In Asia there's white man admiration.
In Singapore, their white man admiration includes... Korean. As Singaporeans are already too familiar with Caucasian presence, their white man admiration has already, largely, transferred to Korean.
All that Hallyu stars and melo dramas add to the Korean popularity, making people fantasize with tall and cool Korean handsome man, romantic winter scenery in Korea, leggy girl groups that represent fashion, and the mysterious and macho sounding Korean language.
Korean products, at the same time, are being portrayed as safe and elite delicacies - from strawberries,
eggs(!), apples, to tomatoes(!!!).
You might attribute to the success of Korean government's cultural or agricultural export policy, but... not quite, as this alone is insufficient in explaining why the same phenomenon is not witnessed to the same extent in other developed Asian countries like Taiwan or Hong Kong.
It seems that Singaporean locals, with their average shorter body and darker skin, are looking up to Korean who are supposedly with taller figure and fairer complexion, just like how they used to view the civilized Caucasian.
Why is it so? It's just an aspect of human society, that people tend to look up to an idol existence. So yesterday it could be Caucasian, today it can be Korean, and tomorrow it will be something else. Duh, I hope I don't sound like racist.
在亞洲大家崇拜白人。
在新加坡，這個白人崇拜的對象還包括...韓國人。也許新加坡對正宗白人過於熟悉，崇拜對象轉移到了陌生的韓國 - 這個國家，有著浪漫白色耶誕節、高大英挺的男人、長腿時尚正妹、及神秘又具男子氣概的韓文。
崇拜的具體內容除了那些韓流明星、韓劇、韓國草莓、
韓國雞蛋(這很扯，我之前寫過)，最近我還發現，連韓國小番茄都上榜惹!!!
完全歸功於韓國政府的文化/農業/高科技產品出口政策並不夠，因為這無法解釋，為何在台灣或香港這樣類似發展檔次的地方，無法見到新加坡這種程度的韓國崇拜。
有時我總感覺，這些相較矮小黝黑的本地人，是仰著頭在崇拜著那些皮膚白皙身材高大的韓國人，正同他們過去景仰歐美白人一樣。
也許可以這樣理解，這種崇拜是出自於人性的崇拜本能，人們總能找到一些可供崇拜的存在；過去是白人，現在是韓國人，以後當然還會有別人。
正文前有70多頁以圖文方式簡明扼要的介紹了香港170年以來的城市發展史。圖片左邊是20世紀初的九龍半島，當時仍相當荒蕪，這張照片是何教授本人提供。
圖表是1842-1939一個世紀間，香港建造工人日薪統計。量化史學是出身法國巴黎大學的何教授的專長領域之一，她的作品絕對少不了科學化的縝密統計與分析。
翻到這本書最後，赫然在鳴謝裡發現我的名字。這個研究計畫我完全沒有參與，當時我人在韓國寫論文，只是在很偶然的機緣出了一點小小的力，而教授竟然沒忘記我。
