We've recently been thinking it would be nice to get a Roomba to keep HQ clean, and figured given the US pricing that we'd be able to pick one up for perhaps Y20,000-Y30,000. We were in for a shock.
A quick look at some Japanese online shopping sites shows that prices for officially-imported Roombas in Japan approach 3X those in the US. A Roomba Red that currently sells for US$149.99 on Amazon will set you back at least Y46,980 on Rakuten (an online mall that's usually a standout for its low pricing). That's just over US$400 at today's exchange rates. Higher-end models run to more than double that price.
This kind of differential isn't unknown in Japan, but it's intermittent. On the whole, where there's an official distributor -- as with the Roomba -- our experience has been that prices tend not to be extortionate, except for items like clothing and leather goods that carry hefty import duties. So why does the Roomba cost 2X-3X as much here? There's presumably some overhead for localizing the documentation, and possibly for regulatory approval, but it's hard to believe that would double the unit cost, and easier to think that the company and its importer see the pricing point as being acceptable here. We'd be interested to be proved wrong.
Anyone in Japan and similarly unwilling to part with the sums described above for a Roomba can draw some consolation from a site called Shop.com, who we don't know from Adam, but are offering Roombas more or less at US pricing (say Y18,000 for a Red). Caveat emptor, and all that.
We're picking this one up partly because Engadget mainman Pete Rojas is on the cover (congrats, Pete!) and partly because of an interesting Technorati-sourced ranking of the current top 50 blogs.
Two points about the ranking: (1) There are nine blogs in "Japanese" (and more in Chinese; see below) in the top 50. Describing all of these that lack immediate visual clues as simply "In Japanese" or "In Chinese" is pitiful. Given that the top blogs in Chinese and Japanese are more popular than Kottke and Fark, why not ask someone with ability in the relevant language for a brief summary rather than dismiss? Also, guys, guessing the language that things are written in is equally shoddy; numbers 25, 27 and 33 are in Chinese, not Japanese.
(2) Manabe Kaori (or Kawori, as she'd have it), supposedly Japan's most popular blogger, looks to have been ousted from the top spot to more like 4th.
[New York Magazine: Linkology - How the Most-Linked-To Blogs Relate
Shortly after Christmas, an episode of the irreverent UK car show, Top Gear, showed Jeremy Clarkson riding into the studio atop two washing machines on wheels. This, he explained, was how the Koreans built their cars.
Among Top Gear’s many viewers was a Korean student living in the UK who recorded the incident, and, outraged, posted a clip of it on the internet. Back in broadband South Korea, it sparked a huge furore, and the Koreans are very serious about their furores.
When Toyota and BMW are mocked in the same context, the Japanese and Germans stay silent. The Koreans, whether they work for Hyundai or not, flood the BBC and the British Embassy in Seoul with thousands of frothy-mouthed complaints. It is this particular brand of nationalism – the passionate and faintly paranoid desire that Korea be taken seriously – that brought President Roh Moo-Hyun to power in 2003. As he enters a third year of office, it is fast becoming his biggest headache.
Roh’s difficulty is that he exploited and enhanced a deep division in Korean society to win election, and now sees that in order to achieve anything worthwhile, he has to straddle the same gulf. He isn’t managing it, and Korea’s self-belief is so high at the moment, that his stagnation is all the more unsettling. For a president supposedly butting at Korea’s problems from outside the establishment and the left, his recent performance has also been disappointing. In a desperate lunge at fixing the economy, for example, Roh recently said he would be consulting with the bosses of the old chaebol – the corporate leviathans whose power he has always vowed to smash.
The real snag is that both sides of divided South Korea are fervent nationalists. The older generation, whose establishment ways Roh has vowed to reform, loves Korea in its Cold War role: a staunch ally of the US and a die-hard bastion against communism. Younger Koreans, who voted for Roh and vehemently protested his impeachment last year, love Korea as they hope the outside world sees it: a fiercely competitive country that can stand on its own without the US and which hosted the World Cup.
Samsung is now Asia’s most valuable electronics company, and made bigger profits last year than Microsoft. Koreans surf the web on some of the most advanced mobile phones in the world. When Koreans discreetly ask whether they have caught up with Japan, it is partly out of manic rivalry, and partly because many think the answer is yes.
Looming over this is the spectre of a nuclear-armed North Korea and the fact that the time to resolve matters is quickly running out. In the view of both defence and political analysts, 2005 will be the make-or-break year for the Pyongyang nuclear crisis. The stalemate has lasted too long, and the frustrations of all parties are growing more clear. To make matters worse, North Korea has, since September, boycotted the six-way talks with its neighbour in the south, China, Japan, the US, and Russia that have become the last hope for a successful resolution.
In his New Year speech Roh was forced to admit what most knew anyway – that the stalled talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme would likely resume as soon as President George Bush completes his inauguration on 20 January. They haven't. In another blow to his young supporters, Roh grudgingly admitted that a summit between himself and Kim Jong Il was highly unlikely.
Everyone in South Korea under the age of 30 may believe that Seoul can sort out the escalating problems of the peninsular alone, but in reality Pyongyang will only come to the table when it knows the US is there and listening.
It is this brand of realpolitik in North-South relations that now leaves Roh’s position looking so weak as champion of a Korea bristling with patriotism. A new generation has been quickly bruised by exposure to what has long been the country’s biggest fault: its leaders have always been far better at keeping nationalist fervor bubbling away with grand gestures than hammering out the details of reform. Equally, the country’s car companies are pitched as global players fighting for Korea’s image as an industrial giant; details such as the finish on the dashboard are where things fall down.
Examples of this effect are everywhere. Korea has repeatedly bid to hold the Winter Olympics in a town where snowfall is not a regular annual event. A major campaign to fight crime became little more than a four-week flurry of brothel raids. Economic success is measured by achieving particular per capita salary levels – round, arbitrary numbers that mask a perilous divide between rich and poor. Korean pop culture is sweeping through Asia in a phenomenon known as “hallyu” – a government-backed variation on Blair's “Cool Britannia” nonsense - but a survey recently showed that the first word foreigners think of in connection with Korea is the spicy pickle “kimchi”.
In common with his predecessors, Roh faces the job of making his people correct in their belief that Korea is unstoppable. His problem is that his supporters are a more savvy breed of patriot, who need more than grand gestures. When, last week, Roh talked of Korea’s “joining the ranks of advanced nations”, it once again sounded more like an ambition of image than substance. In order to persuade people that Korean cars are not, in fact, two washing machines strapped to a chassis, he has to demonstrate that all the little engineering details have been given as much attention as the logo.
North Korea's recent high public profile has refreshed its image as the crazy uncle to the supposedly Westernised, techy, line-towing, and entirely friendly South. That said, the government of the latter is not entirely free of nutty, if less security-threatening, machinations. The issue of what the sea between Korea and Japan ought to be called has been bubbling on for many a year, with Korea claiming that it has been known as the East Sea since 59 B.C. and that Japan forced "Sea of Japan" on the world during its imperialist phase. It didn't (European explorers who drew the first maps adopted the name, and it stuck), but that hasn't stopped the Korean government pinching a move from several activist groups with its "Spot and Fix Mistakes about Korea" contest, which encourages conscientious citizens to email sites that diss or misrepresent the ROK to inform them of their folly, and then notify korea.net that they have done so. Given that one can win "a laptop, a PDA, or an mp3 player!" for doing so, one wonders how many of the email writers are motivated by patriotic pride and how many by the lure of free consumer goods.