Interracial couples in Taiwanese commercials - It's a start
Not your every day thing in Taiwan, but growing in significance
Today I saw a TV commercial featuring a White guy as a loving husband, who cooks for his Taiwanese wife and their child. It's a rather simple and short commercial, but pretty amazing, because it might well be the first of such kind to regularly run on Taiwan's national TV (correct me, if I'm wrong). The ad is not new, it's at least a year old, but I haven't noticed it too often (yeah, I'm pretty busy). The company, that launched the ad is called 好帝一 Haw-Di-i. I'm not sure how tasty their sauce is, but I'd like to commend them for creating this ad. Big thumbs up from me. In my previous post about big hot dogs, I've said that the foreigners in the video don't represent me. Sadly, the foreigner in the commercial doesn't represent me, too. When my wife saw the video, she immediately said: You don't cook! :-P Sadly, I don't have time to cook for my wifey, but the commercial really makes me want to :-) And I might buy that sauce, since I'm also targeted as a consumer.
Earlier this year Quaker made a commercial featuring a prominent Taiwanese couple, of which the woman is an actress and a singer, who married a Canadian. Her name is 黃嘉千 (Phoebe Wang) and the husband is Christopher Downs (夏克立). Check the commercial:
Brief summary: Husband and mother-in-law are discussing what is the best food for the baby. The daughter/wife then says: This milk powder from Quaker is the best. And the other two finally agree.
12 KAFKAESQUE COMMENTS:
No Taiwanese men who married foreign women? ;)
Interracial couples aside, Eurasian models have always been a hotcake in local commercials - they have this exotic Caucasian look and delicate Asian aura that place them above everyone else in the field.
December 18, 2011 12:29 PM
Is that true? woow, thanks for sharing :)
December 19, 2011 12:19 PM
@kyh: Good point.
@Vivid Virginia: You're welcome.
December 29, 2011 9:41 PM
Yeah, really interesting to see this. Great find! And I think you're right on the Eurasian babies being key. (And agree with KYH on Eurasian model types.) The guy, stubble and all, acts very Taiwanese; it's interracial, but not inter-cultural -- which, I realize is more than one could hope to ask from a TV commercial. Now, can we get the black guy from the Wei Da Li drink ads into an interracial couple ad -- without the African garb?
December 30, 2011 7:40 PM
I've noticed this too - but I wonder if they aren't mostly on english movie channels like HBO (where the viewers are more likely to be interested in western culture/english speaking). If so then it's less cultural change and more targeted marketing.
December 30, 2011 9:54 PM
@Kevin: It's a start. And quite bold, if you think that it should appeal to the consumers to buy a product. It's not their agenda to improve race relations between Taiwanese and foreigners, it's purely about business.
@Derek: No, I've seen this commercial on standard Taiwanese channels. And Taiwanese HBO doesn't have advertisements, according to my wife. The target audience are your common Taiwanese people. The guy says: This is the original taste of Taiwan.
December 30, 2011 10:51 PM
Agreed: it's a nice start. And I'd much rather see white guys in aprons than black guys -- a la portayals of aborigines here -- in stereotypical garb on TV. (There are good business practices and bad ones.)
December 30, 2011 11:20 PM
Thanks for posting this!
Now that I'm getting my Master's in linguistics and since I'm am American half of a Western female/Taiwanese male couple, I've noticed more and more of these commercials coming out of the woodwork.
There's more, like a commercial for paint, but these commercials with the western guy speaking Chinese is just what I need for my presentation this week on my case study on language choice (and the factors affecting this) of western/Taiwanese couples!
I've also noticed that these are all western men/ Taiwanese women but since western female/Taiwanese male couples aren't as prominent(I should know-haha) as WM/TF then obviously they are not a target audience, yet imho...
January 2, 2012 10:39 AM
Yes, it's a very interesting media/marketing trend.
As others have pointed out, the b-racial child may be the key element. That's what suggests that the couple is settled in Taiwan in a stable, conventional, married, domestic relationship.
This is the element that indicates that the whitey is not to be taken in the typical horny-grabber-of-our-women sort of way.
But for some reason that I can't quite explain, I feel it is kind of creepy how Asians fawn over bi-racial children... at least the "Eurasian" ones.
If, for example, you saw this kind of ad with a Taiwanese and an African or Sri-Lankan parent and their cute kids (and yes, there are some!), THEN I might change my mind somewhat about the whole phenomena.
But I think seeing a child with a Taiwanese and an African parent would not get the same "cute!" reaction from TV viewers. I think the reaction would be more like, "what kind of woman is that??" or "poor kid!" or "how embarrassing for her family".
January 2, 2012 1:13 PM
@Breanna: It might change in future, who knows :) Glad you like my post. I will write on commercials more in the future. Stick around.
@John Scott: You highlighted some good points, thanks.
January 10, 2012 1:25 AM
There is an advert with Chris Downs who is married to TV actress here, and in the ad the voice over refers to him as an adoah, or big nose. They call Adoah Papa. That's progress? White guy married to TW women with cute inter-bred baby and they call him BIG NOSE PAPA? That's progress? And he let them call him that slur and did not complain. Took the money and ran. Sigh
January 25, 2012 9:47 PM
@Anonymous: Good point. However, I don't see it diminish the significance of the examples I have listed. I still think it's going in a positive direction, as time passes by.
February 1, 2012 12:41 AM
Post a Kafkaesque comment!