The common threads holding Asia are its values and work ethic, making it very attractive for the West to do business here. Businessman Vijay Eswaran analyses why we must capitalize on these strengths.

‘Service’ is most fundamentally an Eastern or Asian concept than it ever has been Western. The concept of ‘service’ is something that is ingrained in our culture and traditions. It is the heritage of the Asian continent.

The reason that Asia is best suited for the service industry is because we are a people oriented culture. Asian culture and ethos is more people-driven than comparative cultures in the West, which tend to be more individualistic. Team work, communal efforts, working with others, and deriving benefit from it, is intrinsic to the Asian culture.

The changes in the service industries, from call centres to outsourcing, which today has created the multimillion dollar BPO industry, with decentralisation as the key word, Asia will evolve into a service hub and that will be the new theme of the new millennium.

The Asian work ethos has always evolved in a different way from the other continents, even while sharing similar agrarian backgrounds with Africa and South America. It has, still, retained an essential difference. The European and North American continents have undergone gradual, but significant changes over the last 5 centuries.

The gradual migration that happened after the industrial revolution basically developed this mindset of mechanisation, very essential to the industrial revolution of North America and Europe. The craftsmanship that evolved from a purely agrarian platform into designing, tooling and manufacturing, redesigned a whole new breed of people that eventually began to permeate every strata of society.

The farmer, who was the main core of the agrarian culture, was relegated to the bottom of the heap. The process of industrialisation diluted certain agrarian social strengths. This process resulted in individualization. Craftsmanship became more and more apprentice- oriented, and instead of a whole family farming together, you now had two strangers doing it, and the thought process moving towards specialization. 

In Asia, however, the farmer and the peasants who worked the farmlands, had to make the migration at a far greater speed. An entire generation, a lost generation if you like, was formed towards the mid-19^th through the end of the 20^th Century, throughout different parts of Asia. This ‘lost generation’ saw the leap forward, which however cosmetic, it may have been on the surface, was still not enough to change mindsets of the people. It resulted in them having the mentality of an agrarian farmer, but with the working environment of a manufacturing-driven society.

It was a mindset which allowed people to treat their work as they would till the soil. The mundane monotony of mechanization did not frustrate them, neither did it deter them. They went to work with a gusto.

When mechanization resulted in mass production, such as in the case of the automobile industry revolutionized by Henry Ford in USA, the impact on Asia was stunning. It enabled the Japanese to make a leap forward because they were able to perfect their craftsmanship and reduce the cost of manufacturing even lower. What you had in the 1960s and the 1970s was a Toyota car produced at one quarter the cost of an American comparative make, but at equal if not better quality. What the Japanese lost in terms of not having the equal or more technical superiority, they made up for, in terms of greater versatility and improvement, adapting the car for the mass. This basic cloning of the latest technology from the West gave Japan impetus in its industrial movement that was incomparable.

What we had then was a feudal society with feudal practices and mindsets that evolved into full-blown mechanical, industrialized society. This advantage gave us a work ethic, a work culture that was discipline-driven.

This analysis is not to show Asian society as being feudal. The reference to the feudal origins is to prove that it is because of the intrinsic discipline, respecting one’s work as one would respect the land that one tilled, brought about this obedience and self-discipline, which enabled a better work force in Asia. A competent work force which was dedicated and could work long hours. This has brought Japan, Korea, Taiwan, eventually Hong Kong, and today China and India to where they are in the global economy.

The Asian work ethos has been about putting together shoulders and surviving as a unit. It is best seen in the hill slopes of Java, and in the Philippines where farmers have fought the odds, cut crevices in the hills, creating terraced farming to grow rice. They overcome them challenges and triumphed over them.

What do people come to Asia for? Although beaches are similar everywhere whether in Miami or in the Maldives or Malaysia, the spirit of service is certainly not. The service that one receives in Bali and Thailand, most of Vietnam, Laos, and the rest of the Pacific Rim, is legendary. The concept of service, the ability of the Asian work ethos to embrace and not look upon it condescendingly, is the strength that we can draw upon. This is something that is universal from Japan, all the way across towards India.

This is why the lure of Bali, Phuket, Koh Samui, Malaysia, Singapore, the Maldives, is stronger, as opposed to more exotic destinations such as Hawaii, Grand Canyon, Vienna, Venice and the like.

Another strong factor binding Asia together is the spiritual connection. Asia is the religious hub of the world. Every major religion known to mankind comes from Asia, from Palestine to India. What strength does that convey? The religions that came from Asia traversed the entire globe, and are now in every corner of the world. If that is not a demonstration of our ability to network with each other, what is? This ability is going to be our strength in the new millennium.

Asian countries have many commonalities. The thriving sea routes and overland silk routes have bound us together historically, so much so that there are no real cultural conflicts in Asia, of the kind that are there in the European continent. The commonality is in language, food, in music and the religions. Although we don’t look alike, unlike one half of the African continent, or the South American people and the Indians, Chinese, Malay, and Asiatic races are different, the commonality comes from our approach towards relationships that have been there since the time of the Chinese and the Indian sea farers.

Whether or not legal trade agreements ever come into place, whether or not ASEAN works or doesn’t, whether a body like the European Union is ever formed in Asia, we are already there, in a sense. It does not need any government impetus to bring Indians to Malaysia or Malaysians to India, or Singaporeans to China and Chinese to Singapore. If the restrictions were taken off, the flow would be that much faster. The only issues preventing Asia from working together arise from political and social economic differences, which have created artificial barriers. If not, I believe, we would very subtly, silently, but surely, merge to one. And that strength is generally what one does not see from the outside.

So, the strength that we will be able to cultivate is the fact that our ability to interact with each other is much more stronger, much more powerful, in Asia than in any other continent. Asian weddings typically compromise of 1000 people at the very least. For a many Europeans and North Americans, having 20 people would make it a big wedding. This defines how people in Asia relate to one another. Nearly two thirds of the world lives in Asia and the mass of humanity that throngs Asia makes us thrive amongst each other.

It only makes sense that Asia will represent the next Millennium. But only if we do not get too westernised, not get decimated in our thinking, not get distilled. This will be the true strength of Asia, traversing the future and becoming the true Asian millennium. As the Roman Empire once stretched across most of the known world, followed by that of Genghis Khan, the new Millenium will be then that of an Asian millennium with globalization being the impetus of growth. Then the question is not where Asia is, the question is where Asia is not.