Ged Carroll

Category: korea | 韓國 | 한국 | 韓国

Annyeonghaseyo – welcome to the Korean category of this blog. This is where I share anything that relates to the Republic of Korea, business issues relating to Korea, the Korean people, Korean culture and the Korean language.

At the time of writing this category descriptor its been about 10 years since I have last been able to visit Korea. In that time the country has risen on the world stage.

There have been continual disputes with Japan and more recently continual bitter disputes with China. The Japanese disputes are related to history and territory. Korea had been occupied as part of the Imperial Japanese empire. Independence came with the end of the second world war.

The Chinese disputes are more complex. Chinese investors are buying up Korean property particularly in Seoul, Busan and Jeju island, while many Koreans can no longer get on the property ladder. Chinese tourists blitz Korean shops in a similar way to what they’ve previously done in Hong Kong.

Chinese nationalism has seen claims made on Korean cultural assets from the national dress to kimchi. Finally China has interfered in Korea’s efforts to defend itself from the threat in the north.

Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Samsung launched a new smartphone that I thought was particularly notable that might appear in wireless as well as Korea. If there is Korean subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • South Korea + more things

    South Korea soft power

    This presentation on South Korea was done before Squid Game took off on Netflix. South Korea can enhance and leverage its soft power in fields such as K-pop, soap operas, movies, video games, contemporary art, sports, education, business, and technology. Geography dealt Korea a poor hand as it historically has been invaded by China and by Japan. South Korea now has the economic and cultural resources to produce significant soft power, allowing it to design a foreign policy that will give it a larger role in global governance. South Korea today has an unparalleled opportunity to expand its international influence in ways that would have been unimaginable just a generation ago. Scholars, journalists, authors, industry leaders and other leading experts join us for sessions to raise the level of understanding of South Korea’s soft power and analyze the role of soft power in the context of U.S.- ROK alliance while offering suggestions for how Korean soft power can be used to broaden and strengthen the alliance.

    Rush Doshi

    Rush Doshi, former director of the Brookings China Strategy Initiative and a former fellow in Brookings Foreign Policy, and Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in Brookings Foreign Policy, followed by a panel discussion with experts who focused on analysis concerning the U.S.-China relationship and China’s grand strategy. This was to mark the launch of Doshi’s book The Long Game.

    Dasani UK case study

    One of the first posts I wrote on this blog was about Dasani which was in reaction to one of the stories that run about the brand in the media. Dasani is a bottled water brand owned by Coca-Cola; it is similar to Watson’s Water in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is processed and purified, rather than being a natural spring water. Tom Scott does a complete run down of the history of Dasani in the UK.

    Shanghai Animated Film Studio

    Shanghai Animated Film Studio has made films from world war two to the present day. The golden age for the studio was between the 1950s when they experimented with films using Chinese art techniques to the cultural revolution. Havoc in Heaven draws on Peking Opera.

  • RISC V + other news

    RISC V

    There is heat starting to generate (finally) behind RISC V: Marvell founders back data centre RISC-V chiplet startup | EE News Europe  and Apple is doing their due diligence with a RISC V code port: Apple is Reportedly Designing Various Embedded Subsystems across all Operating Systems using RISC-V – Patently Apple  – is now exploring and developing various embedded subsystems across all Operating Systems using RISC V. The emerging Open Source RISC V architecture is now being used by companies like Nvidia, Google, Oculus, Qualcomm, Rambus and others for IoT devices to supercomputers, smartwatches and autonomous vehicles. Amazon and Alibaba are currently designing their own cloud and data center chips. This week Apple was shown to be recruiting RISC V “high-performance programmers. More specifically, Apple is currently seeking out experienced programmers with detailed knowledge of the RISC V instruction set architecture (ISA) and Arm’s Neon vector ISA for the Vector and Number Group (VaNG) of its core operating system group. Apple’s VaNG is responsible for the development and improvement of various embedded subsystems running on iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. – Not surprising that Apple will be keeping its options open for porting across architectures including RISC V, like it did with Intel and ARM respectively. Apple has taken a similar approach for decades. Apple had the Rosetta Stone version of Intel instructions years before it moved the Mac to Intel. RISC V came out of a research requirement for an open-source computer system and was started in 2010. RISC V was originally thought of as a fun 3 month research project… RISC V designs and specifications were released under a BSD and Creative Commons licence. The foundation overseeing RISC V is based in Switzerland to get around US trade sanctions against potential adoptees like China (or North Korea)

    Business

    Corporate America fights uphill battle against anti-China push – POLITICO – there will come a point where this starts costing them sales in the home market and I see that day coming soon

