July 24, 2007
Shanghai Daily: T-shirt is "greatly hurting the feelings of the Chinese people"
So about a week ago, the news surfaced that German-born Swiss-based couturier Phillipp Plein released a limited edition T-shirt that screamed "F-U-C-K YOU CHINA". OK, it was more like a whisper - the words were only readable up close and as we all know, couturiers are all about subtle elegance.
We didn't think too much about it but boy did it create a massive furore on the Chinese internet (see here and here). Someone else decided to declare their undying love for the brand at Fuck-You-Philipp-Plein.net, and in three languages no less - English, Chinese and German.
Also check out the wonderfully thought-out letter written by Philipp Plein's PR guys in response to a customer complaint:
The PHILIPP PLEIN Int. AG company would like to explain what lies behind this abbreviation and give the following statement: f.u.c.k.u.china stands for “the fascinating & urban collection: kiss you China”.We would like to specify that we never intended to hurt or offend the citizens of China .
On the contrary, with this collection we wanted to thank China because it gives us the possibility to produce some articles of our collection on a competitive price basis. In addition, the man craft we found in China is very precise and leads to a good quality of the clothes. This is a great satisfaction for us and for our end customers.We are a young and dynamic company and this is why we intituled this limited T-shirt edition “fascinating and urban” collection and “kiss” is a way to thank the Chinese savoir-faire.
Ooooh... fascinating & urban collection: kiss you China eh? Chinese savoir-faire eh? Philipp Plein would have to work a lot harder to sound more convincing. We suggest they first fire their public relations guys.
The hullaballoo also inspired eminent Shanghai Daily columnist Wu Jiayin to put pen to paper and to proclaim in his column that the T-shirt was "greatly hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" - yes all 1.4 billion of them. Philipp Plein has since clarified that only 100 items of the offending t-shirt were produced (they were made in China if we understood their letter above correctly!), and that the product has now been withdrawn from the market. Unfortunately though, one of those 100 t-shirts was found on the back of a German student in Shanghai. We wonder if they will banish him next.
Update: Looks like the T-shirt saga has reached the higher echelons of power! Wang Xinpei, a spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce, has announced that Philipp Plein and KULT, a store in Bremen, Germany, have both apologised for the "production and sale of T-shirts which carry insulting words toward Chinese people". The Chinese Embassy in Germany has also "demanded the companies stop production and apologize to Chinese people".
Image from CSR-Asia.
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The Chinese denouncing others as racist? Best put down the stones while in your glass house.
I want one of those shirts!
I love the shirts I've seen here on some people who have no idea what they mean. Just yesterday on the metro, I saw "I hate those red commies!" on a guy's shirt.
Does the Chinese race have a sense of humor? Shanghainese men and their childish over-sensitivity defies belief.
Well the T-shirt, despite the allegedly intended humour IS rather tasteless and given the adolescent society like China's, it is no wonder there is such a reaction. But then again thats why we are all here commenting about it right? The maturity level of many fortune-seeking "gold rush" expat wannabes probably is not much better than Chinese society's level of social development. Present company included of course :S
Humor or no humor, it would seem to me that anyone stupid enough to wear such a shirt in the country the comments are directed towards, can't be very smart and probably deserving of a good arse-kicking.
That's just downright disrespectful, imo.
The mudslinging of insults between the mentally immature members of the East and the West is always going to happen. And I agree the t-shirts are in poor taste and insutling. However, the difference between the two cultures is the social acceptability of making such comments. If a German politician were to make open anti-Semitic comments, a large majority of people in Germany itself would be disgusted, never mind the world’s Jewish community.
China needs to ask itself why is it that slurs made against them do not receive the same level of outrage in other countries. The answer is due to their own complete lack of political correctness when referring to other countries themselves, and their deep seated Xenophobia. While I am not a huge fan of PC, a certain level of consciousness towards it is required, and in a country centred around the use of propaganda slogans to move the mass, it would not be that difficult to install a little bit of sensitivity into a margin of it more educated population.
For example the term ‘Lao Wai’ in any other country would be deemed a racial slur, but it’s openly used in China and to the faces of other foreigners. Yet the Chinese scream to high heaven when anybody refers to them as a “Ch**k”. If the Chinese consciously started to show restraint against their own insults and stopped using the race card at every opportunity, I’m sure they will be surprised to see just how much slurs against them will reduced.
Where are these uncriticized anti-Chinese slurs made by mainstream figures? Of a politician getting away with calling Chinese people ch*nks?
