And Winsor & Newton made the watercolours. They also made the brushes. I forget who is known for manufacturing artist canvas. Someone else made the easel and stool. Nature made the marble or other stone. A company made the chisel. You didn't dig that clay up yourself. You didn't make that pottery wheel or the bench you sit on when you use it. Do you see where this is going? Until these smarmy "You didn't make any of it yourself so you're not a REAL artist!"-types dig up their own clay, grind and mix their own paints from berries and suchlike, OR CODE THEIR OWN VERSION OF 3DMAX/WHATEVER FROM THE FIRST LINE OF CODE ON UP, they can kindly shut up.

Ok. I've got to name names. This one is bothering me. It's a picture from the gallery, but the picture is not my biggest concern. My biggest concern is the character's name. It's... Bong. This person named the character BONG.

Does anyone even look at actual asian languages or talk to real asian people for names? At least Khrys asks my fiance, who is mainland Chinese, for names.

For those who don't know, Khrys' Jie-Jie is an "older version" of Xie, Khrys' original asian character. She's like a big sister to Xie. Jie-Jie's name? It means... big sister.

Regardless of how "unasian" peoples' characters turn out to be, can people at LEAST try to give them REAL ASIAN NAMES? This is NOT like playing "asian music" on the piano by "hitting all the black keys". You do NOT start with a hard consonant, then alternate from vowel to consonant to get generic names like Koko or Kimiko, or grab a consonant and slap it onto the front of "ang", "eng", "ing", "ong", or "ung" for a name like Bong or Ling.

This topic heading makes me cry, but many, many of the replies are very thoughtful and considerate in their responses, and some good debate is going on.

It's good to see people talk about this so openly.

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 11:56

I know real caucasian women who get surgery to have "milkcow" breasts. I don't, as yet, know any asian ladies who want surgery to tilt their eyes funny. I have NO problem with anyone claiming their character is a "generic asian beauty", however, when they promise accuracy, reality, when they go so far as to even give her a specific_ethnicity, shouldn't she... look like the stated claim? Are you trying to tell me that it's ok to market a white-skinned girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, crooked nose, and no curves as an african-american figure? Isn't that called "False advertising"? Or maybe now we can market female characters with a penis and call it entirely female with no male parts? I'm not trying to pick on you, Gongyla. I'm just trying to understand why truth in advertising is such a bad thing in the Poser community?

I am married to a Chinese, I wander my Chinatown everyday, I have many Chinese friends. She is just as accurate, if not more so, as Xie is.

Not ONLY is she BEAUTIFUL, she's REALISTIC. I'm not ashamed to look at or buy this product. She's not ANOTHER "tilt the eye dials as far as they'll go and slap some Japanese-ish name on her"-"asian beauty". She's REAL.

THANK YOU! (Oh, and my Chinese husband thanks you, too!)