    Australia’s education industry facing US$15 billion loss as frustrated, worried students ponder futures | South China Morning Post  – Australia’s international education sector was worth around A$40 billion (US$29 billion) in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic. But students, the majority who come from China, are considering their options as Australia’s borders remained closed – on balance this could be good for Australia as it would also remove a lever of soft power that China has in Australia with subverted academia. This also makes you wonder about the craven nature of UK universities: Universities hire planes to fly in China students | News | The Sunday Times  – There are about 220,000 Chinese students studying in the UK. Across the Russell Group, one in every ten students is Chinese, and they provide nearly a fifth of all tuition fee income, worth an estimated £1.3 billion every year. In Glasgow, about a third of the university’s tuition income comes from Chinese students. At Liverpool University, one in five of its students in 2019 was Chinese — these 5,550 students were worth an estimated £90 million to the university. Experts warned that universities were at risk of overlooking the needs of British youngsters as they fretted over the potential loss of fee income from their overseas students, who pay up to £35,000 a year in fees, nearly four times the fees paid by their British counterparts

    China Evergrande bonds suspended as prices plunge | Reuters  – The Shanghai Stock Exchange said in a statement that it had temporarily suspended trading in China Evergrande Group’s 6.98% July 2022 corporate bond following “abnormal fluctuations.” The exchange had also suspended trading in the bond on Friday. Shanghai exchange data showed the bonds sliding more than 25% to a low of 40.18 yuan after the resumption of trade on Monday afternoon. The company’s 5.9% May 2023 Shenzhen-traded bond , which was also suspended, fell more than 35% after trading resumed – read with Soho China shares plunge 40% after Blackstone deal collapses | Financial Times  – this isn’t just about a property sector rout, but also about the founders wanting to be independent of China moving forwards

    Deutsche Telekom deepens bet on US market with SoftBank deal | Financial Times

    In the driver’s seat: China’s electric vehicle makers target Europe | Merics – Government subsidies for China-based manufacturers could distort global markets. That China has become the leading EV market is the result of substantial government support. But Chinese exports are also directly supported by central and local governments sponsorship of new production plants, R&D centers and overseas acquisitions

    China

    Zheng Yongnian on “the death of China Studies” – by Kevin Carrico – NSL can’t cancel me – well worth a read. Chinese warfare on the study of China abroad

    Chinese Power and the State-Owned Enterprise | International Organization | Cambridge Core – The results suggest that China uses FDI by prominent state-owned enterprises as an instrument to promote its foreign policy. – Which makes willing stooges like Vodafone look even worse

    BlackRock Raises $1 Billion for First Chinese Mutual Fund Run by Foreign Firm – WSJ

    Consumer behaviour

    Rejected internal applicants twice as likely to quit | Cornell Chronicle 

    Feeling the 2019 Hong Kong anti-ELAB movement: emotion and affect on the Lennon Walls: Chinese Journal of Communication: Vol 0, No 0 – The walls are able to marshal the resources of the minds and bodies of those who created and sustained them and give rise to political passions and movement actions.

    Effect of Financial Incentives and Environmental Strategies on Weight Loss in the Healthy Weigh Study: A Randomized Clinical Trial | Lifestyle Behaviors | JAMA Network – comparative ineffectiveness of a couple of nudge strategies for treating obesity

    A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’ – WSJ – At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline, the Journal analysis found. – this looks like a political and demographic time bomb waiting to go off. Think about the potential wasted at a time when the US needs more engineers, technologists and innovators of both genders. The deficit of hope scares the crap out of me and should scare you

    Culture

    Taste of the East: How The British Fell In Love With Chinese Cuisine | Newham Chinese Association – Until the 1940s, the majority of customers in the restaurants were not English but Chinese immigrants. In the aftermath of World War II Chinese food began to grow in popularity. British servicemen returned from various parts of the Empire and the Far East with a willingness to try different foods and cuisine and a new enthusiasm for Chinese food and restaurants. This in turn saw the rise of the restaurant trade in Soho. Chinese people entered the catering trade because of the downturn in shipping and the closing of laundries, traditional areas of employment. In the 1950s and early 1960s there was an influx of Chinese from Hong Kong who provided the necessary workforce. The restaurants served Cantonese food because of Britain’s old colonial links to Hong Kong

    Design

    Modern Woods: A Herman Miller Story | YLighting Ideas 

    Hong Kong mulls regulating ‘flight deck’ mobile phones on vehicle dashboards – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP – iconic interior feature on Hong Kong taxis

