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VV o n g B a

08-10-2003, 02:17 PM

HK store's Nazi theme sparks fury

HONG KONG, China (AP) --German and Israeli diplomats have lashed out at a Hong Kong fashion company for using swastikas and other Nazi party symbols in a clothing line and to decorate its chain of stores.

The firm, which calls itself http://www.izzue.com., produced a range of T-shirts and pants with Nazi symbols printed on them. One T-shirt has a portrait of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler standing on a laurel.

Red banners with white swastikas on top of iron crosses hung Saturday from the ceilings of some of the firm's 14 stores. The banners also carried a sign that resembled the symbol of the Third Reich: an eagle above a swastika. One branch broadcast Nazi propaganda films on a wall with a projector.

"It's totally inappropriate because these symbols of the Nazi regime stand for cruelty and crimes against humanity," a vice consul of the German Consulate General in Hong Kong said on condition of anonymity. "These symbols brought a lot of pain not only over Europe, but over the whole world. ... It's definitely not the way to promote clothes."

The diplomat urged the public to boycott the shops.

The company's marketing manager, Deborah Cheng, said the Nazi-themed decorations and clothes were not intended to cause an outcry and may be withdrawn. She said the company had received a few complaints from customers.

"We're seriously considering removing the displays. But before we take them off, we have to find a replacement," she said.

Cheng added that the designer wanted the clothes to have a military theme and did not realize that the Nazi symbols would be considered offensive.

Staff at one of the stores tried to stop an Associated Press photographer from taking pictures of the shop and tied up the lower part of the banners to hide the Nazi symbols.

Israeli Consul-General Eli Avidar said the consulate has received dozens of complaints about the displays in the past two days, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported on its front-page Saturday.

"People were furious, hurt and shocked that such a thing could happen," Avidar was quoted as saying. "It is unbearable to think that anyone can design a marketing campaign that desecrates the deaths of millions of people."

Phone calls by the Asssociated Press to the Israeli Consulate General in Hong Kong went unanswered.

In April, soft drink giant Coca-Cola pulled a promotional robot figurine adorned with what appeared to be Nazi swastikas following criticism from a Jewish leader in Hong Kong.

And in July last year Hong Kong coffee chain Pacific Coffee was forced to apologise after its stores used a quote from Hitler for is chalkboard "Thought for the day" spot.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east...e.ap/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/08/10/hk.store.ap/index.html)

AliBabaIncorporated

08-10-2003, 02:41 PM

Whatever, hardly any worse than Che Guevara or Mao Zedong shirts, or flag stores which have North Korea in stock, over which no one raises any noise at all.

BigLew

08-10-2003, 02:57 PM

Deborah Cheng...What an idiotic marketing manager she'd be fired in a hearbeat by any sensible exec.

They didn't realize it would be offensive!? How in touch is that?

AliBabaIncorporated

08-10-2003, 03:05 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BigLew @ Aug 10 2003, 01:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Deborah Cheng...What an idiotic marketing manager she'd be fired in a hearbeat by any sensible exec.

They didn't realize it would be offensive!?  How in touch is that? [/b][/quote]
Hong Kong is not the west and Deborah Cheng is not an Asian-American. She correctly imagined it wouldn't be offensive to her company's target local market --- Chinese people, mainly those in HK, who have no ingrained emotional reaction whatsoever to swastika, since there are no local skinhead gangs or other local undesireables who have taken to using it as their own emblem, and no one around who lived through the Holocaust. (Whereas, of course, there are certainly locals around who fled into HK during the Mao-induced famines of the 50s or Cultural Revolution riots of the 60s and lost relatives in them, and feel much more strongly about those than some distant massacre involving people they knew nothing about. Human nature.)

Of course, she forgot that there would be plenty of expats who want to interfere with her private property rights and raise a big stink over it in a way they never would over Communist logos ...

YuheiCarreau

08-10-2003, 03:08 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BigLew @ Aug 10 2003, 04:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Deborah Cheng...What an idiotic marketing manager she'd be fired in a hearbeat by any sensible exec.

They didn't realize it would be offensive!?  How in touch is that? [/b][/quote]
There are two ways to interpret this event... One is the way you just described, that Deborah Cheng is incredibly thick / completely unaware of how Jews and Europeans view the swastika and really didn't know she'd cause a stir. The other is to assume that she knew exactly what she was doing, and is trying to use this notoriety to her favor, as Abercrombie & Fitch does.

YuheiCarreau

08-10-2003, 03:11 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AliBabaIncorporated @ Aug 10 2003, 05:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Hong Kong is not the west and Deborah Cheng is not an Asian-American. She correctly imagined it wouldn't be offensive to her company's target local market --- Chinese people, mainly those in HK, who have no ingrained emotional reaction whatsoever to swastika, since there are no local skinhead gangs or other local undesireables who have taken to using it as their own emblem, and no one around who lived through the Holocaust. (Whereas, of course, there are certainly locals around who fled into HK during the Mao-induced famines of the 50s or Cultural Revolution riots of the 60s and lost relatives in them, and feel much more strongly about those than some distant massacre involving people they knew nothing about. Human nature.) [/b][/quote]
There is a Mao-themed clothing store in HK, though. Me and my family went there the last time we were there; about 5 years ago, I think. There were lots of hip clothes with funky designs that somehow incorporated Mao's image.

