By Larry Romanoff for Pravda, 01 December 2021
The
non-Western world needs a few successes in rejecting American
"values", beginning with some American icons.
Barbie and Pornography
The first of these is to note that Mattel's Barbie is dead, at least in China. “After two years of living in her 4,000 square meter, six-story Shanghai mansion, Mattel’s Barbie doll is moving out.” The dream house has officially closed and, according to analysts, it’s because Barbie didn’t quite cut it with Chinese shoppers in the big city. Mattel spent hugely to open that flagship store that has now closed its doors. And good riddance. People say that the Chinese like to save face, but listen to Mattel: The hugely-expensive Shanghai Barbie store was "meant only to establish Barbie’s brand in China. It did that successfully, so it's time to move on." Right.
Most
mothers were either disturbed or horrified by this, especially since Barbie's
"mature" body was essentially "borderline pornographic" and
was seen as a serious danger and "potentially damaging to young girls'
psyches". That view is still held very strongly by millions of mothers all
over the world who have banned this doll from their homes.
But
Handler, like all Jewish marketers, brought in psychiatrists to learn how to
change the values of American mothers in order to market this doll. The advice
was to instruct mothers to consider Barbie as "a tool for teaching their
daughters about the importance of appearance and femininity." And the
importance of promiscuous sex as a way of life. Just what every 3 year-old girl
needed to help her grow up into a wholesome young woman - a plastic doll with
big breasts and a sports car. I have always hated that doll.
Swarovski
"crystal"
In
the real world of gemstones, "crystal" refers to natural quartz, a
common mineral that naturally grows in crystalline shapes and, like many
natural stones, produces some truly beautiful colors. In natural crystal, the
atoms are arranged in a highly-ordered structure, forming a crystal lattice
that we see in diamonds, sapphires and snowflakes. Most other elements have no
structure at all, items like melted wax or plastic - or glass.
Swarovski
"crystals", on the other hand, are not "crystal", they are
not natural, they are not stone, they are not "pearls", and they are
certainly not "gemstones". Swarovski's so-called crystals are glass.
Plain, ordinary, cheap, glass.
Normal
glass has a low index of refraction but some glass has about 32% lead metal
(Pb) added to it, which makes it heavy and gives the glass a high refractive
index so that it disperses colors well and produces a pretty kind of 'rainbow'
effect. Manufacturers often call this "glass crystal" or just
"crystal", but it is only glass, and is used primarily for cheap
costume jewelry and some kinds of glassware, the weight suggesting quality and
the light refraction producing colorful appeal.
The
irritating fad surrounding Swarovski and their mythical crystals is nothing
more than clever marketing, with people paying ridiculous sums of money for
grossly overpriced and fragile costume jewelry made of cheap glass. For the
prices paid for many of Swarovski's products, one can easily purchase genuine
semi-precious stones.
Swarovski
company advertising tells us, "The company's name has become synonymous
with genuine crystal." Yes, and that's the problem, because Swarovski have
so heavily advertised their glass costume jewelry as 'crystal', leading most
people to believe they are purchasing some kind of natural, genuine gemstone.
But all they are getting, is glass. The designs may be pretty, but it's still
just cheap, ordinary glass.
Nescafé
It's
a particular tragedy to me that anyone in China might have developed a taste
for this awful stuff. At Chinese New Year, I see people on the streets carrying
gift boxes of Nescafé. I can hardly think of a greater insult. In the West,
instant coffee is a cheap and undesirable commodity that has about the same
social status as a box of tissues or a can of bug spray, nothing that even the
mentally defective would offer as a gift. For my friends in China and Russia, either
introduce your friends to real coffee, or buy something else.
And,
just so you know, the Nescafé brand is owned by Nestlé, the same people who
bring you grossly-overpriced Häagen-Dazs ice cream and millions of dead babies
in Africa.
*
This article appeared first at Pravda
*
Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated
into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language
news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100
English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant
and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international
consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has
been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case
studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in
Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to
China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s
new anthology ‘When China
Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
His full archive can be seen at https://www.moonofshanghai.com/ and http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com
Copyright
© Larry Romanoff, Moon of Shanghai, Blue Moon of Shanghai, 2021
