Culture was the central point of my reason to start this blog. I thought that there was so much to explore in Asian culture to try and understand the future.
Initially my interest was focused very much on Japan and Hong Kong. It’s ironic that before the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ initiative there was much more content out there about what was happening in Japan. Great and really missed publications like the Japan Trends blog and Ping magazine.
Hong Kong’s film industry had past its peak in the mid 1990s, but was still doing interesting stuff and the city was a great place to synthesise both eastern and western ideas to make them its own. Hong Kong because its so densely populated has served as a laboratory of sorts for the mobile industry.
Way before there was Uber Eats or Food Panda, Hong Kongers would send their order over WhatsApp before going over to pay for and pick up their food. Even my local McDonalds used to have a WhatsApp number that they gave out to regular customers. All of this worked because Hong Kong was a higher trust society than the UK or China. In many respects in terms of trust, its more like Japan.
Korea quickly became a country of interest as I caught the ‘Korean wave’ or hallyu on its way up. I also have discussed Chinese culture and how it has synthesised other cultures.
More recently, aspect of Chinese culture that I have covered has taken a darker turn due to a number of factors.
If you’re reading this blog, you probably have a passing familiarity with the work of Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson’s most famous work Fear and Loathing in Last Vegas was a semi-biographical work that told the trip of Thompson and hispanic rights activist Oscar Zeta Acosta to go from east Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Oscar Zeta Acosta was an advocate for the rights of what would be now called the LatinX community in the United States. He was a lawyer by profession and respected member of his community. I don’t want to give anything further away about the story that led up the disappearance of Oscar Zeta Acosta.
Londongrad
The Economist have done a documentary on how London was so popular as a destination for laundering their money and reputation. London has built up a reputation for where oligarchs from Russia and other countries and former government officials go to invest and live.
They will often have their significant others live in London, while they act as an astronaut partner. The rationale for such an arrangement may vary. One may wish to protect your family from a badly behaving state. This would be similar to the why so many Hong Kongers had their families live in Canada from the late 1960s onward. Even Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing had his family in Vancouver.
A darker reason would be the trend toward kleptocracy which has flourished across the former Soviet bloc. The trend has become so pronounced that central and west London has been nicknamed Londongrad. Along with the oligarchs has flourished a range of professional and personal services to cater for their every need. But the oligarchs wouldn’t have come if a services framework didn’t exist in Londongrad. The legal and financial services were built up over time to benefit the aristocracy and then attract overseas capital post-war, most notably ‘Euro dollars’ from petrostates and the beneficiaries of globalisation. Londongrad built on these foundations.
To give an idea where some of the money that comes into Londongrad; look no further than the Russian frontlines in the Ukrainian war.
Samsung Bespoke
Cheil Worldwide have done a new film for Samsung’s Bespoke range of refrigerators and freezers. It’s got a huge amount of craft in the production. Check it out.
Shin Ultraman
Ultraman is getting the modernisation treatment that Godzilla had a few years ago. It’s now in the cinema in Japan and here’s the trailer. While the film might be more polished than the original, that doesn’t mean that the creators didn’t know a good thing when they saw it and kept the Showa-era vibe of the original Ultraman film typography.
Michael Caine on class
I am a big fan of Caine’s performance in The Ipcress File, a film adaptation of Len Deighton’s novel of the same name. Much of the rest of his work leaves me cold. I came across this clip where Michael Caine talks about class, which I thought was more relevant today than it was when it was originally recorded. Michael Caine has since gone on to support the party of the establishment which makes his earlier class consciousness ironic.
What’s next for Glossier as founder Emily Weiss steps down after eight years | Vogue Business – Glossier is famous for popularising millennial pink in its stores, its zip-lock bubble pouch and for pioneering everyday beauty in an industry obsessed with perfection. However, signs of internal shifts began earlier this year when the beauty brand laid off nearly one-third of its staff, according to an internal email obtained by Modern Retail. It also enlisted the singer and Gen Z favourite Olivia Rodrigo to promote the brand in April, after years of relying on its own community. There have been other bumps in the road. Two years ago the sub-brand Glossier Play closed, and the brand was also called out by former store employees who made allegations about racist behaviour and a toxic work culture. Glossier publicly apologised. – for many marketers in the beauty and personal care space Glossier was the poster child of a ‘new way’ of brand building. It looks as if it wasn’t the new way at all and its had to pivot to more conventional means.