And c'mon, you can't really criticize the Jewish expats in HK for looking out for their own. I'm not really comfortable with a lot of things in American culture which are insensitive to the Japanese, like calling a drink a "Nagasaki Airburst". Plus, the company could just as easily have chosen the military paraphenelia of the Japanese army to decorate their clothes with, so it seems to me that a concious decision was made about this stuff.

BigLew

08-10-2003, 03:20 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AliBabaIncorporated @ Aug 10 2003, 01:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BigLew @ Aug 10 2003, 01:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Deborah Cheng...What an idiotic marketing manager she'd be fired in a hearbeat by any sensible exec.

They didn't realize it would be offensive!? How in touch is that? [/b][/quote]
Hong Kong is not the west and Deborah Cheng is not an Asian-American. She correctly imagined it wouldn't be offensive to her company's target local market --- Chinese people, mainly those in HK, who have no ingrained emotional reaction whatsoever to swastika, since there are no local skinhead gangs or other local undesireables who have taken to using it as their own emblem, and no one around who lived through the Holocaust. (Whereas, of course, there are certainly locals around who fled into HK during the Mao-induced famines of the 50s or Cultural Revolution riots of the 60s and lost relatives in them, and feel much more strongly about those than some distant massacre involving people they knew nothing about. Human nature.)

Of course, she forgot that there would be plenty of expats who want to interfere with her private property rights and raise a big stink over it in a way they never would over Communist logos ... [/b][/quote]
I am pretty ignorant about Hong Kong demographics, but isn't there still a large white British population?

AliBabaIncorporated

08-10-2003, 03:21 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (YuheiCarreau @ Aug 10 2003, 02:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BigLew @ Aug 10 2003, 04:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Deborah Cheng...What an idiotic marketing manager she'd be fired in a hearbeat by any sensible exec.

They didn't realize it would be offensive!? How in touch is that? [/b][/quote]
There are two ways to interpret this event... One is the way you just described, that Deborah Cheng is incredibly thick / completely unaware of how Jews and Europeans view the swastika and really didn't know she'd cause a stir. The other is to assume that she knew exactly what she was doing, and is trying to use this notoriety to her favor, as Abercrombie & Fitch does. [/b][/quote]
Or she simply thought that Nazi symbols look cool and militaristic, and that Europeans wouldn't notice, since the expats there don't notice most other local brands.

As for any objections that it besmirches HK's image as an international city and might affect the all-important tourism sector: Contrary to Westerners' perception of themselves as the most important target market for tourism who should have the final word on what local people can and cannot do, visitors from the mainland, Taiwan, and Japan composed a far larger proportion of total tourism in Hong Kong, spent more money than the average Westerner, and stayed for longer. And most of them either don't give three shits whether some clothing store puts up Nazi symbols in the window, or might even think it's unusual, and go buy their product. (Remember, for example, the Taiwanese air conditioner company which used Hitler in an ad a while back).

BigLew

08-10-2003, 03:21 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (YuheiCarreau @ Aug 10 2003, 01:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BigLew @ Aug 10 2003, 04:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Deborah Cheng...What an idiotic marketing manager she'd be fired in a hearbeat by any sensible exec.

They didn't realize it would be offensive!? How in touch is that? [/b][/quote]
There are two ways to interpret this event... One is the way you just described, that Deborah Cheng is incredibly thick / completely unaware of how Jews and Europeans view the swastika and really didn't know she'd cause a stir. The other is to assume that she knew exactly what she was doing, and is trying to use this notoriety to her favor, as Abercrombie & Fitch does. [/b][/quote]
That's assuming A&F's controversy actually boosted sales though.

AliBabaIncorporated

08-10-2003, 03:36 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (BigLew @ Aug 10 2003, 02:20 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I am pretty ignorant about Hong Kong demographics, but isn't there still a large white British population? [/b][/quote]
Not anymore, really ... there's 34,600 Americans, 33,200 Canadians, 22,700 Brits, and 22,200 Aussies, and insignificant numbers of other Westerners. SE Asians, on the other hand, form over half the total of the resident foreign population in HK.

AliBabaIncorporated

08-10-2003, 03:38 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (YuheiCarreau @ Aug 10 2003, 02:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Plus, the company could just as easily have chosen the military paraphenelia of the Japanese army to decorate their clothes with, so it seems to me that a concious decision was made about this stuff. [/b][/quote]
That would definitely piss off their target market and cause them to lose business. So they chose something militaristic, but non-offensive to locals.

