The South Korean Taste
I was browsing the New York times (kinda conservative from time to time...i know...) and apparently, Wal-mart in South Korea is gonna fold. What makes me wonder is that if this is really just a matter of adjusting company's strategies to local Korean tastes. I mean, put the issues of localization aside, could it be due to the fact that Koreans just don't like Americans and their corporations? As seen in some protests in Seoul before, the university students and workers there do target the American "imperialism" when they voice out their opinions.
And possibly due to the same issues of being able to "localize", Wal-mart also closed down like .. some 1o years ago after its try out for like 2 stores. Interestingly though, the Wal-mart in China is ever growing...well, I guess it's cause most (if not all) of what they sell are made in China anyway, so why not sell to the people who make them? That will keep the machine alive you know.
posted by phil kam at 2:57 PM
4 Comments:
i think its sucessful in china cuz of the growing idea of "whiteness as coolness". what the white man does, what he eats, how he dresses, and where he shops all seem cool to the chinese consumer who has all of a sudden been granted all the freedom in the world to do whatever he wants with his money. i think this trend will die off once china has overtaken the US as the most powerful economy in the world. but then again, its just my opinion.
i should have left a comment two days ago when u first asked me to check this out which i did. i did read ur leftist right and the one on racism and colonialism...then, i was interrupted by a really bad piece of news. I lost the mood to read anything further or to write u a text msg. I thought of doing it now since I am now less overwhelmed by the incident and that i am too tired to go on to my second milan kundera book of the month.
Ur blog is one that really needs people to read and think... which is one good thing.
I shouldn't add anything substantial right now since it will expose my ignorance completely. I am not saying that i am or i am not but it just me who doesn't like to write things that I havent really thought abt deeper. It might be my profession that I am careful in putting things into record especially when some issues creep into my convictions, likes n dislikes. I like one to find them out by themselves instead of me telling them what i think or disagree. that's the reason why i still don't hv the slightest intention to start my own blog. Maybe someday I would think otherwise, like getting my very own 24th birthday. maybe it's 23rd...my memory fails me on this. you look 23rd anyway.
if i remember correctly, wal-mart got into hong kong, and then quit a few years ago.
different consumption pattern, we simply dont eat that much peanut butter, we simply dont eat that many crackers, we simply dont eat that much Lays/Princles. we have all the Japanese substitutes.
obviously US took the lead in mainland china, when Japanese groceries are still slightly guarded due to WWII memories.
i've never been to Korea, but here in Mtl, burger king has closed down all its streetfront branches. no more burger king on the streets man, if you want it, you gotta go underground to a food court and there is only one that i know of that features it. at the same time, mcdonalds has not grown in size here either. there are only two located on the streetfront, and the other is in the tunnels (downtown core). contrast this with all the lebanese food, greek food, quebecois food... american chains can't compete, health wise, taste wise, and lifestyle wise (micky d's doesn't go well with all the body conscious people here).
but then again, walmart is doing really well here and understandably so since no jean coutu or pharmaprix (the two largest locally run pharmacy chains) can beat their prices. so we haven't been able to resist the walmart craze as easily as in HK and Korea. consider yourself lucky man. despite the over the top consumerism/capitalism you guys have going on, which leaves every man, woman and child to fend for his/herself when it comes to social services, at least (in a weird and twisted way) you can put your money where your mouth is.... or not, since the rules of adam smith (and every other white european 19th century male thinker who wrote of the glories of liberalism and/or capitalism - there were many... and dude, we are living in these men's imaginations) would just say that walmart's disappearance from the hustle and bustle of HK and Korea's streets is merely a result of the self-interested, free-willing consumer individuals who only react to price differentials and not politics.
so, does choice matter, or does the multinational corporation price tag get to swallow our agency whole? marx would say yes - this is what it means to be mixed up and complicit in the capitalist machine... and then link that to our biopolitical one (the killing machine) and what do you have, i ask? a world full of drones man, drones who believe in paper and nothing else. get the paper, drone. go on, get it. and the drone is happy. meanwhile, his fellow man/woman/child lies sick, suffering, homeless, stomach empty and dying. but hey, drone, get that paper. go on, get it. and the drone smiles.
dude, if you wanna read a genealogy of responsibility, which includes a re-reading of plato's allegory of the cave, and a radical critique of science (though you can already guess what that would sound like), i suggest: THE GIFT OF DEATH, by Derrida. you need to read derrida man, he is the natural step after foucault. if you can't get it, lemme know, i'll find it for you here before i leave. peace.
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