Of New Industry And Kungfu Panda

Authoritarian And Totalitarian Hubris
You can just do a wikipedia and read about the former glory days of the so-called four Asian tigers and dragons where their export-driven model of being cheap manufacturing bases is being eroded by even cheaper alternatives available in India, China, Latin America and South-East Asia.

It noted how the totalitarian state of those four Asian economies had helped them achieve their success but how that must now change if they were to survive and enudre the next phase of growth and development in the services, especially creative new services industries.

Wikipedia Corroborates What Moi Has Written About Korea
More importantly, like moi, it highlighted how Korea, which was the most badly battered in the 1997 financial crisis, had managed to pull itself together and today it is the 9th largest economy while Taiwan is at 16th.

Therefore what can one conclude?

All those new industries that moi wrote about the last few blogs must surely have helped Korea shot to its No 9 international fame.

And that includes the B-boys -Last For One. They started off during the financial crisis and today they have seen more than their fair share of international fame.

More Divergence, More Economic Pies For All Right?
While moi understands that being in a South-east Asian loop (and as if that doesn't happen too in an Asian or Eastern European loop) does benefit us in the way of tapping into their rich reservoir of natural resources, we must surely also extend ourselves in creative new industries especially since I don't seem to see any university here offering earth sciences like agriculture or mineral mining studies.

Is there some loophole here somewhere? Some lack of co-ordination? Some lack of vision?

Ikan Bilis For Ikan Bilis, Like For Like And Finally Unlike For Like?
I asked a Jap how he rates the Japanese food he finds here and this is what he has to say:

"Cooked Singapore style and yes, unheard of names back home in Japan is apparently making waves here and only here it seems" among his other observation that only a small community of about 20 000 Japs live here.

We all know how Sands casino is ranked back home in the States and how at one time, we weren't confident of hosting the inaugural Youth Olympics.

Are the Big Boys too exacting in their demands for high quality and standards that we aren't able to measure up or is this just our very own psychology and lack of confidence that make us reject the big brand names ?

The Creative Hair Industry
Let me write about some of my unhappy experiences with the hair salons here which seem to be dominated by our neighboring foreign talent.

First while I understand that hair-sytling products help in creating the hair style we want (yes, I have watched the Gatsby clips) but a specific haircut is needed before a specific hair style can emerge.

And if they can't snip the hair style we want, then hey...where is the skill? Or even cut a hair style that suits our face or head shape or current state of our hair.

Kungfu Panda
What makes this animation special is the very Asian nature of the show - the costumes, the backdrop of the mountains and palaces, the decor (think lanterns, scrolls and dragon motiffed archictecture).

Animation was really good - very life-like and the plot was quick with fast and furious kungfu action and special magical effects. It was also a bright dazzle of colours and extremely funny.

I look forward to another Asian-themed animation coming up based on Ho MinFong's novel "Sing To The Dawn".