Zhaoqing Adverts
I am angry, and somebody needs to pay. This man is the obvious target. He's the imbecile who heads up a 'Wok' advert that has - for the last six-to-eight weeks - appeared during every single bloody commercial break on the Hong Kong English-language channel, Pearl. Of course, this advert is not a Hong Kong advert. It's a Zhaoqing creation, inserted between gaps in the Hong Kong programming with all the subtlety of a subway rapist. The minute a slick, sexy Hong Kong ad appears, a button is pressed and we are jerked across to a homemade studio somewhere in Zhaoqing. A trumpet fanfare begins and we are introduced to the slaphead above who explains that our lives will shortly be transformed by this revolutionary new wok. As a thumping techno beat strikes up, he demonstrates just how good the wok is by frying two fish. The first he fries properly, with a heap of grease and constant attention. The other he deliberately burns by dumping it in a dribble of oil and then letting the heat sear it to the bottom of the pan. We are supposed to think these are laboratory conditions, of course.
The advert itself is rubbish, but it wouldn't be half as bad if, one, it wasn't bloody four minutes long, two, didn't appear during every single bloody break on BOTH Pearl and ATV World (the only two English station in HK), and three, didn't overrun so badly that I inevitably miss the first minute of proper programming on resumption after the commercial break. It's obvious that Zhaoqing TV have absolutely no authority to be doing what they are doing - hijacking a Hong Kong broadcast - (actually, it's not altogether clear that Zhaoqing TV has a right to be broadcasting HK TV in the first place!) but it's also obvious that nobody is going to stop them. It's also easy to assume that the reason this is allowed to be the case is that the person in charge of marketing down at Zhaoqing TV has a mate who has just started a new wok company. Corrupt to the core. In no other country in the world would this be tolerated.
Actually, things have - over the last fortnight or so - got even worse. There is a new ad on the block. It's a cleavage ad. Using Benny Hill-style 'boings' it demonstrates how Chinese woman with chests as flat as a Dutch tulip farm can magic cleavage out of the air by wearing this 'revolutionary' new corset-styled rib strap. It doesn't only create bouncing bossoms, it also fixes muscular problems in the back. I think wearing one also helps ease global warming and saves pandas.
I used to like tits before I began being subjected to this ad. If I have to listen to squeaky voiced nubiles leaning over and rubbing their chests provocatively one more time, I'm going....I'm going to.....to...er...do something. Something bad.
If you see any of the woman involved in the tit advert, or the slaphead in charge of burning fish, please take it that - by appearing in public - they are asking to be bludgeoned with a blunt object. If you see them in private, assume they are asking for the same. These people don't deserve to live in peace. They must be hunted down and killed. Like Sarah Connor in the Terminator.
Reader's Comments
Tom Chambers writes:
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely ... to mock what Zhaoqing TV is doing with their interruption of Pearl and World Hong Kong TV stations. I'm very tempted to walk into the Zhaoqing TV station and do some disruption of my own, but my wife thinks better of the idea. This interruption and repetitive approach to advertising confirms what runs rampant in China ... lack of respect for another person's privacy and concerns and the nonexistence of customer care or service. If you walk the streets of China, you'll notice that people are in your face and they walk through you rather than around you or allow you to pass. When something has to be done like a chore, the worker is not even aware of your presence, he or she continues to do whatever he or she is doing, for example, sweeping to the point that he or she will sweep across your feet. I feel that the above is deep-rooted in the sense that it's "duty" rather than courtesy.
tomrchambers.com12/11/2006 7:42:00 PM