Glossier is moving from scrappy start-up to a mainstream beauty brand. Will Weiss stepping back mean that Glossier will be up for sale?
Consumer behaviour
How Labour lost the Indian vote in the local elections – New Statesman – new Indian immigrants have more in common with Rishi Sunak than with the 1970s East Africans. Born to a wealthy, upper-caste Hindu family, this immigrant is likely to have attended one of India’s most prestigious private schools, aspiring to attend an Ivy League university. They were raised by domestic help who cooked and cleaned for them. Sunak embodies the Indian upper middle class. He understands the new wealthy India. Hell, he’s a card-carrying member of the new wealthy India: the Stanford educated son-in-law of one of the biggest Indian tech families, born to middle-class Indian doctors. This means that when Labour draws attention to Sunak’s elitist background, it makes him more appealing to both Indian demographics. He achieved the social mobility the 20th-century immigrants hoped for for their children, and he is a member of the family that encapsulates the new elite India
Economics
All the reasons why so many near-retirees are going back to work — Quartz – the pandemic may have been an even bigger setback to this age group than the current data suggests. There may be many older workers who want to return to work right now and are facing well-established obstacles, such as age discrimination, that make it much harder for an older employee to be rehired after leaving or losing a job, Davis suggests. Going back to work after retirement? It’s complicated. The data also don’t indicate how many of the people who went back to work would have preferred to retire, but couldn’t—a sign that the system could be failing them
Is British science aiding and abetting the Chinese human organ trade? – Last month, for example, a government bill was passed banning British citizens from travelling overseas to purchase an organ. Accompanying this awareness is a growing unease in western academia. Eminent medics are starting to look back uncomfortably on decades of “constructive engagement” with the Chinese medical establishment – those all-expenses-paid trips to lecture budding surgeons, and the profitable arrangements to train batches of them in the west. Meanwhile editors of academic journals are scouring their back issues for too-good-to-be-true studies on organ transplants, that may have arisen from experimentation on human guinea pigs in places such as Xinjiang. In October last year a world-renowned Australian transplant doctor, Professor Russell Strong, called on all Chinese surgeons to be banned from western hospitals to prevent them using the skills they pick up there in the organ harvesting market. Now, a leading human rights body has warned medical equipment manufacturers – among others – that they might be prosecuted if their kit is found to be used in the illegal Chinese trade. – this is going to expand areas of decoupling
Unilever’s Samir Singh: Sustainability shouldn’t burden consumers with guilt or expense | Campaign Asia – existential threats to the personal care business wouldn’t just come from being innovation laggards, but could also come from feisty D2C brands or strong local rivals eating into market share. Here, Singh is more concerned about one over the other. “Despite the noise, D2C brands have made no impact on market share charts in the personal care business,” he contends. “You will hear a lot about them for the first six months to a year, (then) they will peak and then in two or three years, they tend to disappear.” Instead, it is strong homegrown local brands that worry Singh more. He points out that across categories ranging from deodorants to skin care and across markets ranging from India to Indonesia, Unilever has felt local threats to its storied global brands. These brands have been able to compete on price, innovation, distribution and brand recall. “While we have been winning with our global names, these local brands have taken market share from us previously,” he admits. – this looks like headstone for the DTC CPG boom, other comments about sustainability are interesting as well
Chanel profits skyrocket 171% on price hikes, Americas gains | Vogue Business – Chanel famously increased the prices of its iconic handbags last year (the small Classic Flap bag rose by an average 21 per cent in 2020 and a further 30 per cent in 2021, according to Jefferies analyst Flavio Cereda) and said a twice-year price adjustment is the norm for the brand. Price increases “depend on product categories and countries because it depends if the currency in one country has moved in a direction. There is not a single pricing decision which has been made in January. Usually, we revise, we adjust prices when we have to, twice a year.”
