3 ms·
It seems to me you're suggesting that Asians are less capable of producing elegant design than Europeans. Which seems to me fairly racist. It's also not true.
by mtts 19y ago
It seems to me you're suggesting that Asians are less capable of producing elegant design than Europeans. Which seems to me fairly racist.
It's also not true. Most European companies are not Bang & Olufsen. The products of Philips (a Dutch company), for example, are fairly mediocre as far as their design is concerned. That does not prevent Philips from being a major international electronics manufacturer. The Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony, on the other hand, does in fact do design reasonably well.
So I don't think elegant design is a distinctly European virtue. Instead, the reason a lot of cheap Chinese crap is ugly is simply that it's just that - cheap crap. The fact that it's Chinese doesn't have anything to do with it.
It's also not true that Asian companies merely copy. At a certain stage during their development they do - that's how the aforementioned Sony started out, for example - but at a certain point they will start engineering their own products, like Sony did in the late 1970s or like Samsung started doing in the 1990s. It stands to reason Chinese companies will also, at some point in the future, begin to create their own products and start to compete with Bang & Olufsen, Philips and Sony.
- mixmax 19y agoI believe that there are cultural differences that make certain countries and regions better at different things than others. I like my sushi done by the Japanese, my Pizza done by the Italians, and my burger done by the Americans. Not because any one of the countries is superior, but because chances are that the Italian will make the best pizza. This does not imply that Italians are better at anything other than making pizza. Just look at their politics... Also note that I'm talking about general trends, so of course you can find companies that contradict the pattern - but overall I stick to my point of view.
- yters 19y agoAt any rate, you all should post more stories from your side of the world. We Americans need some enculturatin';)
- mixmax 19y agoActually I find it rather flattering that someone found this good enough to post to YC news, I haven't updated my blog for years and I mainly kept it as an exercise in writing. I never made an effort of promoting it. But I like the discussion here, including the users that don't agree with me. It means that I have to think about my standpoints, and defend them intelligently if I am not convinced that I'm wrong. So maybe I should start updating...
- lst 19y agoI agree with you, but many designers working in Asia are in fact Europeans (many/most of them from Latin Europe). This has been necessary at some time in history, because otherwise their products didn't get much attention in Europe. So Asian taste and European taste are simply much different.
- kingnothing 19y agoHe isn't attacking the Asian races. Clearly, by his argument, Asians who grow up in America or Europe should be just as capable at designing beautiful things as the "natives" are. His whole point, to me, is that there are cultural differences between the Asian and European countries, no surprise there, and those differences have influenced design decisions. For all I know, the Japanese and Chinese abhor European / American designed products, such as the iPod, because it doesn't have enough features and lacks seven different equalizers.