At opening day of the Seattle Mariners season last week there was a moment of silence for some past Mariners players and coaches who died during the offseason. The moment was not completely quiet. A few out of the 45,268 in attendance hollered, squawked or otherwise disrupted with disrespect. None of the rest of us paid them a lick of attention, lost in our thoughts of those now gone, or perhaps of what food we were going to buy in the second inning or how cold it was at the ballpark or 45,259 other thoughts more worthy of attention than the noise of the few narcissists. It was just a few idiots among a great majority of good people.
The same phenomenon takes place on social media but we treat it differently. It’s still only a few obnoxious trolls making most of the noise and yet too many of us call them out and give them exactly what they want: attention. The few folks complaining about Angel Reese for her trash talking Caitlin Clark…or pick any one of thousands of other examples. We need to stop amplifying the few destructive voices with our attention. This is especially true of media companies who use these relatively few as a way to needlessly stir up strife so that they too can gain eyeballs. They are much like the trolls themselves. Money and loneliness are fine companions. As you put away your bullhorns we amplify who has the most vacation, the Israel-Vietnam relationship and the so-called “dream girls” of China. It’s this week’s International Need to Know, the Caitlin Clark of international information, the Angel Reese of international data.
Without further ado, here’s what you need to know.
Who Has the Most Vacation?
The International Need to Know Spouse works for a company that provides no paid holidays between the beginning of the year and Memorial Day (so we create our own like last week’s Seattle Mariners Opening Day which should be a national holiday and will be when eventually we become dictator of the world*). Which got us to asking which countries have the most paid holidays? Fortunately the resume building assistance company strangely called Resume.io provides us the answer: Iran. So if you want some time off, get a job in Iran. For those of you, probably especially women, leery of moving to the theocratic country, maybe you would consider moving to the country ranked third, Yemen? Hmm, okay, second is San Marino which seems like a perfectly fine place to live if you can afford it. Or maybe you get a casino job in Monaco which mandates 42 days of paid vacation. The full top ten is below, as well as the countries with the least number of paid holidays. You’ll no doubt be unsurprised that the U.S. is near the top there, right behind hard-working Micronesia.**
*You’ve now been given ample warning to flee the planet
**When Googling “Micronesia” one of the autofills is “Is Micronesia a real place” Tough branding challenge
Vietnam – Israel Relationship
The world is full of alliances, partnerships and convenient arrangements, among countries as much as people. For example, this week Israel and Vietnam concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement. Israel imports lots of goods from Vietnam while at the same time Vietnam is working with Israel on growing the technology sectors of its economy. Israel punches far above its weight in technology and Vietnam is keen to have Israeli investment and expertise in this area. Trade is not the only area of cooperation between the two. Way back in 2018, in the before pandemic times, but as countries became more and more wary of an increasingly aggressive China, Vietnam and Israel started a dialogue on defense issues In fact, Israel’s Defense Minister visited Vietnam that year. Israel is adept at military technology development and production and Vietnam, living in a neighborhood with a big bully, is keen to build up its defense systems. Keep your eye off the American ball to see what’s really going on in the world.
China Corner: WALL-E Meets China
We increasingly think WALL-E is one of the six most prescient movies of the last 57 years. Case in point, this fascinating story on Sixth Tone describing young Chinese women “hiring cosplayers to bring their digital beaus to life.” You see, for those not ensconced in this digital trend, some Chinese women playing video games, “fall” for the digital male characters in the games and “hire professional cosplayers to impersonate these characters.” These are so-called “maiden” games, “story-based video games that encourage female players to develop romantic relationships with the games dashing male characters.” The young female players hiring out these cosplayers are dubbed “dream girls.” These dream girls pay cosplayers anywhere from $15-30 per hour to go out on “dates.*” The rate is higher if kissing is required on the date. Interestingly, many of those cosplayers are women. Says one dream girl in the article, “female cosplayers can give me a fully immersive experience, and I won’t fear being judged or harassed.” But, the article warns, some dream girls have trouble moving on from these cosplayers to the real world, “I almost became a stalker of the cosplayer I hired,” said one. One of the most common and damaging mistakes of policy making is a belief we can create a utopia on earth. With the digital world ever more dominant, this fallacy seems to be seeping into individual choices as well. People are messy and imperfect. Better to only date cosplayers acting the utopian ideal. Oh, sigh, WALL-E, where will we end up?
*We believe there’s a much older, more accurate word for this