    Economics

    Tech Crackdown Is a Cloud Over China Economy, Ex-WTO Chief Says – Bloomberg

    Is China uninvestable? | Financial Times  – The problem the party has to solve is almost the opposite: investment is so high that much of the capital is malinvested. As a result, debt is growing faster than gross domestic product. The irrelevance of foreign investors to China key problems doesn’t mean Chinese stocks might not go up, “but you have to get both the valuations and the politics right, and that’s just really hard” – soft innovation and rent seeking investments versus the hard innovation desired – Cathie Wood’s Ark cuts China positions ‘dramatically’ | Financial Times – I think strategic alignment wit CPC agenda is a greater predictor than how much of a sycophant the company has been, which is what Ms Woods relying on

    Interview: Larry Summers, economist – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion – interesting interview on economics

    China offers $31m in emergency aid to Afghanistan – BBC News – aid in kind rather than cash to maximise leverage over the Taliban, its a smart play

    Chinese Industrial Policy: How A City Turned Itself Into a VC Fund – by Jordan Schneider – ChinaTalk – interesting to read this. New Structural Economics seems to be very similar to the processes outlined by Joe Studwell in How Asia Works. I was surprised to see that they weren’t trying to learning from Japanese agricultural policies given the mountainous land similarities and instead focused on US agricultural poliicies which have less clear cut lessons for China

    Ethics

    Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt. – WSJ

    Finance

    Investment banks accelerate efforts to automate junior ‘grunt work’ | Financial Times – how much ‘skills’ and ‘learning’ will be lost through this process?

    FMCG

    Subscriptions: recurring revenue model best suited to expensive items | Financial Times – not terribly surprising, I know that Unilever and Chlorox leant into this hard

    ‘Unprecedented influence’: Hong Kong prisons chief accuses inmates held for national security, protest offences of stirring rebellion behind bars | South China Morning Post – Hong Kong inmates held for offences related to the national security law and the 2019 protests are exercising “unprecedented influence” in the city’s prisons, leading to round-the-clock monitoring usually reserved for high-profile criminals such as triad leaders – it is probably down to chocolate and candy scandals that threatened Hong Kong and China’s national security. Apparently the Hong Kong government felt threatened by excessive amounts of gummy bears and M&Ms among prisoners

    Germany

    Opinion: Germany must call off Angela Merkel′s Chinese love affair | Business | Deutsche Welle – interesting that this ran in Deutsche Welle before Chancellor Merkel’s last call with Xi Jingping

    Hong Kong

    American lawyer imprisoned in Hong Kong speaks out about his treatment – The Washington Post – Sam Bickett’s case is instructive

    How to

    Nilesh Ashra on his digital toolbox, worthwhile digging into via Iain Tait

    Innovation

    JCB heir Jo Bamford launches hydrogen fund | Financial Times – they’ve done some really interesting work around hydrogen powered internal combustion engines in a way that contrasts with Hyundai’s hydrogen fuel cell approach

    Technique bonds copper foil and PTFE for better 5G 

    UK orders national security review of graphene firm’s takeover by Chinese scientist | Competition and Markets Authority | The Guardian 

    Chinese air force may have cracked how to land a hypersonic drone | South China Morning Post

    Superior MEMS sensors from cavity silicon-on-insulator wafers | EE News 

    Robotics pioneer Yoky Matsuoka’s Panasonic venture debuts personal assistant service in Seattle – GeekWire – what’s interesting about this is that its a concierge service a la Amex Black Card and similar. The tech is on the back end supporting the human operator. I presume that this is also going to build massive data sets on human problem solving

    Ireland

    Galway in line for Intel megafab | EE News Europe – A former military firing range in Oranmore near Galway in the west of Ireland is the Industrial Development Agency’s “preferred site” for an Intel chip foundry that would employ 10,000 people, according to reports. This is more than twice the 4,900 people Intel employs at its established facility in Leixlip, Ireland on the outskirts of Dublin. Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO, visited Leixlip last week and met with Ireland’s prime minister, Taoiseach Michael Martin. The site in Galway is a 216-hectare rifle range, owned by the Irish Department of Defence. The project would involve the building of eight factory modules on the campus, the reports said

    Korea

    South Korea shatters national debt taboo to tackle inequality | Financial Times – really interesting article

    South Koreans sour on China ahead of Wang Yi visit – Nikkei Asia – Survey results released in June by Sisain, a current affairs magazine, and pollster Hankook Research indicate a souring of South Korean public opinion toward China, particularly among the young. Only 26% of respondents had warm feelings toward China, compared with 57% who felt warmly toward the U.S. Even Japan, South Korea’s traditional rival, came out ahead of China with 28%. “Dislike of China is arguably emerging as the spirit of our times,” Sisain wrote in an accompanying article. “The question ‘what kind of country is China to us?’ is changing to ‘why and how much do we dislike China?”

