sushipanda

Cross-posted on Shanghaiist

The organizers behind the 6th Li Yue Long Men Young Creatives Competition (鲤跃龙门亲年创意人列赛) have a surefire way of enticing young, creative talent into the big 4A agencies such as BBDO and JWT: appeal to the better, hornier side of their nature.

The promoters have produced two videos and implanted (groan) them into the Interwebs, each accompanied by an attention grabbing rumor. The first video, shamelessly shown here, is unofficially titled: “I heard BBDO hires only D-Cups.” What libidinous old young blogger copywriter or designer wouldn’t click on something like that? And why can’t the creatives that work for me look like that? Oh right, cuz I actually want to get things done here at Republic Studios.

For those of you who are actually interested in competing, you can find the brief (in Chinese) here; looks like you’ve got until the first week of December to submit your work. In the meantime, if you’re just casual observers of the industry, click here for the less funny, less titillating (yes, feel free to groan again) 2nd video, titled: “I heard JWT employees eat award trophies for lunch.” We’ll go back to watching the first one for the thousandth time.

Disclaimer: We like boobs

This is, hands down, one of the best things I have ever seen in my life.

(h/t to Keith and Jason for sending this to me at exactly the same time)

All my friends are warm, considerate, generous people. But some of them tend to casually use the term “that’s so gay” to refer to something they find unappealing or idiotic. It’s not because they harbor negative feelings toward people who are gay, it’s just that this unfortunate method of critique has inculcated itself into the broader, popular culture-influenced lexicon which people our age who share similar backgrounds casually adopt. I’ve brought it up a few times in social circumstances, but the lack of vociferation in my too-few protests belies a fear I have of criticizing people I care about and making them feel judged or uncomfortable. It’s ironic, yes I know. since the term is offensive and uncomfortable already.

Thankfully, Wanda Sykes is the better person:

I guess I’ll take my cue from her. Hey friends, try to abstain from using “that’s so gay” in this way, it’s a bad habit and we can all represent the heterosexual population a lot better. Thanks!

Cross-posted on Shanghaiist

Normally, job postings on Las Vegas’ Craigslist for nightclub managers would never catch our attention. Make that nightclub a KTV disco nightclub and put it in Shanghai, and we start to get curious. Make the annual salary for said position between $100k and $400k USD, and we’re printing out résumés:

Either this is for some high-end, dodgy gentlemen’s club (which, cough, we’ve never had the chance to explore), or Partyworld/Cash Box is considering hiring strippers to hold your microphones while you sing. Absent that, we have a hard time believing the listed compensation. And of course, everything on Craigslist is true.

I’ve been reading as many articles regarding Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama as I can get my hands on. I listened to the Meet the Press podcast on my phone this morning, hanging on every single replayed word.

Interestingly enough, the one thing that Powell said that really hit me hard (choked up, misty-eyed kind hard) was not repeated in any of the articles I read. And from the transcript, that is:

POWELL: I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

Too often, we attribute profundity and virtue to far too many undeserving statements and people. But I’ll remember this one for a long time. Yes, Colin Powell is a respected Republican and statesman and his endorsement is politically beneficial to the election prospects of the man I hope is our next president. But this story about Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan is not borne out of any sort of desire to score political field goals. This is a powerful plea to the better nature of the soul of a country. It gives heft to the rhetoric of the “fierce urgency of now.” And it makes it all the more likely that I’ll never go back to the States if Obama loses.

Here’s a new Holiday Inn Express spot:

This one’s a winner for me because, well, I’m very very uncool.

What’s a surefire way of knowing what type of TV commercial resonates with people here in China? Like back in the States, take a look at the spots that are being mass forwarded via email. Here’s a Lenovo spot I received in my inbox today from an old co-worker:

Sometimes, the appeal of an ad is simply universal, but I think this particular spot resonates here in China because the generation gap is pronounced not by way of age, but also of the amount of shit that the older generations have actually been through (see wreckage of Mao). In that sense, it’s a generational gulf, not just a gap. The sight of a grandmother using a laptop as a cutting board and saute pan is adorable, but also somewhat identifiable. You can see that actually being a story told here in China. In the US? Highly doubtful. Even John McCain has a Myspace page, for crying out loud!

Just saw this Zales ad:

If an Asian version of this ad ran here in Shanghai, most of the Chinese women that I know would orgasm while sitting in their cubicles. Sorry for being crass, but melodrama hits a G-spot for pop culture consuming women in Asia. Sadly, most of it is about a million hairs more in-your-face than the one above. People here seem to enjoy allowing themselves to get blatantly jerked around by melodramatists pushing a wickedly overblown vision of romance.

For example, check out this Korean music video from a while ago. To me, this is the pinnacle of over-the-top cheese, and when I first saw it all I could do was groan. But in Asia, people like me are in the distinct minority. This particular video, in which (SPOILER ALERT) a chick has an accident and goes blind, only to have her boyfriend donate his eyeballs to her, takes romantic tragedy into the realm of the truly absurd. But it was one of the most popular videos in the region when it was released and is a potent reference even today as the embodiment of glossy, tortured tearjerker porn:

The thing is, this stuff is so pervasive here in China, whether through popular Korean soap operas, music videos for Taiwanese pop songs, and TVCs for everything from ice cream bars to SUVs. Forget irony, this is what has come to define romance for young women (and sadly, too many susceptible men) who can afford their trifling fantasies.

An ad like the Zales one, which hit on elements of cheese but in a subtle and warm and ALMOST realistic way, are almost non-existent on the networks. I think, though, that more and more folks, as they are increasingly bombarded by Western-influenced creative, are starting to wise up. It’s this kind of advertising that may become the style of record in the near future. I really hope so, because if I see one more young woman in a music video who has some terminal illness but refuses to tell her shy, mopey lover until it’s too late, I’m going to eat my left fist.

Here’s a screenshot of a page on Flickr that shows two pandas barfing up photos. I have no idea why this exists, and what value it purports to provide, but the fact that it does exist makes me supremely happy for some reason.

Last time I barfed up rainbows, picturesque photos were not a part of that equation.

Below is a really interesting short doc on hip hop here in China, direct from native Chinese folks involved in hip hop culture. What really struck me was the common ground that the US and nascent Chinese cultures shared: musical identities defined by region, divergent individual perspectives on the genre, a self-confidence rooted in self-awareness.

Hip hop, at least what I’ve been exposed to here in Shanghai, has visibly morphed into somewhat of a “scene” that has fleshed itself out incredibly since I first got here 5 years ago. Now, enterprises like this one have come in and seemingly tried to commoditize a culture that originated in the US and to this day is pretty impossible to consolidate and package into one overarching thing. What ends up happening is surfing and parkour commercials that play on the back of taxis, with a menacing G-Unit type beat playing in the background, that always ends up leaving me and my friends wondering what the hell any of that had to do with hip hop. Hopefully, it’s the artists shown in the video above who are really trying to explore and create and take ownership of something new that will prevail over branded and manufactured identity. But who knows, this is China, anything goes.

(h/t to Rich at All Roads lead to China for the video)