May 9, 2008
Let Me Asian It Up For You
(All the photos in this post are taken by me in China in 2004. You can see rest of my travel photos here on flickr.)
I have been getting these questions/see these comments a lot:
“Can you do this in an Asian style?”
“Can you stage this so it will appeal to Asian people?”
“How about Feng Shui? Do you do that too?”
Well, I am clearly Asian, and now I am an Asian American after being “naturalized” (I never know what “naturalized” mean, was I unnatural and awkward? I still am.). I was born and raised in Taiwan, came here in my teenage years (awkward age already, not to mention my fresh-out-of-boat look didn’t help my social status) and been here every since. I am in my late 20s, you can do the math :)
Working in real estate industry in California is interesting, because we are all trying to be politically correct and not to segregate according to people’s skin colors. But that’s not true. There are so much playing into the buying behaviors of certain ethnic groups, and I have noticed that lately Asian has become the new Latinos. All I hear is that “Can you stage this property in an Asian style so it will appeal to Asian populations?”
First of all, just what the heck is “Asian style?” Living in Asia and an Asian household for all my life, I can tell you that most Asian people (in both Asia and here) don’t live the stereotypical style of “Asian” as we have seen in furnishing catalogs. We live in modern homes with modern, westernized furniture. Sure, my parents’ home has Chinese paintings and Chinese antique furniture, but we also have western furnishing and modern paintings.
When you say Asian Style, do you mean the color language of traditional Asian decor? Or simply mean you put a bunch of plastic buddhas all over the house?
And when is the last time you see Asian people in traditional Asian clothing? Yeah, only at festivals and special events. We have been wearing western cloths since I don’t know, the last several centuries?
(what do you know, they got Gucci & malls in China too)
Second, Feng Shui is about creating positive energy and flow into a home, and a well-staged home provides that feeling. I can’t help but feel angry and annoyed sometimes to see Feng Shui being packaged in western world just to make more money through selling really useless merchandises that claimed to “change your chi.” Unfortunately, consumers don’t know because they are not in the industry.
Make no mistake, Asian people in this country live in the westernized living style — we all drive cars not carriages, we all wear western cloths and we all live in modernized homes with any other floor plans just like anybody else, regardless of our or your skin colors.
Staging is about appealing to universal buyers, it’s not about segmenting people into populations groups by their skin colors.
It’s universal that buyers want to buy homes that are clean, clutter-free, bright, airy and with a solid floor plan at a great location & price. So think about what you are asking next time you refer something as “Asian,” because most Asian people don’t live in ways that we are categorized to do in this country.
Leave a Reply