By FEI WU
Consumer Correspondent

Shortly after this photo was taken, Wang was admitted to hospital with eye injuries (LOLA)

DONGGUAN (China Daily Show) – A seemingly worthless compound of plastic, rubber and outdated electronics has become the season’s essential holiday gift, for no apparent reason.

The Wangle™, a cuboid bauble that children can discard, dismantle or injure others with as they wish, has helped revitalize a  toy industry in the doldrums.

The Wangle™ is the brainchild of Guangdong entrepreneur and factory owner Wang Li (pictured, right), and comes in a full range of exciting colors: green, red, pink, red and green.

Delighted CEO Wang says that he came up with the idea for the Wangle™ after reading about China’s vast manufacturing overcapacity.

“So many factories are out there, making bespoke bits and pieces for specific products for which there is no longer an overseas demand. I thought, ‘Why not put all these excess pieces of pointless plastic together – and make something both vital and completely non-consequential?’”

The toy company’s slogan – “Absolutely no refunds” – seems to symbolize this simple, no-nonsense message.

Yet stocks of the Wangle™ are already said to be in short supply, amid protests over working conditions and pay disputes in China. Nearly half a million Wangles™ were lost in a factory fire in late November, which also killed 32 employees.

The parent company, Wang’s Harmless Toys, has denied any problems, saying they are “simply waiting a little longer this year before we begin churning this thing out. What – you know any different?”

Blanket advertising has made most parents’ lives a living, walking hell

Flustered Wisconsin mother Beverly Walton, 36, said she has visited three Wal-Marts and two Toys R’ Us over the last week in her fruitless hunt for the Wangle™, which the company warns is “unsuitable for use with house pets, small children, humans or animals.”

“They told me they had plenty in stock but when I arrived, there were no Wangles™, just a long line of angry moms,” said Walton. “It’s almost as if they were deliberately screwing with us in order to manufacture demand for a decidedly superfluous item… Wait, I gotta run! Monica just texted me Macy’s has new stock.”

Consumer groups have advised parents that they can avoid unwanted peer pressure for the Wangle™ by withdrawing children from school, disconnecting all telecommunication devices and quarantining themselves within some kind of subterranean bunker.

Despite parental doubts, however, children across the continental United States were yesterday insisting that purchasing the Wangle™ was a no-brainer decision this Christmas, and would likely remain so until December 28 at the earliest.

“This is going to be a prerequisite for leaving the house and looking my fellow tweens in the eye,” said 12-year-old neighborhood bully Arnold Tuttle. “And I cannot see this not being the case until, at least, maybe the first week of next year?”

However, environmentalists are already warning that the Wangle™ – which Wang claims is “100% non-disposable” – could bring screams of terror along with wails of glee to the Christmas celebrations.

“Who knows what the Wangle™ might do? It’s pointless, completely un-recyclable and has not passed a single safety test,” said Greenpeace spokesman Anita Joan. “Anything could happen.”

“Exactly,” responded Wang. “Kids love surprises!”

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A Wangle ad inspiring nostalgia for traditional times, when toys used to be made in Hong Kong

by SHENG DANJIE
Consumer Correspondent

Shoppers peruse novelty Noel bollocks

DONGGUAN (China Daily Show) – The West may be facing its least-tacky Christmas in living memory, thanks to the recent slump in Chinese exports.

The ongoing Eurozone crisis, combined with disappointing unemployment figures from the US, have reduced demand for cheap, plastic seasonal ornaments manufactured in China by an estimated 46%, a recent World Bank report says.

Manufacturers in China are consequently feeling the pinch.

Hundreds of production lines in the Zhejiang and Guangdong factories, that produce the unsightly plastic bullshit which festoons European and American homes every year, are said to be standing idle.

Experts say this could mean the West’s most tasteful Christmas period in over two decades – when China first began to manufacture camp festive trinkets on an industrial scale in 1991, according to market analysts.

Market researcher Anders Hönigsen says that the recession will harm nearly all sectors of the Yuletide tat industry.

“Internally illuminated plastic dioramas of the first Nativity, multi-coloured spray-snow globes and animatronic, talking Santas: you name it,” Hönigsen told China Daily Show. “You won’t be seeing much of this crap in landfill come next year.”

This tacky fire hazard could become a thing of the past

First to feel the pinch will be the retailers of spindly, pathetic, artificial Christmas trees (pictured, left), experts say.

“These items already represented an utterly fruitless purchase for over 60% of median-income American and European households,” Hönigsen said. “Fortunately, they have now become unaffordable as well.”

