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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘Asia’
06.04.2020
Russell Brown linked this COVID-19 trend page by Aatish Bhatia on his Twitter recently, and itâs another way to visualize the data. There are two axes: new confirmed cases (over the past week) on the y and total confirmed cases on the x. Itâs very useful to see how countries are performing over time as itâs animated, and to get a handle on what trajectory youâre on.
Iâve plotted us against some Asian countries and territories in the first graph and western countries in the second. South Korea is doing quite well and Taiwan is really bending its curve down. Try it yourself by clicking on either of the screenshot graphs below.
Tags: 2020, Aatish Bhatia, Asia, China, computing, COVID-19, data, design, Europe, health, Korea, occident, pandemic, programming, Republic of China, South Korea, statistics, Taiwan, Twitter, USA, YouTube
Posted in design, globalization, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Sweden, technology, UK, USA | No Comments »
31.03.2020
 At the end of the last century, the National Government announced its Bright Future programme. Their research had identified that one thing holding back our national competitiveness was our devotion to the team rather than the individual, when in fact there have been many times New Zealand individuals have made immeasurable contributions and had not been fĂŞted. It compared us with the US, where someone like Bill GatesâI seem to recall he was held up as an exampleâcould be recognized by many as an innovator, while the equivalent Kiwi wasnât generally known. One of the first moves was to knight Angus Tait, the Christchurch entrepreneur.
These Kiwi pioneers are still aroundâpeople like Dr Sean Simpson of LanzaTech, for instance, using bacteria to consume carbon monoxide and turning it into ethanolâbut other than news programmes, theyâre not part of our mainstream, and part of me wonders if they should be. They are doing work that should be rewarded and recognized.
However, the team spirit that New Zealand exhibits all the time, and admires, such as the All Blacks, the Black Ferns, or yachtingâs Team New Zealand, could help with the COVID-19 pandemic, as itâs invoked in our response. The four-week lockdown ordered by the New Zealand government has, from what I see out there, been generally accepted, even if Iâve publicly Tweeted that Iâd like to see more testing, including of all those arriving back on our shores, including the asymptomatic. (I note today that the testing criteria have been loosened.) The places held up to have done well at âflattening the curveâ, such as Taiwan, have managed it because, it is believed by the Financial Times and others, there is a community response, and, I would add, a largely homogeneous view when it comes to being in it together, helped in part by experience with the SARS outbreak, and possibly by the overall psyche of âWe have an external threat, so we have to stick together.â Each territory has a neighbour that itâs wary of: Taiwan looks across the strait at the mainland, since there hasnât really been an armistice from 1949; Singapore has Malaysia as its rival; and South Korea has North Korea.
Across Taiwan, there have been 13¡5 cases per million population, or a total of 322 cases; New Zealand is currently sitting on 134¡5 per million, or 647 cases. Singapore is on 158¡7 per million, or 926 cases; South Korea, which is now seeing a fairly low daily new case increase, is on 190¡9 per million, or 9,786 cases.
I support the Level 4 approach in principle, and having the lockdown, and while we arenât accustomed to the âexternal threatâ as the cited Asian countries, we are blessed with the team spirit that binds Kiwis together. We are united when watching the Rugby World Cup or the Americaâs Cup as we root for our side, and the unity is mostly nationwide. There are some on the fringe, particularly on Facebook, based on what others have said, with ideas mostly imported from foreign countries that are more divisive than ours.
On that note, we might have been very fortunate to have the national culture that we do to face down this threatâand not have any one person standing out as we knuckle down together. Even those who are seen regularly delivering the newsâthe director-general of health, for instanceâdo so in humble fashion, while our own prime minister goes home after we go to Level 4 and answers questions in her Facebook comment stream via live video. Even if economically we arenât egalitarian, culturally we believe we are, and it seems to be keeping us in good stead.
Tags: 1990s, 1999, All Blacks, Angus Tait, Aotearoa, Asia, Bill Gates, Bright Future, community, COVID-19, culture, equality, Financial Times, health, history, homogeneity, Korea, LanzaTech, National Party, New Zealand, pandemic, politics, Republic of China, SARS, Sean Simpson, Singapore, South Korea, sport, Taiwan, Team New Zealand, unity, yachting
Posted in business, China, culture, leadership, New Zealand, politics | 1 Comment »
17.09.2017
A photo taken in Wellington with a test car I had for Lucire. White cars aren’t the over-represented colour in New Zealand: guess from this photo what is.
