patrick.net

Both China, India, and the richer area of Taiwan and Hong Kong included, have no welfare system (HK only had a welfare system AFTER the handover).

I think Govt workers in India have a pension system. But I could be wrong. Nevertheless living well below your means was socially the most accepted way of living. Instead of suffering from "keeping with the Joneses" syndrome, people used to look down upon spendthrifts.

The neuvo-riche folks of Banglore et al are quite different. Although I doubt any one of them has any credit card debt.

Slightly dated article that discusses the break point for private schools versus public schools in a good district. OO, great rant about the immigrant experience. Amazing how much you can save if you put your mind to it...

"The schools are the biggest reason people move to Piedmont," says Kathie Berg of Marvin Gardens Realty in Berkeley. And wannabe Piedmonters pay handsomely for the move. A 1,200-square-foot house that would sell for half a million in the Oakland hills might cost $700,000-and-up in Piedmont, says Berg. And what do you get for that extra $200K? Lifetime access to public schools that are, to be honest, basically private schools.

"I've done the math," says Berg. She compared the cost of buying a home in Oakland and sending your kids to private school with the cost of buying in Piedmont and relying on its public schools. "If you have one child to send to a private school in Oakland, it was still reasonable," she reports. "But the second you have two children, it absolutely makes sense to buy in Piedmont."

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2002-08-21/news/sevendays.html

ajh :

Why hasn’t someone set up (franchised?) a private school with academically rigorous education standards but without the high-cost facilities that send fees through the roof?

Why would you do that ? In BA people are willing to spend money on private schools. Why charge less when they can pay more ? Challenger and Stratford are not upscale like Harker's. But at around 1200 per month, their classes are full. And do you know that in dot com era, people used to literally camp outside these for 2 nights to get their kids admitted ? When someone is so desperate to give you money, don't reject it.

And it is still a mystery why people are willing to pay atrocious prices in Cupertino ?

“I’ve heard that Harker is $20k+ a year. Can anyone confirm?”

Cupertino suddenly starts looking like a bargain…

That's why I rent there.

I’m used to it now, so the shock is gone, but the phrase “metastasized strip mall” brought back that feeling that I had the first time I drove through El Camino Real.

I was too... until I went to Houston.

Then El Camino became dinky to me.

What amazes me is people who live in Mountain View -and- send their kids to private school. Because Mountain View schools are a little dangerous (gang stabbings).

I receive a magazine called Benefit, about philanthropy in the Bay Area. It's actually pretty good, profiles of foundations, private and corporate philanthropy, etc. I assume they pulled my name from a board or something and sent it.

In the issue I received today there is an ad (p. 125) for 960AM The Quake,
"Host Ruby Tourke takes over the airwaves each Sunday morning from 8-9am to interview the people who are at the center of change throughout the Bay Area and who embody and indulge in the lifestyle of giving, from Gavin Newsom, Robin Williams, Harry Denton, the Gettys and more. Sundays 8 am to 9am."
Then there is a photo of her standing there, arms across her chest.

I guess she has a radio show. Maybe she'll get Gavin to embody and indulge in his lifestyle a bit this weekend.

Don't have kids, that'll save you a bundle...

If you feel compelled to share your genes with the world, try egg/sperm donation.

I think astrid has an interesting point. The love for brand names is all too common in India. I remember when I saw a Lacoste tee shirts shop first time in India, my jaw dropped. That much money for a tee shirt ?

While people in India are buying those, I live here in US and the only T shirts / polo I wear are the free ones given by my employers - with some weird project name in big letters on the back.

eburbed Says:

> One of my Chinese coworkers doesn’t turn on the
> heat in their place. Period. They were down coats
> indoors. They mooch flakey wifi from their neighbor.

I was on a trip to NY years ago with a Chinese coworker and when we walked in to a Chinese restaurant I was the only white guy. I commented that “this place must be good since all the people in here are Chinese” He said “when you see a lot of Chinese in any business it will not tell you that the place is any “good” it will just tell you that the place is “cheap”…

Ha Ha Says:
I am also a Cupertino (95014) resident ….

