Well, the original reason for this fixation was justifiable.
It went, ...
If someone's good enough to get shipped all the way
from Europe to India, then he/she must know what they
are talking about and worth the transportation cost!
Unfortunately, today, the idea's gone, but the habit remains.
- Vinit
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Perry E. Metzger
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 11:45 PM
To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
Subject: Re: [silk] Airport Check-In Design
Madhu Menon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Biju Chacko wrote:
>>> Question: Would managing the Zurich airport be a good criterion to
select
>>> someone to manage an airport? Is it big? Well traffic-ed? Or were we
sold
>>> down the river?
>>
>> They're phoren, after all -- therefore they must be better. :-)
>
> Maybe one day we will get over that fixation.
Perhaps a bit after people in New York get over that fixation, but we
show no sign of it even though the city is almost all "foreigners" of
one sort or another. For example, even here, a bit of a French or
British accent can transform mundane people with no skill into
Unusually Talented Expatriates. Whether you're an investment banker or
a bartender, the perception that you're from far away makes you
mysterious and obviously unusually skilled/suave/hip/etc.
It isn't nearly as bad as it was perhaps 30 years ago -- the
mysterious Banks From Germany, Switzerland And Japan no longer hold
much mystique in the finance industry and we've learned to distinguish
a bit -- we find the Japanese cars to be much more attractive than the
German ones, with French, British and similar cars no longer viewed as
more interesting than the local product.
However, Mysterious Japanese Chefs still command vast prices at
restaurants like Masa, a French DJ will get gigs more easily than a
local simply because He's Foreign And Must Be Cooler, being English
makes it much easier to seem interesting on the chat show circuit, etc.
As I said, if that works in a place where you can hear 100 languages
from every corner of the world being spoken on the street without much
trouble, what hope does anyone else have of a swift recovery from
Foreign Superiority Syndrome?
Perry
--
Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
