A long advertisement for a pile of books. Not to mention the article states the obvious - different cultures are.. you know.. different.
Am I missing something? Was there anything more to this?
Am I missing something? Was there anything more to this?
Knowing different cultures are.. you know.. different is pretty pointless without being able to point to specific examples of just how alien they can be to one another.
I - for one - didn't know that quality in Korea meant "newness".
Yeah, me neither, and I'm Korean.
* Well, it can be a sound advice to say "when you want to sell a product in Korea, emphasize it's new." But that's just plain old marketing strategy and sounds boring. (When selling books to English users, play on cultural relativism?)
I actually asked a Korean man the same question maybe 20 years ago, and he told me that he thought quality product meant "well crafted." Maybe because he was americanized in some way by watching American movies, etc.?
Me neither. Japanese aesthetics has a distinct place for rough, imperfect items which are referred to with terms like shibui and wabi-sabi. Such items have flaws, often deliberately introduced, which give them "character" so may in some circumstances be preferred over the "perfect" item.
> I actually asked a Korean man the same question maybe 20 years ago, and he told me that he thought quality product meant "well crafted." Maybe because he was americanized in some way by watching American movies, etc.?
Occam's razor would suggest that he said that because that's what "quality" means, and the article was written by a blowhard.
"Newness" being an especially desirable trait in Korea is a separate trait (and interesting enough in itself).
So it's probably a revelation to most people and very relevant to all programmers.
If you go to: http://www.sachitgupta.me/
you'll find someone in marketing and generates leads. that's probably coincidental since most people on hacker news are in marketing.
I don't think you should be curious why this is #1.
This is largely about the difference between the connotation and denotation of words.