    Legal

    China Unveils New Rules Targeting Anticompetitive Practices by Internet Companies – WSJ

    Was the ‘surveillance state’ a price worth paying? – The Law and Policy Blog and How the War on Terror Supercharged State Power – worthwhile reading both together

    Luxury

    The four fashion personas of China’s Gen Z | Vogue Business – Despite the youthfulness of Gen Z consumers, their understanding of fashion and luxury culture is as mature as older generations. – there is so much in the way that they picked their sample which makes this research something to be approached with caution. Shanghai is not representative of high growth lower tier markets.  Gen Z believes that to qualify as true luxury, a brand needs more than high price points, heritage and craftsmanship. It must also convey an elevated sense of aesthetics, with unique qualities and character. – and this has been an issue that luxury brands have been struggling with. Male Gen Z shoppers are outspending women by 20 per cent on fashion and luxury goods. Not every Gen Z consumer in China is obsessed with celebrities and influencers. – this surprised me as many men are having to save up to impress their girl and get the requisite items needed for a partner to say that they would marry you. The men surveyed are likely to be princelings. Interestingly, many Gen Z are critical of them and the culture that surrounds them. – this mirrors the wider Chinese government criticism of culture. More sophisticated marketing campaigns may, therefore, work effectively with Gen Z shoppers. For example, they appreciate exhibitions that mix brand stories with art and culture. They also like brands with creative crossover collaborations. Finally, they appreciate word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and families. Among those celebrities who do impress Gen Z, the key names include Yibo Wang, Mi Yang, Wen Liu and Yangqianxi Yi (also known as Jackson Yee). Key opinion leaders (KOLs) include Mia Kong and Fil Xiaobai.

    Opinion: Finally, a Chinese car brand to take seriously in Europe | Autocar – interesting that Autocar thinks electrification will disrupt the premium car sector

    Chinese star calls time on Swiss watch brand after CEO says Taiwan is a ‘country’ | South China Morning Post – Audemars Piguet CEO referred to Taiwan as ‘a very tech-oriented country’ in a video conversation months ago. Actor-singer Lu Han and team had wanted the watchmaker to apologise on global platforms in Chinese and English – effeminate looking showbiz star tries to save career and look masculine by leaning into Chinese nationalism

    Foreign brands criticised in China for misleading shoppers | Reuters – move after Canada Goose might be due to it being from Canada or a prelude to an attack on the luxury sector

    Chinese debts unravel historic fashion stores | Business | The Times – Troubles in China are putting some of the oldest names in British fashion in a precarious position, with Aquascutum quietly pulling out of the UK entirely and Gieves & Hawkes battling a winding-up order. The trenchcoat maker and the tailor are owned by Shandong Ruyi, which has come under increasing pressure over its bloated $4 billion debts after an acquisition spree intended to turn it into China’s answer to LVMH, the French luxury goods conglomerate

    Marketing

    Rewarding loyalty helps brands make gains in Hong Kong’s top local brands ranking | Country Rankings | Campaign Asia – I find this fascinating as it is at odds with marketing science findings from the likes of the Ehrensberg-Bass Institute

    The Paradox Of Buying Influence. “You keep using that word. I do not… | by Faris | Medium

    Media

    China Bans ‘Cissy Idols’ and ‘Effeminate Men’ in Entertainment Sector – Variety – Chinese government’s crackdown on the tech and entertainment sectors has now turned to “sissy idols,” “effeminate men” and all things “overly entertaining.”

    Hong Kong media group Next Digital says it aims to wind down, board quits | Reuters – the Hong Kong government has never indicated which articles published by Apple Daily allegedly violated the national security law, and the uncertainty created a climate of fear, resulting in many resignations including those responsible for the regulatory compliance duties of the publicly traded company. “We observe that the events affecting the company and its people following the invocation of the National Security Law occurred despite there having been no trials and no convictions,” it said. “Under this new law, a company can be forced into liquidation without the involvement of the courts.” “As Apple Daily often observed, Hong Kong people have a collective memory of what life was like elsewhere when freedom of speech was denied: No other rights are safe” – the Hong Kong government response to this was Kafta-esque

