Asians and Watches, What the deal?

[leopardprey]

Now before this topic gets going, this topic is in no way meant to sound racial and biased, or cause stereotypes. And please no Racial comments. This is meant to be a serious economic/cultural thread.

What I am curious is why does it seem that our Asian Brothers (especially our brothers of Chinese ethnicity) are so much more into watches than the rest of us?

I mean I see photos of GTGs on other watch forums, where the majority are Asians. See photos of Watch Dinners put out by upscale brands in places like Australia and Canada, and again mostly Asians. Go to a book store in Asia, and about every type of Watch magazine and Watch book you can find is for sale. Seems like every week a Upscale brand is opening a new Botique in Asia/China. Probably most of the Upscale brands make more than half their profits these days in Asia. There are even some other watch forums I particpate in, where Chinese (from all over the world) outnumber non-Chinese by about a 5 to 1 ratio.

Look at the number of Botique from Upscale brands like VC, PP, UN, etc.. and there are double the number of botiques in Asia, than they have througout the rest of the world.

Switzerland exports about the the same dollar amount of watches to Hong Kong (with a pop. of 10 million) as they do do the USA (with a pop. of 300 million).

So why does it seem most serious collectors of upscale watches are Chinese? Is it more of a status thing? Is it just cause they are intersted in watches, more from a cultural point? And if so, why is the Asian Culture more into watches? More knowledgable about watches? What started the massive buying influx of fine mechanical watches in Asia?

(from a WIS veiwpoint, traveling to Hong Kong, Kualu Lumber, Bangkok, Shanghai, or Singapore is like going to Watch Heaven. I have actaully had a whole vacation in KL, doing nothing but checking out watches!)