How To “Asianize” Your Products

Today I got a quick lesson on how to turn any object into an exotic Asian product from the mysterious Far East. See the bowl on the left? According to online shopping site Fab.com, this is the Lotus Tea Cup candle by Market Street, “inspired by vintage Chinese dinnerware.” Ooooh, pretty!

…It features delicate porcelain walls filled with hand-poured soy wax that’s gently scented with green and white teas. And after washing, the bowl is safe to eat from! Each candle is packaged in a box hand-stamped with a red wax seal and tied with a grosgrain ribbon.

But wait a second. Isn’t that a french onion soup bowl?

I know I’m not crazy because I love me some french onion soup (I highly recommend Thomas Keller’s recipe and I also highly recommend getting someone else to make it for you since it takes like 15,000 hours to cook). I also am a big enough of a fanatic that I bought a set of french onion soup bowls. I also like to order them a lot in restaurants. So when it comes to french onion soup bowls, I’m pretty much a certified expert….if restaurant receipts count as certification.

So why the hell is Fab.com and Market Street trying to hock us some exotic tea-scented soy candle in a french onion soup bowl? I know I’m not crazy because I found examples of these bowls online. Filled with french onion soup.

Okay, now I’m hungry. But if you don’t believe me, here’s a screencap of the product.

It annoys me that they attempted to turn generic ceramic bakeware into something chinky with a fortune cookie and a pair of chopsticks. Need to add a little ethnic twist to a somewhat blase product that you can buy at Crate & Barrel? Add stereotypical items to it and voila, you’ve got something cultural and Oriental!

But let’s think positive. I like to turn everything into a learning experience so I decided to transform some random things on my desk into exotic, Asian decor. I didn’t have any Chinese fortune cookies lying around but I did dig up packets of soy sauce and chopsticks. Take a look.

You may think this is just a regular jar of Skippy peanut butter but thanks to these new accessories, this is a jar of Peanut Tiger Blossom Balm, infused with the healing power of the Komodo dragon scales.

Tissue box? No way! Right here is an ancient Chinese secret: a box of delicate Rice Paper scented with fresh cherry blossoms and chock full of green tea antioxidants. If you’ve ever wanted to know how samurais look  young, it’s because they rub their faces with this every single day. Samurais are Japanese, not Chinese? Same thing!

Before, this was just a boring, old TV remote. Now, it’s an Oriental conversation piece, imported directly from the jungles of China (they have jungles there, right?) and built by the descendants of Confucius.

Did I just Asianize my desk up? I sure did. That said, if anyone can prove to me that this french onion soup bowl is actually a lotus tea cup, please let me know and I’ll admit my mistake.