On a fall weekday night in an artsy district of Long Island City, New York, a group of well-dressed young Asians walked into the sales room of GALERIE, a new luxury condominium located right across the street from MoMa PS1. Their tour of the building blueprint was guided by Ting Ko, an experienced bilingual Chinese […]
This post is part of an ongoing series on Innovation and Disruption in Asia. SOFTWARE-BASED MOBILE PAYMENT AS AN ENGAGEMENT TOOL FOR BRANDS In the U.S., Apple had to convince retailers to update their payment system and adopt Apple Pay. Retailers didn’t like it. The case in Asia is much simpler – mobile payment platforms like […]
This post is part of an ongoing series on Innovation and Disruption in Asia. ASIA, DOMINATING IN GLOBAL E-COMMERCE From restaurant orders, to laundry pick-up, to live lobster–the proliferation and convenience of e-commerce in many Asian cities has made “leaving the apartment” a choice. If you have a craving and an internet connection, many services […]
Writer Jennifer Lee, of the Guardian, said in a 2014 op-ed, “We need more Asian American kids growing up to be artists, not doctors”. That sentiment was expressed while battling a long-held stereotype (both among main-stream America and Asian Americans) that little Asian babies grow up into doctors, lawyers, science, and tech employees… and that […]
The Asian summer – or the summer of 2018 as it was formerly known – might be over, but Asian representation on screen is far from showing any signs of slowing down. After the mega success of Crazy Rich Asians – now the highest grossing romantic comedy of the last decade – and the […]
WaterTower Music announced that on December 7th, 2018, they are releasing two very stylish vinyl versions of the Crazy Rich Asians Soundtrack: one in appropriate gold and one in emerald green. Noting that a majority of the soundtrack are revivals of classics, from Elvis Presley to Madonna, vinyl sounds like the perfect match. We all […]
Up until a few years ago, all South Asians could claim for entertainment representation was The Simpsons’ Apu Nahasapeemapetilon – not a real last name, btw. While things are changing for the better, with more South Asian faces on film and screen, it’s online where the South Asian community, or Desi Twitter as we call […]
Featured image above: Vegan Liftz Ask a chef what their biggest obstacle is, and it won’t be customers waiting at the door, or the art of sous-vide, or their mixologist quitting on a Saturday night. It will be the daily grind of social media. As one chef put it to me in an off-handed comment, […]
Desi culture is known for many things – Bollywood, deliciously spicy and fragrant food, festivals, and ‘loving your parents’. You might say that the last bit could be true for any culture (yes, we all love our parents) and you’d probably be right. But no one loves their parents in quite the same way as […]
This post is part of an ongoing series on Innovation and Disruption in Asia. MOVE OVER, TESLA. ASIA HOLDS THE KEYS TO ELECTRIC VEHICLES. Asia is the world’s largest automobile market, primarily driven by China. China is not only leading in overall consumption but is also ahead of the game in “New Energy Vehicles”. Where […]