    China uses anti-fraud app to track access to overseas financial news sites | Financial Times – The app was launched in March by the public security ministry’s National Anti-Fraud Center and blocks suspicious phone calls and reports malware. Police said it was needed to combat a surge in fraud, often perpetrated by overseas operations managed by Chinese and Taiwanese nationals. The ministry recommended that the app was downloaded but numerous local government agencies made it mandatory for their employees and individuals with whom they work, such as students and tenants. One Shanghai-based user told the Financial Times he was contacted by police after accessing a US financial news service. He was also asked whether he had contacts abroad and regularly visited overseas websites. The user, who asked not to be identified, said police seemed genuinely concerned about foreign scams. “But the questions they raised about whether I have contacted foreigners made me feel like they don’t want me accessing foreign websites,” he added. “I deleted the app after the meeting.” A second user in eastern Shandong province said police called him on four consecutive days after the app showed he had visited what it labelled “highly dangerous” overseas information providers, including Bloomberg – if I was Bloomberg or the FT Chinese service I would be concerned

    Online

    Why Instagram’s creatives are angry about its move to video | Instagram | The Guardian

    Some of the most iconic 9/11 news coverage is lost. Blame Adobe Flash – CNN

    Former UK hedge fund partner plots return of Trump-era social network Parler | Financial Times

    Retailing

    Typical CVS Shopper Is Urban Gen Xer, Earns High Income – In addition to OTC pain medication and cough remedies, the typical retail shopper often prefers to buy candies, chocolates, and bottled water. Their favorite sweets brands at CVS are M&M’s and Reese’s, and they also buy a lot of Hallmark cards. Just 1.6% of a CVS shopper’s total dollars are spent at CVS, compared with 6.8% of their spending on Amazon. At other retailers, the CVS shopper buys more fresh garlic, hand sanitizer, bar soap, and non-dairy milk alternatives than the national average shopper. They’re also big fans of fast-food chicken nuggets

    Security

    Normal-looking USB cable logs everything you do and can be radioed from more than 1 mile away | Boing Boing 

    U.S. to Include Korea in ‘Five Eyes’ Spying Pact – The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea – World 

    Chinese hackers behind July 2021 SolarWinds zero-day attacks – The Record by Recorded Future

    Malware found preinstalled in classic push-button phones sold in Russia – The Record by Recorded Future 

    Billions of devices impacted by new BrakTooth Bluetooth vulnerabilities – The Record by Recorded Future

    Pro-China misinformation operation attempting to exploit US Covid divisions, report says – CNNPolitics – worth while reading Reuters take as well – Pro-China social media campaign hits new countries, blames U.S. for COVID | Reuters  – synopsis from the China Research Group: According to research published on Wednesday by Mandiant and Alphabet’s Google unit, thousands of accounts across dozens of social-media platforms—including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter —and online forums have urged Asian-Americans into the streets to protest against racial injustice in the US. The network of fake social media accounts is “almost certainly supported by a government sponsor, either directly through a government agency or a third-party contractor”.

    China Is OK With Interfering in Guinea’s Internal Affairs – the inconsistency it demonstrates—nonintervention but only when it works for China—risks undermining the validity of China’s promises to potential partners, among whom only the “irredeemably corrupt or terminally naive” take Beijing’s “win-win” rhetoric seriously. Indeed, Beijing’s mercurial wielding of noninterference risks further exposing the ugly underbelly of China’s fiercely realpolitik foreign policy. China’s pitch to leaders the world over is straightforward: Beijing offers vast sums of development funds (and political support) and expects certain goods—natural resources, ports, military bases, and international political support—in return. Many developing world leaders sign up for this bargain not out of authoritarian solidarity but for Chinese money; it solves problems, and there is no obvious Western alternative. Where poverty and underdevelopment are the most pressing issues, leaders will not say “no.” But with Chinese money, leaders often lean more autocratic – coup messed with China’s access to bauxite (which it doesn’t want to buy from Australia) and its ability to make aluminium which is a strategically important metal

    Hackers leak passwords for 500,000 Fortinet VPN accounts | Bleeping Computer 

    Japan is belatedly recognising the risks of cyber war | Financial Times 

    Indonesian intelligence agency compromised in suspected Chinese hack – The Record by Recorded Future – and this is what China does to its ‘friends’ in ASEAN….

    Web of no web

    Avatar overload: my trip through the Burning Man metaverse | Financial Times 

    Wireless

    Why 5G may be taking longer than we thought – Arup – roll-out of 5G networks commenced in earnest in 2019, and is now well underway in many countries, this is largely being driven by the commercial mobile network operators. This has led to a focus on serving major cities and towns, where the service is deemed to be commercially viable and attractive to do so. In addition, much of the focus of these deployments has been on delivering enhanced mobile broadband use cases for public consumers (such as high definition video streaming, VR/AR and gaming). The focus isn’t initially on delivering the lower latency and higher network reliability that would be needed for industrial automation and autonomous vehicles

    Starlink is a global ISP built at ZERO COST to SpaceX, enabling NASA’s Artemis launch | I, Cringely

  • ABC + other things

    ABC logo redesign

    ABC the American network broadcast brand has had its logo redesigned. Like some of the best design in corporate American the logo owes its roots to designer Paul Rand back in 1962. It went colour when TV broadcasting did and went skeuomorphic web web 2.0 and early versions of iOS were in vogue.