VV o n g B a

08-10-2003, 03:59 PM

the way i see it, deborah has a perfect right to market nazi styled goods. but those ppl who are planning to boycott her store and make a big stink out of the situation are perfectly within their rights also. no one is saying anyone broke any laws here. ppl are just airing their views. her company can certainly keep the material despite protests if they decide to do so, but they prolly won't seeing that things could get pretty ugly. if she thinks she's actually gonna lose money from this thing, then it's her job and responsibility to stop the company from losing money and market something else.

just as americans crushed and boycotted the dixie chick cds, hk expats can boycott and protest this nazi ad campaign if they see fit. where's the harm in that?

ChinaLama

08-10-2003, 04:23 PM

i think there's something inherently wrong with celebrating a civilization that brutally, intentionally, performed genocide over 12 million people. whether or not that "offends" a particular population is besides the point.

Faithless

08-10-2003, 04:30 PM

And in July last year Hong Kong coffee chain Pacific Coffee was forced to apologise after its stores used a quote from Hitler for is chalkboard "Thought for the day" spot.

That quote was: "The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
http://www.inq7.net/wnw/2002/jul/07/wnw_4-1.htm

AliBabaIncorporated

08-10-2003, 04:35 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (VV o n g B a @ Aug 10 2003, 02:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> just as americans crushed and boycotted the dixie chick cds, hk expats can boycott and protest this nazi ad campaign if they see fit. where's the harm in that? [/b][/quote]
Under HK law, foreigners and non-residents are highly circumscribed with regards to the kind of political activity in which they may engage, such as joining in public demonstrations or attempting to conduct a campaign against a local business. Foreigners in HK should obey laws and respect local norms rather than trying to impose their own.

VV o n g B a

08-10-2003, 04:45 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AliBabaIncorporated @ Aug 10 2003, 05:35 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Under HK law, foreigners and non-residents are highly circumscribed with regards to the kind of political activity in which they may engage, such as joining in public demonstrations or attempting to conduct a campaign against a local business. Foreigners in HK should obey laws and respect local norms rather than trying to impose their own. [/b][/quote]
fair enuf i suppose. i don't really care either way. i just thought this story was funny. but i am kinda surprised u would support laws circumscribing other ppl's actions. were these laws in place before the chinese takeover?

krome

08-15-2003, 05:01 PM

Abercrombie & Fitch
Guess who owns A&F (and Limited, Structure, Express, Banana Republic, etc btw?)
Leslie Wexner (http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/fashion.htm)
Who is Leslie Wexner? (http://www.wexnerheritage.org/cgi-bin/articles.php3?x=m&op1=10)

SunWuKong

08-16-2003, 02:52 AM

think about how much the average American knows about the Nanjing Massacre. that's how much the average HKer knows about the Jewish Holocaust. i think the marketting team should have done better research though. and it's not done for shock value because... no average HKer would be shocked by the nazi symbol. they simply don't know much about it. some would probably even wonder why a Buddhist symbol is put in military decoration. it's Westerners in HK that are making it aware that the symbol is offensive. it's just commodification of historical symbols. it's the same thing with the Che Guevara shirts. none of my HKer friends even know that he was a real person. they even have female versions of his famous picture, and when Planet of the Apes was popular, they even had ape versions of his famous picture - i couldn't decide whether that was just plain wrong or massively funny. Mao t-shirts (i have one myself that says "love live chairman Mao" in simplified Chinese) aren't the same thing though because images of Mao were popularised in pop culture by mainland artists in the 90s when they started painting his pictures in pop-art style in the tradition of Andy Warhol.

anyway, i'm glad they decided to shelf it. and HKers/Chinese people need to know more about how WW2 affected the rest of the world (just like Westerners need to know more about what happened in Asia in WW2).

SunWuKong

08-16-2003, 02:54 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AliBabaIncorporated @ Aug 10 2003, 05:36 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Not anymore, really ... there's 34,600 Americans, 33,200 Canadians, 22,700 Brits, and 22,200 Aussies, and insignificant numbers of other Westerners. SE Asians, on the other hand, form over half the total of the resident foreign population in HK. [/b][/quote]
i wonder how many of those Americans, Canadians, and Aussies are just citizenship-holding Chinese HKers.

AngryABCGirl

08-16-2003, 03:38 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SunWuKung @ Aug 16 2003, 12:52 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> think about how much the average American knows about the Nanjing Massacre. that's how much the average HKer knows about the Jewish Holocaust. i think the marketting team should have done better research though. and it's not done for shock value because... no average HKer would be shocked by the nazi symbol. they simply don't know much
anyway, i'm glad they decided to shelf it. and HKers/Chinese people need to know more about how WW2 affected the rest of the world (just like Westerners need to know more about what happened in Asia in WW2). [/b][/quote]
If there was a symbol for Nanjing and someone was selling t-shirts for that somewhere nearby, would my getting angry and offended be insignificant too?

The "I'm sorry that Americans don't know shit" about the rest of the world really wouldn't cut it at that point, heads would be rolling.

It's pretty shameful in general how people in the world are uneducated about these things and how much WW2 has dominated and shaped almost everyone in the world's life today, generations after.