Rehabilitating the FP in East Asia?

[Goodwhiskers]

I remarked in another post that fountain pens seem to have become passé in East Asia.

 

I've heard four reasons for this:

 

* FPs are associated with low standards of living and limited consumer-product choices, which were the East Asian experience in the not-very-distant past (along with worse matters).

 

* The quality of school FPs in East Asia varied quite a bit, especially in scratchiness, and some paper for homework bled through and/or feathered FP ink easily.

 

* Compulsory FP use in schools was sometimes enforced in petty ways, such as throwing out homework done in non-FP.

 

* FPs are associated with the memory of the stress of schooling in East Asia, which pains most East Asians when it comes up in conversation with non-East-Asians like me (I try not to make it easy for them to reinforce their own traumas, but sometimes my job does that anyhow).

 

Pen brand managers in East Asia, like in the USA, shifted mostly to non-FPs instead of trying to keep their FP product lines growing and changing with the mass pen market. Pen brand managers and public school systems in Europe seem to have done better by the FP in this, despite Europe's own unpleasant experiences in the 20th century.

 

Also, I understand that most people everywhere at all times don't want to have to juggle too many tasks at once. Keeping a fountain pen in good writing order takes more effort than buying cheap, disposable non-FPs and throwing them out after they are empty, and now that those are available throughout all East Asian markets, busy people have made their choices.

 

Are pen brand managers willing to rehabilitate the FP in East Asia? Perhaps, as repetitive-strain injuries come into public awareness, they can; FPs keep the hand much happier than non-FPs!

Edited December 11, 2005 by Goodwhiskers

[Ray]

Steve,

 

The pattern seems clear, regrettably. Wherever the level of general affluence rises much above subsistence, the ballpen tends to supplant the more economical fountain pen.

 

Ray

[pathologyliu]

Hi, Steve. I'm a Chinese living in Beijing. I have witnessed the market of FP withering in China. I think the most important factor, technically,is the domestic gel pens becoming popular. It's so cheap and convenient.

The 4 reasons you mentioned may be a little bit different from the situation now existing here.

1.FPs are not associated with low standards of living now.There're so many MB

and Parker sellers in Chinese metropolis.It's said that "MB is the symbol of Chinese white collar ."

2 is quite right.

3.Although Chinese teachers are far from kind in elementary school and high school,they seldom do this in my memory.

4.Maybe.

Regards!

[Goodwhiskers]

Pathologyliu, thanks for the update. Ray, I have to agree with you. Gel pens are an easy way for us to demonstrate (to ourselves, at least) that we can throw away our "pocket change" frequently. That's true in the USA, too. I'm glad that at least high-end FPs are being bought in China (and I hope they get frequent use rather than display). A friend of mine who went through elementary school in Taiwan in the 1970's told me about watching non-FP homework being thrown out.