both boys and girls look like Sumo, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Plus, they can do a lot of stuff online nowadays to alter the look, size and shape of a person. Plastic surgery goes East, right after Madison Ave.

YouTube China will have quite an audience to reckon with, provided they roll out enough fat pipe for fat people.

 

Free but not cheap

People have paid lips service to freedom, the defense of freedom, and the exercise of free speech.

But few put any thought on the price of freedom. Freedom somehow is perceived as being free

(i.e. you don’t have to pay anything, in economic terms). Actually, freedom costs a lot.

Many lives have been laid down in service of freedom, many limps cut off to defend it.

The opposite of freedom is not tyranny: it’s the illusion that one is free when actually not.

Have you ever been in a situation where you need to have a drink, or a puff of cigarette

(or worse). Those were occasions when you were not being free. Then, at the political level, you defend your personal position, and your philosophy/faith.

But at what price? And do you truly know yourself and your belief? Have you been tested or truly challenged?

Many psychological studies (Standford was one of them) proved that people were often “anchored” to some previous position (a low price for instance), just to later make impulse decision based on the anchor which had been previously planted prior to the actual experiment.

So, make sure at the core, you have  a value system (cleanliness, decency, trustworthiness etc…) and be flexible about them, to adapt to the situation (survival).

I have read Victor Frankl, and his famous line ” you can take away the body, but not the me which resides in this body”.

He made a distinction between personhood and our physical embodiment . If you had a chance to visit Dr Death’s exhibition (of the bodies)

you will realize as I did, that at the physiological level, we are no different from one another, especially after we are all dead. But while alive, we do exhibit

personalities and preferences (case in point, there are a set of  twin sisters who recently married a set of twin brothers in England). One of the brides said she had been waiting for this moment her whole life. And that they can tell each other apart (being twins and all, they have more exposure to IDing twins).

Or, take a look at America’s Got Talent. You see people are quite unique, although every one held dear to their dream of becoming a celebrity.

I skimmed the Forbes 100 celebrities. And I don’t remember seeing a Teacher in there.

I noticed that they were all movie stars, singers, and sport figures. No wonder it’s hard to tell ourselves, much less our kids that education

is noble and rewarding. We need role models. And society tells us one thing while the school tells us another.

Which way to go? We spend an average 4-6 hours a day in front of a screen of some kind . The internet feeds of the media,

and now the media feeds itself of the internet. Media appeals to our lowest common denominator to homogenize us.

Marketers used to have it easy (3 TV networks, and the 30-second spot).  Now each medium seeks to cater to a different demographic segments not unlike magazine print venue.

And the language of different generations, different point of views and different interests don’t seem to converge. No wonder the concept of freedom itself is in danger. I am not advocating “cultural literacy” type of definition of freedom.

I just want to reflect on how costly freedom has been and will always be : man facing oncoming tanks in Beijing, election opposition demonstrating  in Tehran, Buddhist monk pouring gasoline on himself in Saigon.

Those people are on my Forbes list of Freedom celebrities. I emulate and want to be them. After all, for whom the bell toll. Taking away one man’s freedom is taking away freedom itself. It might not happen to me, but someday, my kids and grand kids might not have a chance to see the movie I now enjoy (they might not chose to watch it, but at least, if they wanted to research it for a class project, they can) or the lyrics I hum along. Not to mention the comedian I watch. Man, have you seen CR’s Kill The messenger? I thought it was a spy comedy. Turned out it’s his stand-up tour. And Chris Rock ran his mouth. I was watching it at home, alone. But I was paranoid as if I were watching a porno.

I know someone can always find out that I watched the tape, because of my credit card charge. But who cares? If they had issues with some of the things CR said, they should go after the comedian himself, not his accidental audience. After all, I paid my dear price for freedom in the first place when I left Saigon years ago, not knowing where and if I would arrive safely. Freedom, yes, I know a thing or two about this abstract notion that others often mistook it as being free. Even if it’s free, it still is not cheap (I heard that admission tickets to Michael Jackson memorial is free, but event organizers still have to pay for the lights at Staple center on Tuesday).

Or the fireworks on New Year’s Eve.