Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

A campaign for breast cancer awareness in Changsha went awry when a Chinese TV presenter posed topless for bus stop advertisements and billboards with two other women. The campaign, titled “Clever Girls Love Themselves More,” drew flack from internet blogs and bulletin boards. However, the advertisments themselves are tasteful and make a positive point for women’s health. I’ve managed to scour up photos of the ads:

The prominent theme in the ads is L, for Love. The color and style are the classic “pink ribbon” that has represented the cause internationally for many years. The idea behind that campaign seems to be that women who love their bodies will be more careful about checking for breast cancer, etc. This is the only advertisement in which a breast is entirely exposed.

According to Yahoo News, Chen Dan, who posed for the awareness ads, later said:

“My intentions were good. I hoped to draw people’s attention to women’s health, but because the format was inappropriate it caused a huge backlash. In future I will choose more suitable ways of publicizing women’s health.”

A poster on an online forum offered the following criticism:

“This is a serious attack on women. It goes completely beyond the moral and aesthetic baseline.”

Personally, it bothers me a bit that women posing for a “love your body” or “breast cancer awareness” would get this kind of reaction anywhere.  Aren’t these three ladies the good guys?

According the Register, Apple’s contractor in China, Foxconn, has been breaking Chinese labour laws in its iPod factories.  Its employees were forced to work at least 80 extra hours a month, paying the workers the local minimum wage.  And, according to Foxconn, an Apple representative inspected the factories and gave them “the thumbs up.”

Wired has an article with more specifics about the salary that the Chinese women working in the factory make:

According to the report (paraphrased here by Macworld UK), Foxconn’s giant Longhua plant employs 200,000 workers, who work 15-hour days but are paid just $50 a month — miserable even by China’s standards. It claims they work and live in the plant, in dormitories housing 100 people, and outside visitors are forbidden.

However, the large corporations running factories in China and abroad claim to enforce basic standards of living across all of their sites.  And, while these standards are lower than US standards, they are probably above an “acceptable” line by some local measure, or no one would choose to work at the factory.

Danwei has an article describing two advertisements in Chinese newspapers and fliers.  One, from a self-described “healthy individual” offered to sell healthy organs to anyone “in need.”  The other offered to stalk a person, or inflict vengeance in the form of cutting off an arm or leg.

“We can cut hands, feet, or we can ‘do’ someone directly. But that’s the most expensive - it costs 50,000 yuan.”

Sounds like what the Mafia used to do for free in the US.

I think if I got a tattoo, I’d want something like the Phoenix (Firebird) tattooed on this Asian girl:

Although permanent, it’s quite sexy.  However, when you get old, it’s not going to look the same, and it can interfere with a professional career.

While it is well known that developing nations produce large amounts of pollution which are blown by winds to neighboring countries, this picture from NASA says a thousand words:

As a giant country, China has a responsibility to the rest of the world to reduce emissions.