The Best Crab Meat Isn't Green
A few months ago, despite any possible PC ramifications in today's world, our boy Ricky went nuts over a set of plastic Crusader armor. It came with a chest piece, a sword and scabbard, and a helmet complete with face shield. He's a kid and guns and swords are cool and fun and work well in the cartoons. Like just about everything else on the planet, it was made in China.
There are a couple of messages molded into the back side of the chest piece that I find slightly disturbing. It's more literate (from an English speaking perspective) than those old Taiwanese or Korean electronics imports with instructions like, "Battery insert compartment A into."
The first message says: WARNING! THIS IS A TOY. DOES NOT PROVIDE PROTECTION. This is sensible advice. But then, in larger, much more obvious letters, is this, apparently offered for those who failed to heed the previous note: CAUTION: THE SIMULATED PROTECTIVE DEVICE WAS NOT SAFETY DEVICE AND OFFERED NO PROTECTION. MADE IN CHINA.
The first message appears a true warning, a caution against actually wading into battle falsely secure in the knowledge that the plastic armor would prevail against anything more diabolical than a light breeze. But the second message seems to be targeted to those who failed to heed the first. Or more accurately, their next of kin. Note the tense of the verbs in the note. This "caution" may be appropriate for the little plastic grave markers (also made in China) that I'm sure must be available somewhere.
Clearly China is taking over the world, and we're selling it to them by buying everything they sell. At least, though, they're warning us in advance of any armed conflict what not to wear.
There are a couple of messages molded into the back side of the chest piece that I find slightly disturbing. It's more literate (from an English speaking perspective) than those old Taiwanese or Korean electronics imports with instructions like, "Battery insert compartment A into."
The first message says: WARNING! THIS IS A TOY. DOES NOT PROVIDE PROTECTION. This is sensible advice. But then, in larger, much more obvious letters, is this, apparently offered for those who failed to heed the previous note: CAUTION: THE SIMULATED PROTECTIVE DEVICE WAS NOT SAFETY DEVICE AND OFFERED NO PROTECTION. MADE IN CHINA.
The first message appears a true warning, a caution against actually wading into battle falsely secure in the knowledge that the plastic armor would prevail against anything more diabolical than a light breeze. But the second message seems to be targeted to those who failed to heed the first. Or more accurately, their next of kin. Note the tense of the verbs in the note. This "caution" may be appropriate for the little plastic grave markers (also made in China) that I'm sure must be available somewhere.
Clearly China is taking over the world, and we're selling it to them by buying everything they sell. At least, though, they're warning us in advance of any armed conflict what not to wear.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 2:18 PM
2 Comments:
The thing that scared me the most was the use of past tense "WAS NOT A SAFETY DEVICE" - to me that means that some poor Chinese guy put the thing on and had someone start stabbing him. When it didn't work they figured they would warn everyone with the warning that it "OFFERED NO PROTECTION". So somewhere there is a Chinese guy with a big scar...
Order some Chinese food at your next opportunity. Surely the fortune cookie will say, "Seriously, the armor is just for show." And then your lucky numbers...
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