Huh. But are you a renter ? I talk only with renters.

(Just kidding man, just kidding.)

astrid Says:

> By and large I agree with you, I think the thrifty
> Asian pattern has largely broken down. Second
> generation Chinese kids are no more thrifty than
> White or Hispanic kids, and lots of them are in
> fact more spendthrifty because they know their
> (relatively thrifty) parents can bail them out.

I don’t think you can lump all “Asians” together, and while I’ve noticed that say people born in Scotland or China are more often than not thrifty I would say that someone born in Japan is even less like to be thrifty than someone born in France. I have never met a Pilipino (born in the Philippines to 4th generation Americans) that did not love brand names and love to spend money (swing by a Catholic Church with a lot of Pilipino parishioners on any Saturday to see some serious spending since I bet the typical Pilipino family spends more on a wedding that some Chinese immigrants spend over 10 years in the US)…

FAB,

Though honestly, I have the heat way down too. I figure I'm only home a couple hours each day, and I spend most of that time sleeping. Turning up the heat just seems like a total waste of money. The only time I really regret that decision is when I wake up in the morning.

I think living DEBT FREE is a BIG MISTAKE because of FED POLICY of rewarding the debtors. Fed is so powerful so that not playing debt game is gamble you are sure to lose … on top of this mortgage debt is tax free ….

It's not just the debt servicing, but also the principal and taxes that one has to worry about. Even with 0% rate, servicing 1M is not easy. Add 12K for property taxes and it is better not play the debt game. Just find ways of making money on someone else's debt game.

I think astrid has an interesting point. The love for brand names is all too common in India. I remember when I saw a Lacoste tee shirts shop first time in India, my jaw dropped. That much money for a tee shirt ?

But are they legit?

Or is it like the "Gary Klein" shirt I saw once?

But are they legit?

They were priced high, so they must be ! Nah, it was a company owned store. Very legit.

FAB,

While it is dangerous to lump in all East Asians...I think they do share a lot of similarities. China, Japan, Korea and parts of SE Asia share a lot of cultural lineage -- it's kind of like using "European" generically. The Phillipines is almost entirely outside of that "Oriental" Asian zone.

I can say that the Mainland Chinese love luxury brands and prestige items too, while still being completely cheap and irrational on other things. Like people buying 42" Plasma TV + high end stereo equipment, but then watching TV from their 10 year old 20" TV because they don't want to spend money on electricity. And the times I had to visit elderly family friends who refuse to use their AC unit even when it's 100 F! Economic rationalism has yet to sink in.

However, what you see may be a sign of East Asian love for prestige items. My mom knows wealthy Taiwanese women who have BMW/MB SUVs but are too cheap to drive them anywhere (because of gas consumption).

As someone else pointed out, you can't lump all Asians together. Or even all Chinese for that matter.

Taiwanese != Hong Kong != Mainland China.

That said, there's this real shared love of pirated software/video/music. Not like college students who sort of grok that it's not ok. But as in "You'd be foolish not to pirate".

CB Says:
I heard that the Hong Kong housing bubble burst wiped out a lot of families. Perhaps Hong Kong is not in Asia.
Upside down families commit suicide by buring charcoal and closing all the windows, that used to happen a lot after the housing bubble burst.

oh, glorious capitalism. My BIL has just come back from living in HK for 12 years, and says HKites were just insane about chasing anything that looked like it would make money. Every new property release was massively oversubscribed by specuvestors, etc... It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye...

hey, we got 3 posts in tied at 7:34pm! who said patrick.net was dead... ;)

Lacoste is huge in China too, spawning tons of imitation brands & "genuine" Lacoste from Thailand - allegedly from the same factories that produce for Lacoste. There's a Lacoste outlet in Leesburg, VA. I thought about buying something for my cousins, but then suffered massive sticker shock considering the quality of goods offered.

eburbed,

Everybody loves pirated stuff. My mom knows an elderly Taiwanese American woman living in Diamond Bar who claim to get pirated CDs for under a buck each.

oh, glorious capitalism. My BIL has just come back from living in HK for 12 years, and says HKites were just insane about chasing anything that looked like it would make money. Every new property release was massively oversubscribed by specuvestors, etc… It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye…

The WSJ once had a piece about how some typical political speech words are difficult to translate into chinese. Like... "Stakeholder". Apparently that's really hard.

