There’s a young business in Beijing called Sweetie Salad. Or possibly Salad Sweetie. (Translation’s a bear.) Their thing seems to be delivering fresh salads to people at work. The salads are in tall plastic cups, and you can shake the salad up with dressing. I think.
Wishing to make a big noise on their one-year anniversary, Sweetie Salad decided on the obvious publicity stunt: Import a bunch of handsome young foreigners, dress them as Spartan soldiers, and have them march around Beijing’s fancier shopping districts giving away salad. What could go wrong? Any way you look at it, there’re bound to be people talking, saying “Sweetie Salad.”
We come with peaceful vitamins and antioxidants.
Yeah, it’s true, maybe they’re saying “What dorks at Sweetie Salad,” or “I can’t believe Sweetie Salad has that much money to burn,” or even “The revolution is not a salad party, Sweetie Salad capitalist-roaders,” but they’re saying “Sweetie Salad,” and that has to be good.
Healthy eating on the go.
It’s all good unless you’re a handsome young foreign model who doesn’t speak Chinese. The LA Times hears they were mostly Russian.
Lots of people took pictures. Some followed them to take more pictures. I don’t know if anyone accepted a salad. Somehow the police heard about it. Later they said there had been a “mass complaint.” Anyway, they got several calls. Allegedly there had been no permit. Cops ordered the models to disperse.
Disperse? How? Melt into the crowd?
Dispersion did not happen to police satisfaction, and at least two were wrestled to the ground. “Police officers decided to accost them to restore public order after the foreigners ignored several warnings” as the Global Times put it. According to Beijing Youth Daily, the models were detained for “causing a public disturbance.” Some masses disturb more easily than others.
All in a day’s work.
How many models/Spartans were there? Time.com reported there were around 100. A popular blog post said “300 Spartans were no match for Beijing police!” Seems like you’d have to sell tons of salad to justify the expense of importing that many artistes. The Beijinger says it was more like two dozen, but uses the phrase “bulging pectorals.” Which probably made it seem like more.
Sweetie Salad explained and apologized:
Our “Spartans” event yesterday generated far more interest than we had expected. Due to this, the police came and helped us handle the situation and disperse the crowd. Our company had thorough and sincere communication with the police last night regarding the unexpected enthusiasm that arose from the extreme popularity of our event, and there are no more misunderstanding between us and the police.
“Spartans” was part of Sweetie Salad’s one year anniversary events. The purpose of this event was to highlight Sweetie Salad’s core values, which stand for a nutritious diet and a healthy lifestyle. In order to promote these values, we decided to use the image of Spartans, and hired strong and handsome foreign models as a way to encourage our prospective customers to keep a healthy body shape.
After the incident yesterday, we sincerely acknowledge our lack of experience in organizing large scale, offline events as a startup company. We abided by the instructions from the police. In the future, we will advertize our brand and core values and serve our customers without affecting public order.
Thank you for your concern and thank you for your support. Moreover, we truly thank the police for giving us assistance and instruction during our event.
P.S. We are sorry for all of those concerned about this incident. We will strive to make better products and will pass on the healthy lifestyle to others.
Lycurgus urges Spartans to eat more salad. They have questions.
That’s not very candid. ‘The police came and helped us?’ There’s no evidence that Sweetie Salad Spartan-wranglers wanted police help. Though I’ll bet they did have “thorough and sincere communication” with the police. Possibly fees were paid.
They are right to acknowledge their lack of experience in throwing offline events.
The apology comes at the very end, which isn’t impressive placement. To whom should they apologize? I don’t think the public were harmed or frightened – sounds like they were boggled, amused, supplied with an anecdote, and in some cases, given a salad. The police were offended, but I’m sure the “thorough and sincere communication” included a lot of apologies to them.
There were reports of shouting Spartans. Some of these guys aren’t even raising their voices.
No, the people who deserve thorough and sincere apologies, whose situation isn’t anywhere acknowledged, are the models. It must have seemed like a great gig. Free trip to China, costumes supplied, walk around being strong and handsome, earn appreciation by giving away food, spread the news of healthy choices!
Next time they’ll know to say: “Love the sandals, love the cape, adore the concept. Do you have a permit for this?”
Note: Hat tip to Susan McCarthy — a different Susan McCarthy — for tipping SorryWatch off to this story.
Historical note: Spartan hoplites (infantrymen) fought in heavy armor. They did not fight in leather hot pants and capes, as depicted in the stupid movie *300*.
I guess warfare consists of more than waving salad, and bulging your pecs at people?
This may be the best SorryWatch ever!
And…arg. This pushes my buttons, because I spend a lot of time in Japan, where foreigners are equally “exotic” and sometimes viewed more like amusing pets than people. Marching 30 or 100 or 300 scantily clad foreign models through the streets of Beijing and then making a further publicity stunt out of some of them being wrestled to the ground by the cops for doing what you paid them to do? Deserves a lot more than even a new, improved apology. I wish those guys got paid a LOT to do that, but I suspect not, since my bet would be that none of them got a free trip to China; that they are in fact guys who teach English and barely make their rent each month, supplementing it by “modeling” of various kinds. At least, that’s what their situation would likely be if they were in Japan. This thing is all kinds of wrong.
Well said. Though maybe they teach Russian instead of English.
The righteousness of the post before mine makes me ashamed to say I giggled all the way through this one. I apologize.
Apparently “foreigners” in China are considered like exotic pets or precocious children. I don’t think it ever occurred to the Chinese to apologize to the models. (And I’m pretty sure they were already in China, they didn’t get any free trip anywhere.) There is an interesting story about it on This American Life:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/467/transcript
Yup, they must be fakes. At 76 I’m hardly an up to date connoisseur of male models, but clearly these fellows don’t pose or stand like models. However, what a great morning chuckle this made for me as well as an interesting introduction to SorryWatch.
I imagine that a lot of the strange wording was due to fear of the police, and what kind of trouble they might make for the company (or rather, the individuals who had to deal with them) in the future. It’s an apology to the police, made under duress.
I remember a bit of culture shock one time encountering police in china. My father was arguing with the proprietor and some of the staff of a dumpling shop, because our bill was twice as high as the values posted on the menu sign, which he didn’t expect my father to be able to read. A trio of officers wandered down the road in the middle of the discussion and abruptly the conversation was paused as everyone made themselves look busy polishing tables. It seemed to me that I saw a look of real terror in the guy’s eyes. Which didn’t stop the conversation from starting up again after they were gone.
At that point my father gave up, saying “I realized at that moment that I could make life very difficult for him, over what was actually about $2, and it really wasn’t worth it.”