Friday, May 03, 2013




Must not use an impressionistic version of  Chinese singing

Peking Opera sound strange to us, far too difficult to reproduce, so the best we can usually do is an impression of it

Car giant General Motors have been forced to pull an advert after its jingle - which claimed that Chinese people sing 'ching-ching, chop suey' - was accused of being racist.

In a humiliating u-turn, the company has removed the advert from worldwide markets after it referred to China as 'the land of Fu Manchu'.

The advert was promoting the Chevrolet Trax SUV, and had been aired in Canada since the beginning of April.

It had been posted to Chevrolet’s European website too - but has now disappeared from Canadian TV screens and replaced with an edited version without the offensive lyrics.

A spokesman told the South China Morning Post: 'Once the issue was called to our attention, GM immediately removed the offensive content from the commercial'

The TV advert, called 'After Midnight', features the song Booty Swing by Austrian musician Parov Stelar.

The lyrics on the offending advertisement say: 'Now, in the land of Fu Manchu, The girls all now do the Suzie-Q, Clap their hands in the centre of the floor, Saying "ching-ching, chop suey, swing some more".'

China is the world's largest car consumer, and GM is keen to begin capitalising on the country's luxury auto market.

Source


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The advertising industry, which is always driven by insatiable greed, doesn't really care too much about people being offended, so long as there's a profit to be made. Of course, some high ranking moron at GM had to first approve this ad.

The incident may hurt GM's plans to build it's new 2015 Cadillac DTS sedan in China. Then again, maybe not, seeing how China is every bit as corrupt as everyone else. They also plan to open some 600 dealerships there. And, they were able to put this together thanks to a multi-billion dollar "bailout", courtesy of the tax paying fools of America.