    ABC-Logo-Redesign
    ABC logo redesign

    The design has gone flat again, very close to Rand’s original design with slight changes in the proportions of the letters. This will work for everything from station ID and watermarking to app logos. You can read more on the ABC logo redesign at Variety.

    Shang Chi

    Shang-Chi is a character that Marvel came up with with the kung fu craze started to kick off in the early 1970s. Originally his power was derived from his father being Fu Manchu.

    The Castle of Fu Manchu
    The Castle of Fu Manchu

    Dr Fu was invented as a character in the early 20th century as a kind of super villain in the mood of Marvel or James Bond films. He predated Marvel but appeared in the origin story in a Wold Newtonesque way. It tapped into stereotypes around yellow face portrayals of Chinese culture, eastern devilry and unemotional cruelty. Themes of orientals invading the west and white slavery came up in the books and films.

    Marvel have since had to rewrite the origin story considerably for Shang Chi as they want to sanitise the original racist back story. Dr Fu becomes Xu Wenwu. Marvel managed to get Hong Kong cinema’s equivalent of Cary Grant or George Clooney Tony Leung Chiu-wa aka ‘small Tony’ to play Xu.

    Despite all that work the Marvel film may not open in China at all. A straw poll of Asian friends found that the costumes felt ‘dated’ in comparison to local dramas and films of a martial arts fantasy or ‘wuxia’ style.

    The veteran Hong Kong actors outshone the ‘heroes’. The main hero was ‘ugly’ and looked like a young Xi Jingping.

    Iron rings are generally used for training in martial arts, in a similar way that a runner may run with ankle weights to build strength. There have been a few films where the rings became an offensive weapon notably Kung Fu Hustle, which got memed. (They are also used for fighting in the Return Of The 5 Deadly Venoms – you have to be a fan of cult kung fu films to be familiar with them. Iron rings appear as part of the training regime in Drunken Master & The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. )

    D.P.

    Netflix have had a ht on their hands with D.P. (Deserter Pursuit) – Korean soldiers tasked with tracking down deserters who have left the army during their conscription period. The series seems to have struck a nerve with the armed services who denied that the bullying shown in the show is tolerated any more.

    But the media has plenty of conscripts willing to admit that it has and was even worse in real life.

    Lady Dior bag

    The Lady Dior bag is an iconic design for Christian Dior. It appears year after year in their range. It was made famous by Princess Diana. Back then it was called the Chouchou. Confused yet? You can see the bag being made from lambskin leather by hand in this video.

    The bag is built around a last like a shoe, the last has a split in it, which I think is designed to aid its removal from the bag at the right time. More related content here.

  • Genesis luxury car brand

    In the space of a few decades Hyundai Motors have gone from building cars based on western and Japanese car manufacturers to having its own luxury marque: Genesis, that challenges Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.

    Genesis
    Genesis advert from the FT magazine

    Genesis origins

    The Hyundai Grandeur was an executive saloon that they started making in 1986. It was basically a rebadged version of the Mitsubishi Debonair. The Debonair was a competitor to the Nissan Cedric and Toyota Crown. It was noticeable for having the same body style from 1964 to 1986. Hyundai built the a licensed version of the mark II Debonair.

    Hyundai needed a domestic luxury car to ferry officials around in for the Seoul olympics in 1988. The focus on the Olympics was because Hyundai Motors had become an official sponsor. The Seoul olympics was put on to showcase how Korea had become a developed nation over the previous four decades.

    The early Grandeur was a world away from Hyundai’s previous range topper, a rebadged version of the Ford Granada mark II.

    Successive models of the Grandeur were the top of the range vehicles in the Hyundai Motors range until the arrival of the Hyundai Equus and Genesis. When the Genesis brand range was founded the Hyundai Grandeur reduced the number of markets were it was available to  South Korea, China, the Middle East, Latin and South America (except Mexico).

    Hyundai Genesis -> Genesis G80

    The Genesis was originally designed as an interpretation of the modern rear-wheel drive sports saloon. It was evenly balanced and lighter than the BMW 5 series and Mercedes E class. It under performed in the US and Canadian market.

    So when the mark II Hyundai Genesis was due to come to market; the company set up a new brand built around the car which became the Genesis G80 launched alongside the related but bigger G90.

