From littleredbook:
“Visa; Going out to dinner with China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; Chinese netizens react to politically charged ad.”
It’s no secret that there’s an obvious tension between China, HK, and Taiwan; Visa uses this political balance in their latest ad to showcase the Card’s universal appeal.
In the ad,three groups of people (from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) have an argument over dinner check. All speaking Mandarin with their local accents—the man from mainland, in an almost commanding tone, “Renminbi! (RMB)” The Taiwanese provokes, “New Taiwan Dollar…(NTD)” Then the Hong Konger jitters, “How about Hong Kong Dollar?(HKD)” All of a sudden, all the guests at table go into a heated argument, with the Taiwan and the Mainland opposing to each other, the Hong Kong, the conciliatory diplomat. (Exactly parallel to the current political situation!)
Eventually our heroine waitress shows up with an idea of everybody-use-visa-nobody-use-cash solution, yet all three parties still insist in paying respectively(Of course they do). Thus, the theme of one Visa card is universal in Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan is unwrapped.
If reading between the lines, the relations of the three parties at table reflect the political relations in reality. The mainland is quite commanding, but Taiwan hasn’t reunited to Mainland, and they apparently dare to oppose Mainland publicly. Hong Kong never bear a strong nationalism and they lay their eyes on economy. Returned 12 years ago, Hong Kong has well balanced and coexisted with Mainland. Thus Hong Kong plays a conciliating role in the three. All three parties are independent in management and economy, of course they pay the check respectively.
Chinese Reactions.
The ad flipped the sensitive nerves of some Chinese netizens on www.tianya.cn (the best known and most powerful forum in Chinese-speaking network environment), who condemned that the TV ad discriminated against Hong Kong people and provoked relations among three regions. Most of the netizens reasoned the few others over reacted. The discussion wasn’t quite big though, and it seemed most people enjoyed the flavor of the ad.
Select Chinese netizen comments from Tianya, translated by littleredbook:
火白水 :
HA! Just that ad, insulted? Hong Kong people don’t have those nationalism, or jump at any poking thing.
无敌转移:
Listen OP: We are 5 times better than them, how could we not feel superior!!
热插拔事件:
Many Hong Kong people just talk in that way. If you don’t believe me, go to Hong Kong to check out yourself.
三季稻感:
OP is an idiot.The ad is disgusting, especially the big mouth girl. Her fans, don’t scold me.
犟妹子:
That pay respectively is the most funny part.
小慧的马甲:
Watched on Lvyou Channel repeatedly, till bored!
疯狂吃面:
Stupid ad, funny point= 0.
babysorry2008:
Ads need to behave themselves.
布瓜SAMA:
RMB is vigorous…
New Taiwan Dollar guy looks pussy when he starts to talk “New Taiwan Dollar~~”
Taiwan tone is soft in saying anything Hong Kong guy is just for fun here “How about Hon Kon Doll~~”
more info & translated comments at: littleredbook
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first!
funny post!
I think it’s a great ad. Really inventive and funny. Bit too many sensitive people around maybe.
very hilarious. bcos its a Visa Ad, Visa is the solution.
If it in reality, its probably the US Dollar that still rule the roost in world economic trade.
How can I download this so I can put it on YouTube with subs? When I click 下载 I get this error:
“Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because the protocol (iku) isn’t associated with any program.”
I use Firefox 3.0 on Ubuntu 8.10
I copied and pasted its url into http://www.clipnabber.com then I downloaded it from there.
Thanks.
Ported to YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So8b49NlBk
Turn on the Closed Captions for my English subs
Aw, man. I did English sub on one too, but I added simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese sub for those who can’t read the awful quality subtitle there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RosueOTtBP4
Yeah, and your subtitles are a lot better than mine (first time ever doing captions, so my timing is off, and my translations aren’t so good).
Only issue — “going dutch” is usually only used if you’re on a date or otherwise with one other person. “Separate checks” seems better to me for the giant banquet table.
Fixed! Thanks, GAC!
that’s awesome. rmb baby
hahaha very clever ad! No doubt it will cause some reaction amongst the three sides but they need to chilax and just see the funny side of things.
the ad was shot in taipei…
so does that mean taiwan wins? i think so!
Very creative.
Must have been done by somebody in Taiwan or Hong Kong.
If it was done by the mainland it would have just been a man (Jackie Chan or that bald guy with the glasses) buying something with a visa and then he would have looked at the camera and said ‘我爱中国，我爱 VISA’.
Either that, or: “VISA 很好”
Oh, and then they would repeated it 3 times over consecutively.
I’m pretty sure it aired in Taiwan and HK, seeing that it uses traditional characters (what I can read of it, anyway).
It’s using simplified Chinese…
HAHAHAHAHAHA!You are right!
it could be funnier if an american was promoting american express cards.
All I can say is Chinese people can’t talk politics objectively.
Funny! And positive too!
It was a surprise that they actually went Dutch. People I know from these places don’t actually do that, espcially mainland Chinese. So this commercial flick actually shows consensus between the people, despite the differences in currency and spoken language.
Wiser than showing people from the 3 regions trying to make each other pay the bill.
People who want to be number one are also weary of those who want to be number one as well?
A bunch of power jousting. China deserves the rise and respect they’re being given. So do other areas of the world.
Existing peacefully is more important than being dominant. Dominating in _every_ way would prove difficult, anyway.
The Taiwanese accent is just a little bit off — enough to tip my Taiwanese wife off that the guy can’t be from Taiwan.
Hilarious. Too bad there wasn’t some Chinese American dude there that said, “USD!!!”.
Chinese American > PROC+ROC+HK
OMG! There will never be a cure for racism until mother Earth is blown to pieces.
People are racist within their own race. Fucked up world we live in.