Festive Songs, Globalization and Benchmarking

As we move even closer towards the Hari Raya, we tend to hear all the traditional Hari Raya songs being played in every shopping mall around the city. It’s actually one of those times which drive me crazy. I mean how much of the same song can you take during any given festive season? For Christmas, we hear all Christmas songs, the Chinese New Year we hear the same New Year songs year in and year out. It’s like we as human beings have reached a plateau when it comes to Festive songs. No one seems to be able to make a new classic festive song. It’s either we’re at the pinnacle of festive song making or that we couldn’t be bothered to do so since the old ones are sufficient. What people would do is get P.Diddy to sing a Christmas song instead of Engelbert Humperdinkledoodle to sing it or Siti Nurhaliza to sing a Raya song instead of Fauziah Ahmad Daud or something like that.

It’s like Rolex. What they’ve done to the 70 year old Rolex Oyster watches is that every few years spruce it up a little by rounding off an edge or two. What I suppose the automotive design equivalent would be the Porsche 911. They’ve not decided to change anything but just rearrange the design of the car a little year after year. It’s somewhat like the new mini very recently launched by BMW-Mini. Mini claim that they’ve changed a million parts but looking at the photos from the press releases you can’t seem to find something really different from the old one. I suppose if it ain’t broke, why fix it. Look at the picture in this posting, what's new about the new Mini? I can't seem to tell at all.

I suppose that with those two automotive icons and the watch, humankind has decided that they have reached a pinnacle of design that cannot be altered in a drastic way. And with that statement I would have to agree that a Mini or a 911 would never look good (or bad depending on your point of view) if they tried making it look totally different from what it looks today.

It can be said that Globalisation will in turn assimilate us all into Borgs by making us conform to a global standard. Teenagers around the world want to be like American teenagers for apparently no reason at all other than being cool. The Television and the Internet play such a big role in shaping the world into what it is today. I seriously wonder whether the Sarong will be worn by anyone at home in about 20 years time. Even I myself would only wear the sarong for prayers occasionally and after that it’s folded away somewhere. We all feel more comfortable in shorts rather than a piece of cloth wrapped around the waist.

Notice that everyone in the car industry benchmarks, say for example, Mercedes Benz S-class, as the height of luxury car design and equipment. Almost all notable equipment such as Airbags, driving sensors and so forth was introduced by the S-class series over the years. After a few years, all car manufacturers follow suit by adding what was first equipped in the S-class. Soon all cars will be benchmarked by a certain standard or two. Every car will either look or feel German whether we like it or not. While its scary, it may happen as most manufacturer and management gurus throw the word ‘benchmark’ left, right and centre and everyone seems to agree to it. We’re soon going to see Germanic TVRs, Caterhams, Toyotas (look at Lexus), Ferraris (the Horror!) Protons (which actually is a good thing as they seem to think that the everlasting Proton Saga and Wira are pinnacles of Malaysian Engineering and should be kept forever!) and so forth. All because we have been made to believe on the miracles of Benchmarking the best in the Industry. As such, we may lose individual character of the cars we drive. And it's sad to even think about it.