The Perils of Commerce and Politics

A sort of shout out to rancourt

You had to be there…
Read Journal “The Real Thing” http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2988663/

The Real Thing

This isn’t a journal so much as it is a bedtime story…

Once upon a time, when Mao Tse-tung was still in power, President Nixon (of Watergate fame) did everything he could to convince the Communist Chinese to accept certain American products, among them Coca Cola.

Now the name “Coca Cola” has a long and storied history, beginning with “Coca Wine” and ending with the sugar-laden carbonated thing we have today. So when the marketers at the company got the opportunity to sell the drink in China, they decided NOT to try to translate the name, but simply to use a sound-alike. They picked Coh-kee Coh-rah …or something to that effect, And with their new packaging geared toward a Communist Chinese populace, they went out to take the country by storm. They were confident of success, After all, the drink was popular all over the world. Why wouldn’t the Chinese like it?

Well, the stuff didn’t exactly fly off the shelves and the marketers were mystified, Why didn’t the Chinese like their product? They asked one of the government officials what he thought the problem might be. They also wanted to know if he liked the drink.

The official assured them that he thought the drink was very tasty and he was confident that other Chinese would, too, once they tried it, They were just having trouble getting past it’s unfortunate name.

Unfortunate name? What was wrong with the name they had chosen?

Well, it seemed the literal translation of this Coh-kee Coh-rah sound-alike was “Bite The Wax Tadpole”, not the most appetizing suggestion the official had ever heard.

Naturally the marketers were horrified and they promptly changed the name to another sound-alike that would translate as “May The Mouth Rejoice” and Coke went on to conquer China.

But someday I’m going to have a button made.

BITE The WAX TADPOLE
IT’S The REAL THING