Joint Venture Between High-Tech Rheinmetall AG and DEMALOG, Germany’s Biggest Biometrics Company – Soldier Systems Daily – The strategic objective is to integrate biometric technology, artificial intelligence software, and digitization solutions in three different areas: driver monitoring, security, and industry. For Rheinmetall, the joint venture marks an important step in the transformation to digitization technology and expanding into driver monitoring solutions. Furthermore, the new joint venture enhances the Düsseldorf-based technology group’s future-oriented diversification into biometrics applications geared to the security sector and industry. The move also adds to its existing digitization and software expertise. Importantly, the partnership reinforces Rheinmetall’s capabilities in five strategic technology clusters: automation, sensors, digitization, alternative mobility, and artificial intelligence
Virtual clubbing points to future profits from the metaverse | FT – Hybe, the agency behind K-pop band BTS, was hit by a 98 per cent plunge in sales from its core live concert business in 2020 as tours were cancelled. But total annual revenues and operating profit still rose over a third, as it was quick to offer VR concerts and content. With such digital content repurposed at a fraction of the cost of live shows, operating margins rose to nearly a fifth higher than pre-pandemic levels. CJ ENM, which started using the latest VR and augmented reality technology for its virtual concerts in 2020, has also enjoyed a boost to content sales. These have since risen steadily, more than doubling in the latest quarter, as did operating profits from its music division. For Sony, sales from its music segment rose a fifth in the year to March
Making the metaverse – Smart2.0 – its odd, or disingenuous the way Meta is outlining an open metaverse rather than a walled garden, rather like a turkey voting for Christmas
Davis Polk Asia chair withdraws from Hong Kong security law forum | Financial Times – Guessing that Davis Polk Asia didn’t do a thorough opportunity cost analysis before agreeing to participate in the Hong Kong National Security Law Forum. An alternative hypothesis that I have heard about Davis Polk Asia could be due to being really screwed globally and will ANYTHING for some billings. Even if David Polk Asia really desperate, I can’t imagine that there will be that much upside in the greater China market and maybe some backlash in the law firm’s other international and US domestic offices. The backlash happened as soon as the FT published news of their forthcoming participation. I can also imagine that the subsequent Davis Polk Asia withdrawal will cause blowback with mainland clients and government contacts. The smart play for Davis Polk Asia would have been to decline the place in the first instance. It is even more surprising when David Polk Asia could have looked at Mayer Brown pulling away from representing Hong Kong University last year was a case study in likely outcomes. Given that one would want solid wise heads in the senior staff of a law office rather than status seeking sycophants, the Davis Polk Asia chairman Mr Rogers doesn’t look like a credit to his firm. Discretion might have been the better part of valour in this case.
Shanghai lockdown exposes global supply chain strains | Financial Times – the Port of Los Angeles, for example, is monitoring data from China on energy consumption, traffic patterns and pollution, to understand how busy the country’s factories are so it can prepare for the volumes of cargo to come. “I’m on the phone most evenings with friends . . . in Shanghai telling me what’s happening on the ground,” – interesting how they’re having to rely on abstract data
As Q1 results disappoint, should brands look beyond China? | Advertising | Campaign Asia – brands were able to offset these losses thanks to the strength in North America and Europe. Aeffe, the parent company of Mochino, nearly tripled its net income in the three month period, as Europe (which represents almost one-third of its total revenue) jumped 37.5% thanks to Germany and the UK. Tapestry shares even climbed on May 12 after it posted that sales in North America rose 22% year-on-year, fully offsetting mid-teens decline in China. These two regions will be crucial as China slowly recovers from its worst Covid wave since 2020. Although the mainland is on track to become the world’s largest luxury market by 2025, the US is still in top spot, accounting for 31% of the global market (China accounts for 21%). As such, it is important for brands to continue building traction in North America and Europe to cushion against near-term losses in Asia
