Coming to you this Christmas: Chinese food cell phone/key chain accessories.
I am not making this up.
They include the oh-so-lean Hongshao Rou, chicken feet, prawns (cooked and uncooked), some sort of 柿并 (dried persimmon cake), sushi, a lump of noodles, and fruits, hamburgers, chocolates, etc. They are basically rubber, but after inspecting a few I’m still not convinced the hongshao rou is not the real deal just encased in a thin transparent plastic.
So get ‘em while they’re new and mind-numbingly fashionable. YOU ARE GUANXI when you’re spotted with a chicken’s foot dangling from your cell phone… and the contract you’ve been angling for is yours without bribes. A chicken’s foot says you’re a man to be reckoned with, or a woman who’s ambitious and smart, yet also has her mind on the values of family and the home. Hongshao rou says you’re a man of temptation, but also good taste, while for a woman it surely says that while she’s a master chef, she’s also a wh#$% in the bedroom. We know the great helmsman would have worn one, as it was reportedly his favorite dish.
Ok, enough advertising fantasies. Let’s seriously look at what happened here. Another case of a foreign idea (the hamburger key chain was out eons ago in North America), being exported to China via companies producing items here due to lower costs. Next the quest for selling in the local market begins, easily done with the Chinese love of accessories for cell phones and ever-present dangling key chains. Then sprinkle some Chinese characteristics and you have chicken feet and braised pork on your new Nokia. Sweet.
I half want to buy them all up, and horde them all.
I also can’t wait to ask a few vendors for fish heads, lamb kebabs and 豆腐干 (doufu gan, a dry type of tofu). And my wife is so awesome she bought some samples (they asked for a quite unreasonable 10 kuai for each but she got ‘em down to 20 for 4). She even suggested we could hang them from the Christmas tree! Excellent! Braised pork ornaments. Now if you can’t get enough of Chinese food you can include it in your Christmas decorations. Like me.
Some of my good friends are certainly getting these as (late) stocking stuffers. Admit it, you can’t wait.
Feds
9 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Dec 20, 2007 at 10:05 am
Classic and Classy. There is obvious room for expansion here, I’d like to see some less “real” and more cartoony versions of hong shao rou just as we have cartoon versions of hamburgers back in the good ole US of A.
Maybe hairy crab claws, duck neck, pig’s foot, tiger penis, the list goes on and on.
2 Karen // Dec 20, 2007 at 12:06 pm
yeah! i also saw some vendors selling these ‘Chinese food’. i found them very cute too. but would it be a bit too childish or tacky for cellphones, esp. those metal ones like Nokia 6300?
we could imagine how merry a Chinese child would be when finding ‘the pork’ in your tree!
nevertheless i believed those accessories would be wonderful for key chains or Xmas trees~~~~~~~~~
3 John // Dec 20, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Ha ha, that’s hilarious! I will have to look for these…
4 Feds // Dec 20, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Went to Yu Garden today to track some down… and oh, yes to buy Christmas presents for my wife.
Anyway, I came back with plenty more ornaments for the tree, including the chicken’s foot (not as awesome as I’d hoped, but still keepin’ it real), a miniature bowl of wontons, rolled up lamb slices for the hotpot and more! Saw them at two different locations so if you really want them just go (but China Segment will be your official supplier of cell phone food accessories if you so desire, just email kris.fedorak@gmail.com ). Some locals were there wondering at them, buying a few as jokes.
Check in tomorrow for more pics.
5 Feds // Dec 20, 2007 at 5:08 pm
@ Chris - surely this is territory for Kung Fu Eats. I think a post about NOT eating the plastic cell phone accessories is a must for public safety.
6 Neil // Dec 20, 2007 at 8:39 pm
If only there was a 1000 year old egg cell accessory…
7 Feds // Dec 21, 2007 at 12:48 pm
@ Neil, can’t believe they don’t already have it!
8 Hang Your Chinese Food on Your Cell Phone | Sinosplice: Life in China // Dec 30, 2007 at 1:10 pm
[...] refrigerator magnets. Chinese food has returned, this time to grace our cell phones. My friend Kris spotted these in China a few weeks ago, and recently gave an update with a better [...]
9 Wesley Tanaka // Jan 6, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Genius. BBQ stick accessories would also be brilliant.
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