The importance of being finished

Karl Marx had once said of the impermanence of systems that all that is solid will one day melt.

The reverse may be true as well, in a manner of speaking.

Finishing schools have all but "melted" into irrelevance in their birthplace--Europe. With a rising trend in egalitarianism, finishing schools are scoffed at in Switzerland as well.

However, what has melted away in Europe and America is solidifying in emergent economies like China, India and Saudi Arabia.

As Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, an editor at Time Out Beijing, says, learning how to slice bananas into thin slivers with knives and forks, is a hot trend among women of noveau riche families in China.

This skill can be acquired at $61.