A friend of mine put me on to this Fairfax Press Stuff article, entitled ‘Silly Car Question #16: Why are there so many white cars?’. It’s a silly question all right, because I haven’t noticed this phenomenon in New Zealand at all, and if any colour is over-represented, it’s the silverâgrey tones. It seems like “fake news”, and if you read on, then there’s more to support that assertion.
âIt’s because every second car imported from Asia is white – literally. Latest research tells us that 48 per cent of all vehicles manufactured in Asia, particularly Japan, are painted white.’ (My friend, of Chinese descent, summarized jokingly, ‘It’s our fault,’ and my thought was, ‘Not again.’)
Let’s break this one sentence down. The author says that we source a lot of our used cars from Japan, hence this 48 per cent figure is reflected in the New Zealand fleet. But you only need to ask yourself a simple question here: how many of those white cars made in Japan (or Korea, or India, or Thailand) stay in those countries to become used imports to New Zealand? These nations are net exporters of cars, so whatever trickles on to the Japanese home market will be a smaller percentage of that 48. How many are whiteâwe don’t have that statistic, but, as I noted, it’s certainly not reflected in the cars on our roads. Now, if we’re talking Tahiti, where there are a lot of white cars, then that’s another storyâand that is likely to do with white reflecting light in a hot climate. As this is a foreign-owned newspaper group, then perhaps the author does not live in New Zealand, or if he does, maybe he hangs around taxi ranks a lot.
Let’s go a bit further: ‘Statistics gathered by Axalta Coating Sytems, a leading global supplier of liquid and powder coatings, showed that worldwide 37 per cent of all new vehicles built during 2016 were painted white, which was up two percentage points on 2015’ and ‘All this leads to the next obvious question: why are all these cars painted white? / It may be because that’s what the manufacturers want.’
From what I can tell, this article was cobbled together from two sets of statistics. A bit of research wouldn’t have been remiss. However, it is a sign of the times, and even we’re guilty of taking a release at face value to get news out. But the result on Stuff just doesn’t make much sense.
James Newburrie, a car enthusiast and IT security specialist, has a far more reasonable answer to the high number of silver (and dull-coloured, which includes white) cars, which he gave me permission to quote in May 2016:
Car colours are fairly well correlated with consumer confidence. In an environment where consumer confidence is high, regular cars are likely to be available in all sorts of bright and lurid colours (purple, green, yellow, etc). As consumer confidence tanks, people start to think more about resale value and they chose more “universal” colours (the kind of colours no one hates: Silver, conservative blues, etc).
Cars directed at young people tend to be cheaper and maintain strong colours throughout the cycle – but to keep costs down they tend to stay around red, black, white, blue and silver, perhaps with one “girly” colour if it is a small car. Cars directed to financially secure people as second cars, like sports cars for instance, tend to be more vibrantly coloured, because your buying into the dream.
So, in the 1950s while the economy was good, people bought cars in bright colours with lots of colours, the oil crisis comes along and they go to white and beige, the 80s come along and we all vomit from car colours, the recession we had to have leads to boredom, then everything is awesome again and you can buy a metallic purple Falcon, or a metallic orange commodore – then the great recession and we’re all bored to death again.
Consumer confidence probably is just starting to recover now. If history is any indication, there will be a point where people just go “oh screw worrying” and then they will see that other people aren’t worried anymore and they’ll say “screw worrying” etc ⌠and we will snap back.
Follow that up with what car dealers are now selling, and bingo, you might have a serviceable article.
Tags: 2010s, 2017, Aotearoa, Asia, Australia, car, car industry, consumerism, economy, Fairfax Press, Japan, journalism, media, New Zealand, trend, trends
Posted in business, cars, media, New Zealand | No Comments »
26.06.2014
Has John Cleese become embittered?
He suggests that the Bond films after Die Another Day (his second and final) were humourless because the producers wanted to pursue Asian audiences. Humour, he says, was out.
âAlso the big money was coming from Asia, from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, where the audiences go to watch the action sequences, and that’s why in my opinion the action sequences go on for too long, and it’s a fundamental flaw.â And, âThe audiences in Asia are not going for the subtle British humour or the class jokes.â
I say bollocks.
Itâs well known that with Casino Royale, the producers went back to Fleming, and rebooted the series. Quite rightly, too, when the films had drifted into science fiction, with an invisible car and, Lee Tamahoriâs nadir, a CGI sequence where Pierce Brosnan kite-surfed a tsunami.
As to Asiaâalways a curious word, since we are talking 3¡7 milliard people who cannot be generalizedâdoes no one remember the groundswell of interest around the filming of You Only Live Twice? Bond was big in Asia long before 2006.
If Cleese specifically means China, all the Bonds were well received in Chinese-populated places before the Bamboo Curtain came down: Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc. So itâs a cinch that mainland Chinese would like it, too. And they have embraced Bond and its Britishness.
