Amazing Asian facts!

This post covers two things that are making the world a very dangerous place, research and “insights” into Asia by some people in the west.

Read the text in the picture, this isn’t from some obscure pulblication but the latest issue of Time magazine, the cover story no less, which focuses on What makes us Romantic. The researcher from the Illinois State University actually did extensive research to come at the startling conclusion that “Love isn’t an unusually Western Phenomenon”!!!! I am at loss for words here on what this demonstrates. All those Bollywood and HongKong flicks about couples in love, the Kamasutra, the story of Aladin and the princess and this academic actually thought that Asia was a loveless society?

It is precisely this kind of ignorance and the perception of trying to see how the heathen behanve that’s resulted in many companies burning their fingers in Asia. Even the likes of Nike, who, judging from their SE Asia campaign, seem to believe the kind of research that says “Asians don’t understand subtlity and need more direct advertising”. The only ones who come across as being unsubtle and dim are the clients who believe this and the research companies that arrive at these “Insights”.

More than marketing, what scares me is that these are the kind of academics who have access to governments, huge corporations and worst of all, a whole generation of students brought up on the idea of looking down on other socities and people.