    Equus -> G90

    Hyundai needed a car for its politicians and captains of industry so in 1999 it built its own version of the Mitsubishi Dignity. The Dignity is a lesser known known competitor to the Toyota Century. It was a Japan market only car that was only available for 15 months.

    By comparison Hyundai’s Equus was made from 1999 to 2008 and sold in Korea, China and the Middle East. The second generation car took its cues more from Mercedes Benz. It became rear wheel drive, got air suspension and a variety of handling technologies.

    The mark III became the G90, a competitor to Mercedes S-class. A high performance limousine with four wheel drive like a fully specced Mercedes limousine.

    G70

    Hyundai extended the product line downwards with a sporting compact luxury saloon and hatchback. All wheel drive is offered as an option, indicating that Mercedes and Audi buyers are their target market.

    GV70 and GV80

    Finally they’ve rounded out the range with two SUVs. The GV70 is about the size of the Range Rover Velar and the GV80 is roughly the same size as a Range Rover Sport.

    Differentiating a luxury car brand

    It was 25 years since a luxury car brand had been successfully launched before Genesis. The comparisons with Lexus are obvious. Genesis has focused on getting a really high JD Power rating like Lexus did decades before.

    The kind of high technology Hyundai has used to differentiate in other categories is a hygiene factor in the luxury space. Instead Genesis is focusing on the ownership experience. Its differentiator is that you get a leasing type experience even if you buy a new Genesis.

  • George Gilderism + more things

    George Gilderism

    An interesting debate on what I would term “George Gilderism” of the techno-utopia is just around the corner versus the concern that innovation is slowing. George Gilder is the author of Telecosm; which encapsulated techno-utopian optimism at its peak in the mid-1990s; just as the web was coming into its own. ‘George Gilderism’ has since been brought to issues such photo and video imaging through to a blockchain based web.

    I’ve been making my way slowly through The Rise and Fall of American Growth which makes a convincing argument against ‘George Gilderism’. Stewart Brand in his work The Whole Earth Discipline makes a tepid case for ‘George Gilderism’. Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants suggests that technological progress almost has a will to happen. And that will or technium as he puts it is running at increasing cadence which seems to counter the idea of slowing innovation. Kelly doesn’t make a compelling case for ‘George Gilderism’ either, technological progress brings its own problems. Innovation runs at different speeds at different times, in different fields.

    Here’s Intel executive Stacy Smith on what would have happened to the car industry if it had been able to reap the benefits of innovation in the same what the semiconductor field had:

    If you apply the same metric to something like gas mileage, it says you could drive to the sun from Earth on a single gallon of gas.’

    If there were a Moore’s Law in the car industry, you could drive to the sun on a gallon of gas – MarketWatch (April 1, 2017)

    Noah Smith makes the case for optimism here: Answering the Techno-Pessimists (complete) – Noahpinion and the Applied Divinity Studies blog makes the case for the great stagnation – Isolated Demands for Rigour in New Optimism | Applied Divinity Studies

    Finance

    The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of bitcoin | Financial Times – so it’s a threat to offshore financial industry? There are so many things wrong with cryptocurrencies, but this seems like an odd flaw to pick on.

    Share price ‘pop’ in US IPOs falls by half | Financial Times – this could be a good thing, as it shows that IPOs are closer to being optimally priced rather than management teams leaving a large amount of money on the table

    FMCG

    Nestlé document says majority of its food portfolio is unhealthy | Financial Times – they’re ok in moderation, but this will bring in a lot of shareholder pressure

    Ideas

    We Need More Public Space for Teen Girls – Bloomberg – “We had nothing to do and there was nowhere to go. So we’d go and hang out on the swings in the early evening and chat as the light slowly faded into dusk. It was better than sitting around at home.” – but why are spaces failing now where they didn’t in the past? I talked this through with a few friends of both genders who thought it odd. It sounded more like a law enforcement issue around public safety than a space issue. I could see an argument for a safe online space, for girls, boys and everyone in between – but that comes with its own complexity. I thought that the problem was that kids are the PlayStation generation or have their lives stuffed with activities by middle class parents.

    BUSINESS: Warren Buffett sinks climate measure, says world will adapt – www.eenews.net – completely missed this when it originally came out. On a related note I was listening to a podcast interview with Niall Ferguson promoting his book Doom and he mentioned that we have seen remarkably little volcanic activity over the past 200 years. When that picked up again, we could be dealing with global cooling. (This also explains why when I was a kid; the concern wasn’t global warming, but a new ice age). But even at that time, although the media missed it; the general consensus that carbon dioxide causing global warming was a bigger effect than short lived particles in the air reducing sun and causing global cooling. Even Richard Turco’s A Path Where No Man Thought which posited the idea of a nuclear winter has been proven wrong in subsequent analysis. There may be some cooling effect but not the kind of effect envisaged by massive nuclear conflicts.

