Trophy from Hong Kong

[strange_complex]

I've been wanting to post the following scan of a postcard I brought back from Hong Kong for ages, largely for the benefit of gamahucheur, whom I know collects similar posters / postcards from Shanghai. However, until angeoverhere told me about Photobucket, I believed I had no way of hosting it to post it up here (at least, not without spending money!).

Now that the problem is solved, I present my favourite one out of three postcards I bought, reproducing advertising posters of the 20s and 30s from Hong Kong. They are basically all along the same lines: they show pretty, Chinese girls using Western-style products, which are generally cigarettes or alcohol. The reason this one is my favourite, though, is the expression on the girl's face. While the others look demure and beautiful, this one offers just the hint of a sulk. She looks for all the world as though she's saying, "You took my country away, and all I get is these lousy cigarettes".



[Much, much later edit: picture no longer hosted at Photobucket, because they don't allow free hosting any more.]

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't sure, so I put 'posters / postcards' to cover all eventualities. Mine, although in postcard format now, was originally poster-sized I think. I say this because some of the other similar ones I have include text on them which is really too small and fuzzy to read at postcard-size, so must have been larger originally. Whether there even were postcards originally, or they have just appeared as a convenient size for the reproductions, I couldn't say.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Perhaps in an era which was not yet as heavily commercialised as ours, it simply never occurred to the advertising production companies that anyone would want to buy them as postcards? Perhaps nobody did want to buy them as postcards? ;)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply I thought the posters were sold: I presume they were made to be posted up on walls (either on main streets or in shops) by the advertising companies on behalf of the products' makers.

And I share your amazement at the willingness of modern consumers to wear, or even pay above the odds to wear, brand-name and logo clothing. I don't generally do this myself, although I do make an exception for My Little Pony T-shirts. The nature of My Little Pony is such that I really just have to suspend my cynicism about consumer exploitation as regards anything to do with them. They are so obviously a consumer product, but I choose to ignore this, and see them as mystical and entrancing fantasy beings instead! ;)