How's The Future?

I received three Asia-related emails and IM's within a space of a few weeks that I found pretty interesting.

"How's the future? I'm back in the past." - a ping from a friend of mine who went back to San Francisco after hanging out in Singapore and Saigon over the Xmas break.

"Taipei has become very posh and reminded me of New York in some ways." - a Taiwanese friend who has lived in the US for more than a decade and was back in Taipei for a visit.

And, finally...this is from one of my favourite bosses ever (even if he DID go to University of Chicago instead of Northwestern). He's lived all over...Singapore, US, Hong Kong, Beijing...and he moved to Shanghai a few years ago.

"Eleven months ago, [my wife] was deciding between Siemens and HaiEr for the choice of washing machine and dryer. Not finding any functional differences between the two brands, she opted for the cheaper and younger brand of HaiEr. A couple of months ago, one of them broke down and KB called their service center which promised to send a technician out the next day by noon.

Half an hour before noon, the service center called KB to ask if the technician called. Apparently he did not. The service center called back shortly that the technician would be in touch with us. He called immediately to apologize because he believed he was close to our house. He called at noon to tell us that he would be at least an hour late because our house turned out to be farther than he thought. The service center and the technician kept us informed of any delay and the reason in the next hour. After it was fixed, the service center called the next day if the machine was OK. Since KB had to ask Ah Yi, they called back again the next day. It is service which is unheard of and unmatched in all the major cities which we have lived in. And it is now happening in China. "

And that...I think, is a snippet from the future.