There’s this “Made in China” ad everyone is talking about.
Qiaobi laundry detergent made this ad that shows a a young woman doing laundry, when a man with paint marks all over his face and white shirt shows up.
She then lures him, puts a detergent capsule in his mouth and throws him into the machine. But when she opens the machine, a Chinese man in a white shirt comes out.
Since this dropped, the internet has pounced on the ad like,
But there’s so much to this ad that we’re not paying attention to, like how we are part of the problem.
Like how light-skinned people are the yardstick used in measuring beauty or cleanliness.
Or how “Ghanaians are so black” degrading jokes are so popular.
But back to the Chinese ad. Many will agree that advertising to a large extent, is only a reflection of society or “acceptable stereotypes”. From those slavery times when white people sold blacks at open market.
To even more recently where kitchen ads must almost always have women (even though men are entering the kitchen in greater numbers now).
But does a Chinese ad mean that China is still very racist towards black people? Well, that might not be entirely true. A recent survey says otherwise, and this 32-year old Chinese woman agrees;
I was a little scared at first sight of these black men coming to my store, especially when they looked right into your eyes and grinned. The Chinese don’t do that. After a while, I got used to them. They are just people who look different. They are polite and respectful, bring good business. In business, I’d say they need me and I need them… [I] later became friends with a couple of them and introduced them to my other friends who sell electronics. We used to hang out in McDonald’s for lunch.
So if this ad doesn’t entirely reflect Chinese society, and the ad still managed to fly, what does that mean?
It means the ad is just completely stupid and does not exactly portray anything, except one thing of course.
You know how China is the China of counterfeit products? 
Yep. This ad is a ridiculous copy of another Italian and equally racist detergent ad.
Moral of the story is this: the ad should never have happened. In fact, it is so stupid, the company issued an apology.
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