Or, as most Britons, he meant south Asia. I’ve only been to India, but thereâs such a lasting legacy of the colonial days that many in the region get British humour. Again, too, Octopussyâs Indian location filming saw a huge love for all things Bond.
The structure of Chinese humour is very similar to that of British humour, though you would have to be bilingual to appreciate this. But even monolinguists should be able to pick up the timing and pacing of Chinese humour to know that British humour would be appreciated.
They may not be marketed as such in the occident, but a lot of the Jackie Chan films are comedies. Police Story is littered, in the original dialogue, with comedic lines.
Class humour? Again present in a lot of Asia.
So heâs well off in his estimation. If anything, itâs the casting of Americans to appease that market that seems dreadfully forced (Halle Berry, Denise Richards, Teri Hatcher).
Hands up all those who would have preferred to see Monica Bellucci as Paris Carver instead of Teri.
And now we have some in the media, no doubt having forgotten the humorous moments in the three Daniel Craig-era Bonds, writing to agree with, or to appease, Cleese.
After all, who knows more about humour than one of the Monty Python creators? We must agree if we are to show that we, too, understand humour.
Maybe others donât have that same British sensibility or enjoy the subtlety. Skyfallâs quips were more evident than in the earlier Craig outings, though they were still fun lines, âA gun and a radio, not exactly Christmasâ; âHealth and safety, carry on.â Not quite Roger Moore then.
Nevertheless, in the Craig era, M gets frustrated that Bond kills all the leads in Quantum of Solace; Bond takes a hotel patronâs Range Rover Sport in the Bahamas, crashes it against a fence, and is recognized later in the bar by the owner in Casino Royale. Good humour is so often between the lines, things where you have to process them briefly, or communicated sometimes through an expression.
British humour need not always be Benny Hill or Carry on.
Humour, particularly in the southern parts of China, tends to give the reaction of: did I just get complimented or insulted?
Yet few seemed to mind that the humour in most of Brosnanâs era to be very Americanized, with the exception of Goldeneye. And the stories themselves, where Bond became a caricature, and, frankly, a waste of a decent leading man, were two-dimensional: Brosnan with two machine guns in the finalĂŠ of Tomorrow Never Dies! Just like in a John Woo film! And we are to believe that was more âBritishâ, in an interminable action sequence? If it werenât for Jonathan Pryce and Toby Stephens camping up their roles, those outings would be far less Bondian.
Once again, it demonstrates the short memories of the cinemagoing publicâor, for that matter, that of a very remarkable and talented actor and writer.
And having hit their stride now, the Bond producers are laughing all the way to the bank.
Tags: 2014, Asia, China, Daniel Craig, Eon Productions, film, Hong Kong, humour, India, James Bond, Japan, John Cleese, media, Pierce Brosnan
Posted in China, culture, humour, India, interests, media, UK | No Comments »
25.01.2011
Last week, GM announced it would drop the Daewoo marque, as it has done through Europe, in its native Korea, in favour of Chevrolet.
The company will also be renamed GM Korea, a name it once had nearly four decades ago.
While most will think this makes sense, so GM can concentrate on unifying its Chevrolet brand globally, I have to play devil’s advocate.
We know that GM opted to use Buick as its ďŹrst brand in China in the Communist era because it had generated a lot of goodwill prewar. And it worked: Chinese people, somehow, knew that Buick was a quality brand, even though there were very few cars in China in the 1930s. In the 1990s, 60 years on, Buick sold pretty much everything it made through its joint ventures in China.
This might be due to Chinese people valuing history and a sense of brand loyalty in an era where foreign brands were still fairly new in the People’s Republic.
What about Korea? Of course, South Korea is no stranger to brands and consumerism, but where does Chevrolet ďŹt? Is it as well placed as Daewoo, which has seen years of ďŹnancial disgrace as a car company?
If we took the Chinese experience, then we might look at the last car GM sold as a Chevy in the Korean market:
 Chevrolet 1700. 1972â8 (prod. 8,105). 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. F/R, 1698 cmÂł (4 cyl. CIH). Holden Torana (LJ), made by Saehan of Korea. Essentially a facsimile of the Australian original, but for an unusual station wagon model that looked more like an Opel at the back. Robust, but a failure on the Korean market, thanks to a perception that it was thirsty (the oil crisis did not help; Korean engines were generally smaller at this point). In theory replaced by facelifted Camina in 1976, though it ran alongside it.
Not exactly a success. The supposed successor, the Camina, sold even fewer, despite having a smaller engine.