    Xi Jinping on external propaganda and discursive power – China Neican 内参 – aka more and better Wolf Warrior. It was interested that this was misinterpreted by many people as a softening in tone by China. The reality is that the CPC views everything in terms of struggle, which is means their strategic approach is like a ratchet. It was interesting to read alongside the below article in The Spectator

    China is not as strong as it appears | The Spectator – The truth is that China is not as strong as it appears. As the Stanford scholar Elizabeth Economy points out, the country spent $216 billion on domestic security in 2019 — three times its expenditure of a decade before, and even more than what it spends on the People’s Liberation Army. Yet if Beijing’s internal problems continue to get worse, it will fall back on nationalism as a source of legitimacy. This will not be a comfortable experience for the West. ‘Communist China is bad, Han nationalist China will be worse,’ – the party is already validated by Han nationalism and has been a good while, so this worst case scenario is already here.

    Intellectual property

    Maine man sues his company, claiming it allowed Chinese access to US trade secrets | War Is Boring

    Luxury

    Busan’s Rich Have Only Malls to Spend Money on – The Chosun Ilbo

    Marketing

    Miller Lite, New Balance team up on ‘dad shoe’ beer koozie | Marketing Dive – Through the Shoezie, Miller Lite is hoping to appeal to the middle-aged men who represent an important cohort of beer drinkers and those who embrace dad fashion, which has become a trend as consumers retro looks. New Balance’s 624 Trainer — the model on which the koozie is based — is referred to as the classic “Dad Shoe” in the announcement. DDB San Francisco organized a modeling session for the Shoezie in which dads were placed in typical dad scenarios, such as cleaning the garage and searing a steak. By combining these elements of dad culture, Miller Lite is taking a lighthearted, relatable approach to Father’s Day

    Modern brands have forgotten that good ad slogans work (rest and play) | Business | The Times – Lloyds Banking Group, Pepsi and the food division of Marks & Spencer have brought some or all of their marketing in-house, partly as a cost-saving exercise. But partly, as Richard Warren, Lloyds’ head of marketing, claims: “No one can write in ad agencies any more.” Ouch. – So much here in factors causing this move. Relentless cost cutting has reduced agency talent bench, if you’re 40 you’re done. Agency focus on disruption and innovation over craft because of the media buying profits offered from online.

    Retailing

    How the Depop generation thinks | Vogue Business – so a lot of similarities with earlier generations at their age then. the Etsy acquisition of Depop is more about consolidating crafting and thrifting rather than a generational play per se.

    Tymbals – The edge @ ROI – The latest wonder to be rolled out of Nigel Scott’s RoboVC investment model. The DTC Dropship Arbitrage for evaluating the relative efficiency of eCommerce biz models

    Security

    Polish trial begins in Huawei-linked China espionage case | Reuters – Huawei, which fired Wang after his arrest but has helped finance his legal fees, told Reuters in a statement last month that its activities are “in accordance with the highest standards of transparency and adherence to laws and regulation.” – some interesting bits in the article. First of all, Huawei picking up a good deal of the legal fees for an employee that they ‘fired’. Secondly, Wang was interested in tapping of military optical fibres in Poland, which hints at technology theft and the depth of military and intelligence alliance between Russia and China

    Technology

    Huawei’s HarmonyOS: “Fake it till you make it” meets OS development | Ars Technica – All the evidence points to HarmonyOS being built on top of Android; but with Android mentions removed. Knowing Huawei they are probably violating GPL as well

    RISC vs. CISC Is the Wrong Lens for Comparing Modern x86, ARM CPUs – ExtremeTech

    Telecoms

    Bandwidth Boosts Could Help Unclog Space Communications | EE Times 

    Web of no web

    Killer drone ‘hunted down a human target’ without being told to – The March 2020 attack was in Libya and perpetrated by a Kargu-2 quadcopter drone produced by Turkish military tech company STM “during a conflict between Libyan government forces and a breakaway military faction led by Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army,” the Star reports, adding: “The Kargu-2 is fitted with an explosive charge and the drone can be directed at a target in a kamikaze attack, detonating on impact.” – At the start of my agency career, autonomous software agents would aid the consumer. I had a German dot com client called DealTime who had a Windows-only app for consumers. It would go out and find the best price on the web for items that they where interested in and keep an eye on those prices over time. Now we have Amazon and suicide drones.