China Brief: Expanding State Power Still Tops Xi Jinping’s Agenda – The published speech shows how much of Xi’s economic thinking is about control, tied to what he sees as a necessary expansion of government power. The speech frames China’s problems as coming down to the “reckless expansion of capital,” or private industry, which can only be curbed by expanding the CCP’s power. That idea relates to one of Xi’s favorite terms from last year: “common prosperity,” achieved via the redistribution of wealth. Publishing the 2021 speech now may be an attempt to revitalize that language. Other Chinese officials, such as Premier Li Keqiang, are focused primarily on addressing economic issues, but party power still tops Xi’s agenda. One part of the speech may seem incompatible with its profession of socialist values: how conservative it sounds about welfare. Xi explicitly states that “common prosperity” isn’t welfare. His words also suggest a fear of overpromising what the government can deliver, but they also echo an idea I’ve heard from rich and powerful people in China—that people living in democracies never vote to cut welfare benefits because the public is lazy and entitled
Consumer behaviour
“Macho pink” menswear takes over in China | Vogue Business – “Macho pink” can be seen as a kind of “rebellion”, however, this rebellion currently remains limited to product categories considered mainstream for men, such as e-sports, sneakers and electronics. As male consumers in China put more emphasis on self-expression, this is validated to some extent by pink goods. – this reminds me of the bold neon colours of 1980s skiwear brands like Nevica. More on the social impact here: Millennial Pink Begone, Enter the Age of Hot Pink Fury | High Sobriety
Liberals Should Be Worried About the Conservative Comedy Scene – POLITICO – Conservative humorists aren’t merely catching up to their liberal counterparts in terms of reach and popularity. They’ve already caught them — and, in some cases, surpassed them, even as the liberal mainstream has continued to write conservative comedy off as a contradiction in terms. “[Liberals] are ceding ideological territory in the culture wars to the right via comedy,” Marx told me, noting that once-beloved liberal comedians like Stewart are struggling to find their footing in the treacherous landscape of post-Trump humor. “This thing that we thought we have owned for the last 20 years has been leaking, and the borders are slowly getting shifted.”
Company Reviews on Glassdoor: Petty Complaints or Signs of Potential Misconduct? – HBS Working Knowledge – Whether it’s Theranos and its fraudulent blood testing technology, Wells Fargo and its fake financial accounts, or Volkswagen and its bogus emissions data, a whistleblower eventually comes forward to expose the behavior, and executives are held accountable. “But what you start to realize is that the problems that have been uncovered have been going on for a very long time,” says Dennis Campbell, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. Far from being just a few bad apples, most business improprieties occur within a widespread culture of bad behavior—or at least, a lot of people looking the other way as misconduct is taking place, he says.
Koreans Think AI Is the Future – The Chosun Ilbo – 1/ artificial intelligence 2/ robotics 3/ future mobility 4/ hydrogen fuel 5/ energy 6/ biotechnology 7/ aerospace 8/ new materials 9/ batteries 10/ semiconductors – skews to Korea’s current strengths in semiconductors, hydrogen fuel cells and robotics
Luxury
LVMH-owned watchmaker Tag Heuer to accept crypto payments | Vogue Business – terrible timing given the bear market in crypto at the moment. Its also part of the odder financial aspects happening in the watch sector. From companies going vertical into the pre-owned marketplace to Breitling adopting a car lease type model for watches
Marketers, investing in market research is not superfluous – there is the big initial deep dive that happens when a new CMO arrives or a new product or market is contemplated. Second, there is the lesser but more common annual research that updates the organisation on the market, its segments and associated behaviour that feeds annual market planning. Finally, there is the more occasional inquiry into a specific micro issue that springs up. A pricing problem, a sudden reduction in market share or some other occasional issue that demands customer insight to guide management action
Hong Kong Considers Blocking Telegram Messaging App, Local Paper Says – Bloomberg – Hong Kong authorities are deliberating whether to curtail public access to the messaging service Telegram, the Sing Tao Daily reported, potentially reviving fears the former British colony is moving closer toward Beijing-style internet controls. The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data is considering invoking regulations for the first time to restrict access to a platform it found to be rampant with doxxing, the local newspaper reported Tuesday. The widespread doxxing — or online exposure of sensitive and personal data — was aimed at government officials as well as citizens, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people.
