Maid for Murder

This Wall Street Journal article sheds light on a disturbing issue – maids in India being severely abused, and sometimes killed, by those who employ them. Particularly troubling is that much of the cases point to violence by employers who are professional women. The WSJ article details a specific case where the battered body of a maid from West Bengal was found shortly after the Diwali festival in the Delhi residential compound of a lawmaker and his dentist wife. Neither have been charged with murder, but the police consider the wife as the prime suspect. Another helper to the family, a young boy, testified of cruel, almost slavery-like conditions imposed on them by the professional couple.

 

In reference to the increasing cases of violent behavior by professional women, an aid worker activist explained, “For so many years women were suppressed. And suddenly women are becoming empowered. Women are working.” The activist added that for some women, when faced with the pressure to run a home (especially around demanding holidays like Diwali) and do the bidding of relatives as well as excel professionally, “it all culminates in anger. And then the violence starts.” When society combines repressive attitudes about gender with the inherent prejudices imbedded in a caste system, the results can be tragic.

Uptown Girl

One-upping Brad PItt and Leo DiCaprio

Zhang Xin, CEO of real estate firm SOHO China, is one of the wealthiest women in China and the world. Her net worth is estimated at $3.6 billion. By developing and managing some of Beijing’s landmark commercial properties, she has risen to be wealthier than Oprah Winfrey and, in a sweet twist of justice for anyone with a modicum of taste, Donald Trump.

Now, in a small way, she has one-upped Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio by outbidding them on a tony (pictured) Manhattan townhouse, paying $26 million. The New York pied-a-terre features a roof terrace with a custom-built hot tub, a wine cellar, English garden, and a fitness floor with a waterfall, swimming pool and sauna.

By her own telling, she started from humble beginnings, sleeping on factory floors until a teenager. She scraped up enough savings and savvy to be educated at Cambridge University in the UK. After graduation, she worked at Goldman Sachs before returning home to China to seek her real fortune. She’s someone who has seen what life can dish out and take away. As such, a little star power is hardly going to phase this extraordinary woman.

www.shanghaiist.com article with details

What Chinese citizens hope to see from Third Plenum

Two elephants in the room – political freedom and economic welfare

The below is a re-print of an article that appeared in the www.shanghaiist.com website. True to long-held notions about the Chinese population, economics trump political freedom as the leading aspiration. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that, as the country gains a certain base level of material comfort, political freedom’s importance will increasingly become the larger elephant in the room. 

 

The Third Plenum is currently underway, and the China Communist Party’s Central Committee is reportedly discussing major reforms from "development of a socialist market economy, democracy, cultural development, social harmony and ecological progress." Here's what Chinese citizens want to see according to a Global Times survey:

According to the poll, more than 63 percent of the respondents said they will pay close attention to the plenary session, while some 36 percent said they will pay no attention.

In the multiple-choice survey on what respondents hoped from the plenum, reforms on the social welfare and social security systems, income distribution system and anti-corruption mechanism led the votes.

• Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed said they look forward to reforms in the social welfare and social security systems, while over half of the respondents also welcomed reforms on the income distribution and anti-corruption fronts.
• In comparison, only about 33 percent of the respondents chose the political system as their desired area of reform.
• It also suggested that respondents who were male, older or holding at least a bachelor's degree are more prone to calling for political reforms.
• The result shows that while political reforms are aspired for by people mainly from the elite class, the majority of the public pay more attention to issues that are related to their livelihood, said Xu Yong, dean of the Research School of Politics at Central China Normal University.

The Anti-Cinderella Story

The lie that $100,000 can buy

This story has appeared in multiple tabloids, and some parties have questioned its veracity. So this blogger does not stand by the facts of this account. However, the phenomenon is one that many people across Asia wonder about.

Time for a multiple choice Pop quiz time: Which segment of this story is the most absurd?

A. Chinese man divorces and sues wife in court over an “incredibly ugly” daughter who “horrified” him. He claims that the wife has had an affair. DNA test shows that he is wrong – it is his child.

B. Wife confesses, not to an affair, but having had $100,000 of cosmetic surgery in South Korea (before and after shots above) prior to knowing her husband and keeping the truth from him.