If Koreans had the same conditions as the Chinese, then this one model sold as a Chevrolet in Korea will instil negative brand associations in the Korean market.
Daewoo hasn’t exactly had the history of Buick. It emerged as a car marque only in the 1980s, taking over from Saehan, so it may well be disposable. It’s also not like Datsun of Japan, which had plenty of years established worldwide. Nor is it like other storied GM brands such as Vauxhall and Holden, which are restricted to one country or one region.
Koreans have also seen major brands such as Goldstar, or LuckyâGoldstar, become the much simpler LG. Walk around Seoul and you see plenty of KFCs and Pizza Huts.
But there’s still a part of me that says a nation that has very few expatriates might just prefer their locally made cars to have local brands.
Koreans have a perception that foreign brands invite the tax authorities to investigate you, which is why so few people buy non-Korean cars there. So how will Korean-made and Korean-developed, but foreign-badged, cars go down there?
It hasn’t been done with rival brands Hyundai, Kia, Ssangyong or Samsung, the latter two having foreign owners.
GM will have to be careful how Chevrolet is marketed, to ensure that it’s perceived, at least in Korea, as a Korean brand that just happens to have an American home and a French pronunciation. Because if there’s one thing branding can do, it’s to make people overlook the actual country of origin in favour of the perceived one. This is why Japanese giants such as Suntory sell fruit juices in New Zealand as Just Juice, Fresh-Up or Bay Harvestâbrands with histories in New Zealandâand we do not see Bill Murray on our airwaves getting lost in translation in a commercial.
Sure, Daewoo has been owned by GM for years, so every car buff in Korea knows that the name change means nothing. Some of the rangeâthe Alpheon and the Veritas, for instanceâhail from China and Australia. But the everyday person in the street might be a bit more comfortable buying a Daewoo Alpheon than a Chevrolet Alpheonâbecause no one really wants the revenuers sending a letter saying they’re going to be audited.
Tags: 1970s, 2011, Aotearoa, Asia, Autocade, automotive industry, beliefs, brand associations, brand equity, brand loyalty, branding, cars, China, consumer behaviour, consumerism, GM, history, JY&A Media, Korea, marketing, memory, New Zealand
Posted in branding, business, cars, China, culture, marketing, New Zealand, USA | 3 Comments »
04.02.2010
 We might get critical over the upcoming uniforms, but the service on Air New Zealand that I experienced was very good. The staff was brilliant (deserving of whatever award was given to them), and the personal screens remain a lifesaver for in-air boredom. (I was surprised that Lufthansa, an airline I used to enjoy flying, still has not caught up with what must be seven- or eight-year-old technology on any of the aircraft I flew.) Thank goodness, too, that we international travellers did not have to put up with the ghastly nude safety video (which is mostly distracting and not at all helpful).
But it was not without problems. On the AucklandâHong Kong leg, I had to ponder the following:
⢠why were the announcements in English and Mandarin, when most Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong people do not understand Mandarin? (How different are Mandarin and Cantonese? Ask yourself: how different are Danish and Italian? Same idea.) On a flight in 2008, I specifically had to ask the Air New Zealand flight crew to do announcements in the correct dialect for the destination. I managed to get two out of them before they reverted back to Mandarin. (Compare this to Lufthansa, which provided English, German and Cantonese on the Hong KongâFrankfurt flight.) Now, if I were flying to Beijing or Taipei, I would get the fact that Mandarin was spoken. But to Hong Kong, where you might get stuck-up, proud southerners like me? I remain puzzled, because I have now taken enough flights to know the 2008 experience was not anomalous;
⢠why did the subtitles on the safety video switch from Chinese to Japanese three-quarters of the way through? (Letâs not even bring up the war on this one);
⢠why was a Korean film labelled as âChineseâ in the menu, when it clearly was not? Apart from the actorsâ names, the credits were clearly in Korean script. Unless Air New Zealand believes âAsiaâ is one place. (On a related note, I am told that it is impossible to search for flights to New Delhi via the Air New Zealand website: India is not considered an important enough nation.)
There are enough travellers going between the two countries for this to be very important to Air New Zealand.
Iâll write to the airline today. I reckon the above needs addressing.
Tags: Air New Zealand, airline, Aotearoa, Asia, Hong Kong, language, New Zealand, service
Posted in business, culture, Hong Kong, New Zealand | No Comments »
17.01.2010
Tags: 1960s, 1961, advertising, Asia, Audrey Hepburn, cellphone, China, commercial, film, Henry Mancini, icon, Japan, Korea, marketing, retro, tea, TV, TVC
Posted in marketing, TV | 3 Comments »
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