On the other hand "Hedging our bets" is easily translated because the Chinese have a rich culture of gambling.

But as in “You’d be foolish not to pirate”.

And your objection is .... ? ;-)

I think I break away from the stereotype here. I buy my songs on iTunes. It's not worth pirating when it's less than a buck and you pay for only the songs you like. I think the earlier DVD makers realize that, the better.

For movies, the Indian movies that one can rent from Indian stores are completely pirated and real bad copy. I refuse to watch them because the video sucks. They compress the entire 3 hour movie on a single DVD-R. Terrible. I have a fabulous plasma TV and my eyes cannot tolerate bad picture quality.

On the other hand “Hedging our bets” is easily translated because the Chinese have a rich culture of gambling.

Do they ever. Go to the casino at any time in Sydney, and see who 95% of the patrons are. James Packer of the Packer dynasty (richest guy in the country) just sold a national TV station the relative size of CBS to plough the money into Asian casinos -- and he also already owns major casinos in Oz -- Crown Casino in Melbourne etc. Ditto if you visit that one too. A 20-something kid working in a bank here embezzled about $4M recently and gambled it all away...

Although social policy buzzwords like 'stakeholder' had to be coined and come into vogue in English as well...

astrid,

I always wore alligator shirts when I was little. My aunt bought them for me all the time. I recently found a photo of myself in a white alligator shirt and a pair of khakis, I was about 11 and at summer camp. The really scary thing is I still walk around in white alligator shirts and khakis almost 30 years later. I need a waredrobe update.

Interesting:

Russia probes smelly orange snow
Map of Russia
Russia has flown a team of chemical experts to a Siberian region to find out why smelly, coloured snow has been falling over several towns.

Oily yellow and orange snowflakes fell over an area of more than 1,500sq km (570sq miles) in the Omsk region on Wednesday, Russian officials said.

Chemical tests were under way to determine the cause, they said.

Residents have been advised not to use the snow for household tasks or let animals graze on it.

"So far we cannot explain the snow, which is oily to the touch and has a pronounced rotten smell," said Omsk environmental prosecutor Anton German, quoted by the Russian news agency Itar-Tass on Thursday.

warning: don't eat the orange snow...

But as in “You’d be foolish not to pirate”.

And your objection is …. ? ;-)

Maybe its time to reveal that I used to work on packaged consumer software :(

http://www.plexusinstitute.org/NewsEvents/show_Thursday_Complexity_Posts.cfm?id=154

A US government web site in Chinese language translated the term as “participants with related interests.” A story in the December 7 Wall Street Journal by Neil King Jr. describes the great translation scramble. State-run academies sent scholars to Washington to decipher the term, the Journal reports, and the implications of various interpretations were scrutinized. In addition to the US State Department translation, the Journal says, Chinese scholars came up with other possibilities: “participants with related benefits and drawbacks”, “joint operators”, and “shareholders.” Depending on the interpretation, the implications of the term could range from risky to rosy.

Hm, I've never thought of the meaning of stakeholder like that.

eburbed,

Hey, don't go after me, I spend a lot of money on fully licensed software, music and DVDs...and then swear a lot when my computer crashes, yet again.

the trick is to come up with your own desirable designer label. those guys must think it's hilarious to be able to make a t-shirt for $5 wholesale, including freight and customs duty, and sell it for $75... over and over again, to the label fetish crowd...

I just read an article where the ex-wife and co-founder of Billabong surfwear now lives alone in a sustainable tin shed, while her ex-husband is putting the finishing touches on a 5 storey waterside mansion with helipad or whatever...

Well, stakeholder doesn't translate well into either Communism or Feudalism, though I think the Chinese are becoming quite aware of the phenomena. The force retired employees of state owned enterprises may not have a name for their predicament, but they know the uncomfortable place they're in.