C. Court rules in favor of husband, awarding him $120,000 on the grounds of false pretenses.

D. All of the above. It's all tragic and loony at the same time. 

Given how widespread and extensive cosmetic surgery practice has gotten in Asia, it’s sadly no surprise that this has become a growing marital problem. Anecdotal stories of similar cases abound. Deception and superficiality have become a coupling that is too common in a region obsessed with getting ahead, or at least giving the appearance of it.

College Entrance Exam Day – Korea’s Holiest?

Praying to the Academic Gods

Thousands of families go into prayer. Airplane flight schedules are curtailed. Trading is delayed on the stock exchange. Military exercises are suspended, police security is tightened. In short, Korea holds its breath and goes into a hush. It’s college entrance exam day. It is perhaps the single most important day in a Korean’s life, since it can determine university options and therefore career and marriage prospects. Korea families are rabid about ensuring that students do as well as they can on this test. They spend almost $18 billion each year on private tutorial courses (called hagwon), by far the most education spending per capita of any country. School kids routinely stay up studying until 1 am only to wake up again at 6 am for years on end as they prepare for this fateful day. For those families who have to endure this pressure cooker existence, life can alternatingly feel like necessary ordeal or social insanity.

 

For decades, Koreans have complained bitterly about the rigidity of its education system. It seems absurd that so much of a person’s future should rest on the results of one arbitrary day. God forbid that a student should catch a cold or otherwise feel slightly off-kilter. It is a leading reason for the soaring teenage suicide rates in the country as well as the main motivation for families to want to emigrate to other, more flexible countries such as the US, Canada or Australia. However, old social structures die hard. Exams such as this are deeply imbedded in Korea’s Confucian past. Change is especially difficult when entrenched interests point to such hard work and discipline as key ingredients to Korea’s success over the years. 

 

Looking at the country from the outside, there is much that looks good about Korean society. It appears to be prosperous and family oriented, with a big middle class. However, from the inside, it can seem like a hyper-competitive, dogmatic existence. It’s a shame that so much of the burden of such a life should fall on emotionally fragile teenagers. The costs, though not always immediately apparent, are no doubt high.

 

Business Week/Bloomberg article on Korea's test day

Poaching the Ivory Poachers

Nothing but heinousness comes of this brutality.

No, this blogger is not advocating committing murder. But the practice of poaching ivory from elephants needs to be exterminated. Now. This Shanghaiist article reports that 1.9 tons of illegally sourced elephant tusks have been found in the Tanzania home of three Chinese men. The culprits made lame excuses for the existence of the stash. The trio claimed that the tusks were being held for a friend. They asserted that they were simply small business people involved in the garlic trade, of all things (the tusks were hid among mounds of the pungent root). They were less sure-footed in explaining why they had tried to offer a bribe of $19,000 to the authorities to let things slide, or why they had dual license plates for their specially converted minibus.

 

As the tide of wealthy Chinese continues grow, one can only hope fervently that a consciousness of the heinous global rare wildlife trade (e.g. elephants, shark fins, bears, tigers) influences their consumption patterns. Paying large sums for rare gemstones, grape wine or fine cloth hardly has the same moral and environmental consequences as permanently killing off species that are both vital and magnificent to behold. 

Asia Getting a Legatum Up

The Legatum Institute has just released its 2013 Prosperity Index. The Legatum Institute is a London-based independent non-partisan public policy organization. Its annual Prosperity Index attempts to define “prosperity” beyond just dollars and cents. Instead, its secret formula takes account of several social virtues - Economy; Education; Entrepreneurship & Opportunity; Governance; Health; Personal Freedom; Safety & Security; and Social Capital.

This year, the Institute took a five year view to chart how the Economy sub-rankings in the Index changed from 2009 to 2013 (above). The results? Serious downgrades for the US (from 12th to 24th) and many other European nations. Hong Kong also got roundhouse kicked on the chin, falling from 11th to 18th. Singapore slipped a touch, from a lofty 2nd to a still-lofty 3rd. All other Asian countries rose commendably, led by China’s improvement from a lowly 34th place to 7th. 

When the other criteria were factored into the index, Asian countries did not rank so well. Singapore led the region at #18, followed by Hong Kong at #19. The top ten nations consisted of Northern European countries, Canada and Australia / New Zealand.

Hopefully, as Asian countries mature enough to be able to begin to ask about the true meaning of life, they too will begin to break in soon into the top ten pack.

More details: Four Major Changes in Global Prosperity - Harvard Business Review