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UN Recommended Nonsense

« H E Stupidity :: Chinese Holidays :: email
posted Thursday, 1 May 2008

China does not have any direct equivalent to the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency or similar organisations in other countries. That is not to say that that there are no regulations. There are. For example, the more ridiculous advertisements on national television a few years ago offering brain pills to make your kids smarter were outlawed. However, the industry is loosely monitored, if at all.

So, I’ve been amused recently by a couple of ads or publicity. First, I came across this shop selling water heaters here in Liuzhou. The claim to be an Australian joint venture but their website has an address in Sydney but nothing else to show any Australian connection. Indeed, if they are an Australian joint venture couldn’t they have found someone to check their Chinglish!

Un Heaters

But what really got me was the audacious claim that their shop is recommended by the United Nations. That’s what it says. In fact, again according their website, the manufacturer (not this shop) has been added to a list of potential suppliers who may bid for UN tenders. That’s all. I can register right now and become a United Nations Recommended Blog!
 
Then, I stumble across this nonsense. It is May 1st, a national holiday. The streets are full of people doing their communist style patriotic duty on International Labour Day by going shopping. Everywhere, young students are earning a penny of two by handing out various leaflets advertising all sorts of stuff you don’t really want.
 
One girl hands me a ticket for a free lesson. The course is apparently one which every student in the developed world (i.e. not China) takes automatically. Oh Yeah?
 
Memory Course Ticket (Front) 
 
If you take this course you will be able to pass any exam easily and reduce your study time by 80%. After taking the course, you will be able to remember 100 irregular numbers in just two minutes, remember 30 strangers’ names and faces in five minutes, remember 100 English words in one hour, read seven books per day, remember and be able to recite backwards difficult and key English words in CET 4 (College English Test, Band 4) , remember and recite backwards Lao Tze’s “Tao Te Ching” in four days and remember and recite backwards the Oxford Intermediate Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary in one month.

Memory Course Ticket (Back)

Well, damn! I wish I’d known that before I took my PhD! The inability to recite books backwards was the one thing which held me back!

According to the ticket, the course is offered by “Love and Home Sky” (LAHSKY), a Guandong company which offers courses for children in pretty much everything from Confusianism and Daoism to Memory Enhancement. Can't see anything sensible, though. They claim that this course is run in cooperation with Delter International and the lecture will take place in the lecture room of Websters Education Institute. These are two of the more respected private education facilities in Liuzhou (Delter is a Canadian Company). If they really are connected to this drivel, then they should be ashamed.

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comments (4)


1. Leo left...
Thursday, 1 May 2008 4:33 pm :: http://longhongquan.spaces.live.com/

The shop should have claimed it is british joint venture so that this blog readers could have more to read! :-) ... well, i highly recommend the boss to open a branch in the UK and said his shop was once "recommended" by a overseas british girl in China.


2. liuzhou left...
Sunday, 4 May 2008 10:26 pm :: http://liuzhou.blog-city.com

I really wish I could understand your comments.


3. canrun left...
Monday, 5 May 2008 2:50 am

Haha. Delter wanted to hire me a few years ago. Glad eternal Luo Si Fen was not in my cards...


4. Leo left...
Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:27 am :: http://longhongquan.space.live.com/

well, who believes this kind of ads nowadays? maybe just some new comer. cunning ppl r still doing this with the purpose of cheating stupid ppl. and only those boring chaps will pay attention to that.