It'll take a bit longer become the idea fully sink in. Meanwhile, the Mainland Chinese are a selfish, self centered, egotistical, cunning, yet incredibly naive populace. If I wasn't one of them, I could never have any affection for the Chinese.

the word 'stakeholder' is a bit redundant if you don't have a govt which is at least nominally a participative democracy, or equally well where you have a minimalist govt which offers very little by way of social goods, as there is no need for the word or concept...

wasn't the main driver for the chinese communist revolution the very fact that it was a 'nation devouring itself' due to the general self-centredness and ultra-mercantilism? increasingly a marker of high capitalism as well...

Frugality and wealth are different things although somewhat related. If you make enough money, you can engage in a lot of conspicuous consumption and still be fine. If you don't make a lot of money, being frugal can allow you to buy things (such as a house) that less frugal consumers would not be able to afford.

I think Asian wealth and frugality impacts the housing market at different points. A person with a low income and who does not otherwise have other assets or rich parents is unlikely to ever save enough before your kids grow up to buy in a wealthy community such as San Marino. If you are buying in San Marino, you are not competing against the frugal Asian. You are competing against the rich Asian. At lower price points, I think a large population of first generation Asian immigrants with high savings rates and who view home ownership as a safety net creates a pool of buyers that help support the market.

I guarantee that not everyone who buys a house in San Marion is a wealthy expat from HK, Taiwan, or the PRC. Nor are they all double income professional couples who have squirrled away a $400,000 down payment by living in a cramped studio apartment in Rosemead ever since graduating from medical school.

I am quite certain that many recent buyers in San Marino are leveraged well beyond the breaking point, and have used neg-am mortgages, I/O ARM's, and every other trick in the book. Some just want to live there, others are speculating and hoping for appreciation.

I am sure the same is true of Cupertino.

Joe Schmoe:

No one is saying that there are no recent buyers in San Marino (or any other immigrant-favored area) who are not leveraged beyond the breaking point. Some probably are. No one is also saying that such areas will be immune from general market declines. But the existence of a pool of potential buyers who are less sensitive to the mortgage insanity of recent times and who are willing to pay a premium for good schools can help support the market in those areas.

OO,

Well, part of the irony is that the first generation's frugality also fuels the second generation's consumption. The first generation often makes huge sacrifices to expensively educate their kids and pay off their tuition, making it possible for the second generation to acquire the habits and means to spend very freely.

SFWoman,

Are LV bags cheaper in France than in the US or made in different production centers? Otherwise, why don't the tour groups come to the US and buy to their hearts' desire.

Sandibe,

Well, part of the problem I have is that you say "...willing to pay a premium for good schools" as if that is something unique to Asians.

Everyone values good schools! It's what the whole phenomenon of "white flight" is ultimately based on. Single people aren't afraid to live in the city, but no one with children wants to send their kids to school there. So people buy expensive houses, and endure awful commutes, so their kids can grow up in a safer, more nurturing setting.

Now it is true that Asians tend to place a greater value on good schools than other ethnic groups. I can see them being willing to make greater financial sacrifices than other groups in order to ensure that their kids go to good schools. Although I think this distinction no longer holds true among well-educated people; two Ph.D engineers of any ethnic group are likely to value education every bit as much as two Asian Ph.D engineers. And these are the very people who buy in places like Cupertino and San Marino.

Finally, I just don't buy the "wealthy expat" and "super-frugal people will support the market" arguments. The big waves of immigration from Taiwan and HK ended at least 15 years ago. There are no more wealthy expats, certainly not in any significant numbers. And for the reasons stated above, I am reluctant to accept the idea that Asians are all driving 15 year-old Corollas.

I certainly agree that San Marino and Cupertino are nice neighborhoods and will always command a steep price premium. But I do not believe that the fact that these communities are popular with Asian people will make them less susceptible to a downturn.

SP - Thanks for the photo link - wow, just wow. If you find the other one, please post it. I would love to see it.