Chinese Hackers Tried to Steal Russian Defense Data, Report Says – The New York Times – The emails landed on March 23 in the inboxes of scientists and engineers at several of Russia’s military research and development institutes, purportedly sent by Russia’s Ministry of Health. They carried a subject line that offered seemingly tantalizing information about a “list of persons under U.S. sanctions for invading Ukraine.” But the emails were actually sent by state-sponsored hackers in China seeking to entice their Russian targets to download and open a document with malware, according to a new report to be released Thursday by the Israeli-American cybersecurity firm Check Point… The Chinese campaign targeted Russian institutes that research airborne satellite communications, radar and electronic warfare
I think my interest in this vintage TV series Special Branch comes from a couple of places:
Sharing Mike Herron’s subversive books, Apple TV adaption and audio books with friends and my Dad
Sharing my love of John LeCarre with friends during lockdown
Special Branch was before my life time. The episodes start very much in the vein of a Le Carre or Len Deighton-type story. Later episodes were more human interest focused including an investigation of a religious cult. However one episode touches on the often overlooked post-war history of the British security services and military combatting Cypriot desire for independence.
You can see more episodes of Special Branch on YouTube here.
Genesis on luxury
This is an interesting event that Genesis took part in for marketing purposes. The tone of voice on the session was more about the ‘business of luxury’ rather than encouraging luxury consumption. It’s trying in a way that Lexus didn’t need to. Lexus let their engineering do the talking, by comparison luxury and fashion is something that Mercedes and BMW have increasingly lent into.
There is also no focus on sport in the way that BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Infiniti and Lexus have had.
Lights and shadows
A lovely collection of video footage showing light and shadow views in Japan. A good deal of it is the the same locations shot at different times of the day. There is some b-roll, TV and film footage mixed in for good measure.
Mysterious circles in the Sahara
My guess when I first saw this was oil exploration. I had worked in the oil industry before I went to university and heard the upstream and exploration adventures of older colleagues. This documentary is a fascinating journey to find out the truth and the limits of the internet and assumptions about modern industry practices not being a good guide of past practices. Without any further introduction I will leave you to this mystery of the Algerian desert.
Calculus on Pornhub
Taiwanese mathematics tutor puts calculus lessons on Pornhub. Attracts audience with attractive female assistants who clean the board. His rationale of taking his content to a less crowded platform can’t be faulted though.
Bongbong Marcos aka Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr is the son of former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos. The Asia Society did a really good talk on the election which explains what got Bongbong Marcos elected as president of the Philippines. Yes there was a lot of misinformation and sketchy tactics by the Bongbong Marcos campaign, but there is more going on.
Much of the issue seems to be that Marcos is viewed as standing against local Filipino dynasties that have most of the economic power in the country. I found this particularly interesting as Bongbong Marcos and his running mate Sara Duterte are both from dynasty families.
Marcos’ mother Imelda had a dad who as a lawyer, an uncle who was a supreme court judge, a cousin who was in the lower house of parliament and her brother was a provincial governor. On his father’s side, Bongbong’s grandfather was a lawyer and politician, and the mother was a school teacher. While both of Bongbong’s parents had known poverty, they could rely on a strong powerful network of family ties to help get them good jobs. Ferdinand Marcos even managed to get away with murder in 1939.
Bongbong Marcos is supposed to be stuffing people he can trust through blood ties into key government and political positions such as speaker of the house and ministerial roles.
Opposition party strategy
The Marcos campaign managed to play on nostalgia for older voters and addressed young voters through TikTok. The opposition party strategy failed in online marketing. Misinformation was an aggravating factor.
Corrosion of liberal democracy
The average Filipino voter doesn’t feel invested in democracy in the same way that the middle class would be. 7 out of 10 surveyed by Pew wouldn’t mind an authoritarian leader like Bongbong Marcos – so Marcos was pushing against an open door. The middle classes are looking for ‘order and discipline’ rather than dysfunction. They think that economic success and freedom are mutually exclusive. They look to the United Arab Emirates and Singapore as exemplars. There are similarities with middle income countries like Modi in India, Erdoğan in Turkey, Urban in Hungary and Bolsonaro in Brazil.
From an economic perspective what does Bongbong Marcos mean? Noah Smith made their most optimistic take on the economics of the Philippines Can the Philippines sustain its growth? – by Noah Smith. An authoritarian Bongbong Marcos government might see the departure of foreign companies who have been responsible for powering the past two decades of economic growth in the Philippines. The only reason why you might not see a foreign multi-national company exit would be ‘de-Chinaisation’ of global supply chains.