I recall Rosie O'Donnell and Shaq (and really who takes either of them seriously?) getting widely criticized and later apologizing for making mild parodies of the sound of the Chinese language.
Anyway the "let's make racist comments about Chinese people, because in China people use the word 'laowai'" argument doesn't make much sense to me.
Just to clarrify that in chinese, the word 'lao wai' is by no means an insulting name for foreigners. for us chinese, it's just an easy and somewhat cute way to call someone 'lao XXX' to indicate the closeness and brotherhood.
If a chinese is in a foreign country himself/herself, he/she would rather call himself/herself 'lao wai' too, as he/she's a foreign to that country indeed.
So, the word has nothing to do with racism! If you guys think it's racism, it's just because you don't speak/understand Chinese and chinese culture well!
btw, i don't think it's anything humorous to use the word 'f**k' before any name or country! The german company's explanation is rather lame. If they wanna insult China, just admit it!
Jerk the knees: KNEE JERKIN'. 1/2 the stuff in SD is KneeJerkin' douches. Here's what I have to say about the shirt: WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!I love the need to address every tiny little injustice. OOOOO BOOO FRICKING HOOO, I'm chinese and everyone picks on me. DEAL WITH IT!!!!
RELEASING some statements every time someone farts in your direction just proves your insecurity.
I guess Phillipp Plein's "humor" might be something like this: these days you can hardly buy a T'shirt that is not made in China, which could be true but does not make the rudeness any more acceptable. For example, can you also find any "humor" in the following statements on a T'shirt even so you might have various reasons to say so?
F**K America
F**K Brits
F**K France
F**K Germany
F**K Europe
F**K Asia
F**K Africa
F**K Human
F**K Earth
At the end of day, humor or not humor, you still have to abide by some VERY basic human decency. In this instance, unfortunately Phillipp Plein crossed the line. Sometime the line is fussy between being edgy and tastless, but there is the line!
"unfortunately Phillipp Plein crossed the line"
No, he didn't. China's ultra-sensitivity, sense of self-importance and racial superiority (despite the chaos, corruption and filth) and being the world's maker of cheap junk had this coming for a while. If I see a tee like that for sale I will buy it.
fuck u china!
nanheyangrouchuan
Just a comment on Post9 about 'lao wai' not being used as a racist slur.
COME ON!!! SERIOUSLY!!!
I've heard Chinese people use the term all the time when they negatively refer to a Foreigner. Your definition of it being a 'cute' pet name is as lame Phillipp Plein's publicist expalining why F-U-C-K China T-shirts should be seen as endearing.
While the majority of Chinese may not consider it a slur, and use it colloquially it doesn't mean that foreigners are not insulted by being called an 'old foreigner' instead of the standard 'wai guo ren'....which should be used.
Take for example how the world 'Oriental' is deemed insulting by Asians in the UK, but in Europe it is still an excepted term.
correction 'Oriental' is deemed insulting in the USA....and not in Europe.
Yet the Chinese scream to high heaven when anybody refers to them as a “Ch**k”.
Are you seriously comparaing laowai to Chink? Seriously?
Let's see one is a racial epithet which recalls an era of 'yellow menace' laundries, railroad workers, gold miners, 'not a chinaman's chance' a lot of racial history where entire towns were slaughtered and burned to the ground.
And the other is sometimes used in a mocking and slightly superior tone.
Jesus. Does anyone have any fucking perspective at all?
Yes, if I were a PRC citizen, I would probably not appreciate this shirt, but I must admit that I (gulp) agree with nanheyangrouchuan on this one. China is massively oversensitive to criticism and at the same time, there are strong undercurrents of racial/cultural superiority in the media and outright chauvanism and racism in both policy and daily life. Personally, I feel that this is very much encouraged by the Chinese state media and its propaganda machine, which plays on the national inferiority complex and uses issues like this to manipulate the public. But such claims of Chinese superiority are deeply embedded in the Chinese culture, language, and history, and are more easily revived than discarded.
That said, the Chinese need to grow-up and stop listening to these childish impulses. By way of comparison, if I saw a shirt that said, "F*ck you [my country]!" I would shrug and consider it normal.
Yes their is a cultural history behind the use of the word 'chink' that makes it offensive.
But just because their isn't as big of one against europeans does that mean terms like 'lao wai' and 'whitey' can't be deemed offensive?
What do you get when you blindfold an Asian and spin him around a bunch of times?
...
A disOrient!
get it? get it?
