Just the other night,
I saw a commercial about some breath-freshening agent. As is often typical with
memorable TV ads, one remembers the storyline, but forgets the actual product.
It might have been toothpaste, maybe mouthwash, possibly breath mints. What
stuck in my mind was the warning that appeared at the bottom of the screen,
which to me, signaled the final submission of Taiwanese society to the morals
of the so-called enlightened West.
A party full of
Asians is in progress as the advertisement opens. A man at the bar eyes a
pretty woman across the room, who returns the gaze with an alluring grin. Right
there, I realized how bogus this set-up was. Western women, who have striven
for equality, especially over the last half-century, have arrived at a place
where they can stride across a room and walk up to a man, confident in their beauty,
personality, sexuality, ability and whatever other “-ty” they want to exhibit.
On the other hand, stunningly attractive Taiwanese women, like the one on TV, have
perfected that bored look that screams, “Drop dead. I want nothing to do with
you,” a look that Western women rarely use. In my opinion, this facial expression
stems from centuries of Asian women being forced to cultivate their appearance
instead of their minds and thus resulting in an attitude that says, “If you
want any of this, you need to show that you’re worth it.”
So when the beauty in
the ad glides towards the relative handsome guy, perhaps it is a recognition of
the fact that a higher percentage of Taiwanese women enter university than men
and a growing percentage of women are entering the Taiwanese workforce and
political arena. In the words of an earlier American ad, Taiwanese women have
come a long way, baby, and can now confidently approach a man and deal with him
as a peer. However, we soon see that the man is not an equal to this Asian
Diana because he has bad breath and has nothing to remedy his malady. So, he
resorts to drinking the water out of the fish bowl at the end of the bar. Here
is where a cautionary notice appears at the bottom of the screen stating that
ingesting fish bowl water is not good for one’s health and places the fish’s
life in peril.
In Taiwan, there are
warning labels on cigarette packs with pictures of rotting teeth and gum
disease that remind me of the black lung pics Larry Flynt used to put on the
backs of his Hustler mags. In China, I saw poster-size blow-ups of bloody
traffic accidents above the urinals at highway rest-stops, condemning drinking
and driving. Similar to broadcasts in the States, Japanese wrestling broadcasts
lead off with the notice that “trained professionals” perform the stunts and
that one should not try them at home. Such warnings I can live with. And
admittedly, the wording for the admonishment on the above ad is a bit
tongue-in-cheek, but it made me wonder if Taiwanese had gotten as ridiculous as
Americans who need a warning label on a cup of boiling hot coffee before
sipping it to test its temperature. (It’s coffee in a Styrofoam cup, so, of
course, it’s hot, stupid.)
Helmets on
motorcyclists became required only about a decade ago. Now, middle school
students are told to wear helmets if they ride a bike to school. Backseat
riders have to buckle up or the fines will be meted out. People still put
toddlers in bamboo chairs strapped onto the footboards of scooters, though
there is a call to ban such seating. The Chiayi night market no longer wraps
around the athletics stadium. Instead, it has been set up next to a department
store on Bo-ai Road, where the vendors are provided with safer electric power
and cleaner running water for the price of being better regulated by the
government. After a legislator had visited the US and was so impressed by our
treatment of our pets, he introduced and was able to enact a law prohibiting
the sale of dog meat.
Before you know it,
the Taiwanese government is going to make medical insurance compulsory. We’ll
all have ID’s with dreaded computer chips storing all our info. At the first
sign of sickness, we’ll have to pay around NT$100 (or US$3) for a visit to a
doctor and not have to pay anything for the prescription. The birth of a baby
will cost a few thousand NT$, not US$. Even dental care will be covered.
Wait a minute, that’s
right, we already have all that in Taiwan.
Who’s enlightened
now?
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