Siemens to discontinue business in Russia – eeNews Europe – Siemens stopped all new business with and international deliveries to Russia and Belarus. The comprehensive international sanctions and the current and potential countermeasures are affecting the company’s business activities in Russia – especially its railway service and maintenance business. For companies that are mainly active in B2B business, the decision to completely exit a region is more difficult to make than for companies that sell consumer goods. The reason: contracts for the maintenance of industrial plants and trains are concluded for many years, sometimes decades – this is an opportunity for Chinese railway businesses
Firms as Revenue Safety Nets: Political Connections and Returns to the Chinese State | The China Quarterly | Cambridge Core – restructured state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with political connections pay more tax than their assessed amount, independent of profits, in exchange for more preferential access to key inputs and policy opportunities controlled by the state. Examining taxes rather than profits also offers a new interpretation for why China continues to favour its remaining SOEs even when they are less profitable – it also explains why apparently inefficient SOEs get so many bank loans from state owned banks
California’s demography is at odds with the old California Dream | The Economist – The population fell to 39.2m in the year to January 2022, 400,000 lower than in 2020 (see chart). In 1990, the number of Californians had been rising by a robust 2.5% a year. The biggest contribution to the decline came from migration. In 2021, the net change (people moving out of state minus those moving in) was twice as large as the number of covid deaths and four times the population’s natural change (the excess of deaths over births). Big cities have been hit hardest; the population of Los Angeles County has fallen for the past four years. Even if these declines were no worse than average—and national demographic trends are slowing, too—they might seem worse in a state where, as its governor once said, “the future happens here first”. In fact California’s demography is worse than average. The state’s total fertility rate (tfr, an estimate of the number of children women will bear over their lifetimes) fell from 2.2 in 2006 to 1.5 in 2020, more than in America as a whole, where the fall was from 2.1 to 1.6.
Arrest of Cardinal Zen send chills through Hong Kong’s Catholic church | Financial Times – a diocesan administrator tendered their resignation over a posting on the “Catholic Way” Facebook page on April 27. The post, which was quickly deleted, summarised a television interview in which a local priest accused China of attempting to control religion in Hong Kong. The diocese said the administrator had resigned of their own accord. The police investigation of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, of which Zen was a trustee and which supported pro-democracy protesters, could also have implications for Hong Kong’s legal system. Police said on Thursday that they had complained to the Bar Association and Law Society about alleged misconduct by unnamed lawyers who took on the fund’s cases
Talking about white privilege online can backfire – Futurity – The relationship between question language and the content of the responses was mediated by their support or opposition to renaming buildings. This suggests that, rather than causing people to think differently about the world, the term white privilege causes an emotional reaction which then affects their response, Quarles says. Inclusive ways of speaking about race online, such as the term “racial inequality,” are more likely to create a sense of shared purpose, he says. Policymakers who want to promote racial equity should consider how their language can either unite people or alienate potential allies, he says. – but this doesn’t understand that white privilege as a term comes from left-wing thinking and isn’t designed for dialogue. The emotional reaction is elicited by design as part of the narrative of ideological struggle. Either the party is worn down to the ideology or they are part of the enemy, which is then followed to its conclusion in Stalinism
Recovery for Bosch as it warns of slowdown – eeNews Europe – It’s worth taking a closer look at how the war affects climate action. My assessment is nuanced: in the short term, the acute conflict will slow progress in reducing carbon emissions, but in the long term, it will accelerate the technological transformation in Europe – Bosch also particularly keen on green hydrogen
Lex in depth: why the luxury market needs to hedge against China | Financial Times – Customers at the exclusive Shinsegae department store in the Gangnam district of Seoul prefer to display their wealth discreetly. But their high spending was exposed to the wider world when it revealed annual sales had topped $2bn in 2021 — the highest turnover for a single store in the world. It outpaced even Harrods in London, which before the coronavirus pandemic had long held the world’s top spot
EU plans to require backdoor to encrypted messages for child protection | AppleInsider – “When executing the detection order, providers should take all available safeguard measures to ensure that the technologies employed by them cannot be used by them or their employees for purposes other than compliance with this Regulation,” says the proposal, “nor by third parties, and thus to avoid undermining the security and confidentiality of the communications of users.” – congratulations EU you’ve just empowered authoritarian regimes and risked the lives of millions elsewhere