The 'laowai - offensive or not?' thing nevr egts resolved. To Chinese people, it's not offensive, unless you use it an an offensive way. The us, it's offensive if you take it as an offence.
The story is the usual patheticness tho, as is the backlash. "Hurt our feelings!" christ, grow up, it's a fuckin tshirt!
But just because their isn't as big of one against europeans does that mean terms like 'lao wai' and 'whitey' can't be deemed offensive?
Tell you what, I'll trade you all the slant eye jokes, model minority myth, stares in rural america (a country where I was born and grew up in) the perpetual feeling of being foreign despite my cultural background because of the color of my skin, hair and shape of my eyes, ethnic quotas on entering universities, engineering and video game jokes, "ching chong ah so" jokes, and the "They Call me Bruce" movie series
for
the right to take offense because someone calls you 'laowai' or 'whitey'
Seems like a fair and equitable trade right? You show me where you're being 'opressed' for being white, and then you can feel like you're justified for taking offense. I promise, white slice, I won't make fun of your Dockers with Topsiders standard of dress anymore.
Nice to see you sinking to the same level of maturity that i'm talking about.
For you information I happen to be half Chinese/European. And have been called it all...'Chink' in Europe, and 'Lao Wai' in China. Not to mention a 'mongrel' 'unpure' and so on by both.
So if you wanna play to the victim race card by all means go ahead.
My comments earlier were not ment to detried away from the fact that Asian people around the world are victims of horrible racism from whites, which i agree with you is horrible.
But just to highlight the fact that other races are just as guilty of being xenophobic and the fact that it is deemed socially acceptable.
In my view any form of racism regarldess of who it is targeted to is unacceptable.
Unless you grew up in Nazi Germany, I'm going to go ahead and call shenanigans on you being called "unpure" in Europe.
...you would be suprised what insults have been thrown about.
and for your information i was called unpure by my chinese uncle.
I was called unpure by my mom when she caught me masturbating.
"Laowai" is about an emotional equivalent of calling somebody that "Asian guy" here in America, or refering to tourists as "Out-of-Towners" in Maine, in a degree of tonality and negativity (not in meaning of course). The terms are not neutral by any means. There is an air of I being the rightful local people and they are from outside.
While Chink is on the same level as "N-word" when used by non-colored people here in US. I think there is a big difference in negativity between "Laowai" and "Chink". I remembered in college in China we referred to our beloved American teacher sometimes as "Laowai", but we would NEVER refer an African-American teacher as "N-word", unless you are trying knowingly to be racist.
Jululu, don't even begin to compare the N-word with Chink,unless you're content to promote your ignorance.
And on the topic of black people, can you enlighten me on Chinese peoples' opinion of them?
hello, i in china.
i just finished printing for you. only available thru me:
F.U.C.K YOU GERMANY t-shirt
F.U.C.K YOU SWITZERLAND t-shirt
F.U.C.K YOU MALTA t-shirt
F.U.C.K. YOU BRAZIL t-shirt
F.U.C.K YOU KENIA t-shirt
i also have real fakes for you if you prefer:
F.I.C.K YOU CHINA
F.A.K.E YOU CHINA
F.U.K.K YOU CHINA
F.A.C.K YOU CHINA
F.U.U.K. YOU CHINA
F.U.C.K YuO CHINA
all colors, all sizes. and of course the subline for authentic feel etc:
"maktufuckturd in eupa. produce an diseign by Pilliph Pein"
really good price for you.
xie. bye.
"And on the topic of black people, can you enlighten me on Chinese peoples' opinion of them?"
This is a tough one. I think it is a deeply rooted problem in Chinese people, which reminds me of the national weaknesses in Lunxun's writings. Even among the Chinese people ourselves it is so common to "put down", to discriminate and to treat as second class citizens those from a different region or a class. Among Shanghai people, for example, there is a term "North of the River" refering to people from some neighboring provinces seeking manual labor in the city who are often treated badly. And the rest of the country think Shanghai men as "sissies", misers, selfish, spineless "good" husband good only for cooking.
Our attitudes seem often bordering on either overly self-superiority or self-deprecating. Chinese attitudes toward white people, black people or people with yellow skin just like ourselves are quite complex. There are admiration, loathing, self-pity, superiority...
It only reminds us that while the whole world seems to move more and more close together, it's about time our attitudes toward each other make some changes to accommodate for the unstoppable reality.
It sounds absurd even to myself. If I considered Phillipp Plein had a bad design, but why I felt the message #28 like good art? I wonder...
Thanks for your honest answer, Jululu.