With holly-and-ivy prices stagnant, a European mistletoe glut and reports of unprecedented three-for-one offers on IKEA pine-scented wax candles, it seems that – like it or not – many Western families will this year be spending the upcoming Christmas period surrounded by low-key, traditional decorations that can be recycled, and later enjoyed, again and again.

The thought has struck fear in the heart of the commercial sector.

Factory bosses are already hoping to reassure foreign importers that, at the last minute, Western consumers can probably be counted upon to revert to type and mindlessly purchase valueless ornaments – manufactured using precious mineral reserves – to ensure a Christmas as commercialized and soulless as any other.

RIP traditional headwear. But what will women wear now?

“We’re delaying our annual, tasteless churn-out until all our orders are through,” claimed Wang Li, president of Wang’s Harmless Toys, a tat company based in Dongguan, Guangdong province. “Waiting stimulates demand, which guarantees production of endless cut-price kitsch.”

Business leaders in Europe are appealing for families spending the holiday season together not to focus on the simple, homespun pleasures of Christmas, but instead to remember the importance of arguing over how much was spent.

“We may need to ratchet up future advertising, so next year’s Christmas marketing bonanza begins in, say, late August rather than early September,” said Alan de Soto of the European Retailers Association.

“Otherwise, we will be faced with the ugly spectre of a so-called modern Christmas – one with homes garlanded by holly, candles burning on the mantlepiece, carols sung around a living, natural tree, and the restrained enjoyment of good food and drink in the bosom of one’s family,” de Soto shuddered. “That’s not what Christmas is all about.”

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An Asian child puts the finishing fake touches to a uniquely shitty tree

By BERT N’ERNAI
Relationships Correspondent

Jiang says she has spent her whole life waiting for this moment

DONGGUAN (China Daily Show) – In a move that has stunned long-time observers of the Professional Mistress League (PML), notably lissom arm-candy Jiang Bingfling, 16, has been been promoted to the Beijing Premier Division.

The fragrant rising star of Shenzhen’s “Mistress Village,” Jiang – known as the ‘Camomile Concubine’ –has been a mainstay of the vibrant southern boomtown’s Lo Wu district league since she qualified aged 13.

The trade was officially announced as being made to an “anonymous Beijing bureaucrat,” in exchange for two future draft-picks for Jiang’s former owner, the Hong Kong playa and tobacco-flavoring millionaire, 63-year-old Vincent “Sammy” Kwok.

The ernai exchange followed months of tense negotiations, which began after Kwok told friends he was “looking for perhaps a bit more variety” to complement his Guangdong-based PML league.

The PML has been mired in controversy since actress Zhang Ziyi, a long-time friend of disgraced politician Bo Xilai, publicly transferred herself to nearby Hong Kong. The move was widely seen as an attempt to disprove allegations that she was the PML’s top scorer, boasting payments of $1 million per match.

Jiang’s new bureaucrat-boss is believed to be Hu Yong, 55, head honcho at the Beijing Department of Floral Science. Sources say Hu has had his eye on the long-limbed Jiang since seeing her perform at an after-hours trade meeting in Guangzhou with Kwok, and now wanted to “put another kind of appendage on her” – namely, his wrinkled mouth.

“Though he had already heard tell of her deft moves, Jiang’s skillful throat and innocent talent for the songs of both Cantonese “heavenly angel” Wang Fei [aka Fay Wong] and Mandopop hit-machine Jolin Tsai endeared her to Hu’s heart forever,” said the friend. “He wanted to bang her on the spot, but instead began formal negotiations with Kwok shortly after.”

Hu says he is looking forward to playing away for much of this season

Kwok, who had talent-spotted Jiang in a KTV bar six weeks earlier, is said to be delighted with the deal.

“Sammy felt the relationship had gone as far as it could go,” said a source to Kwok. “Jiang was also seen as very last-season. There’s no shortage of rural talent in Shenzhen and seemingly no end to Sammy’s wealth and peremptory boredom.”

Jiang will receive a two-bedroom furnished flat in Beijing’s exclusive Diaoyutai No 7 Complex in Haidian district, jade goods worth an estimated 20,000 yuan and unlimited free Wifi. In return, she is expected to provide “agreeable and demure comforts” to Hu in the sporadic moments when he can slip away from his wife, family, official duties and numerous other mistresses.

“It’s a great deal for Jiang,” said a top PML agent. “Hu’s last girlfriend went on ‘the great shopping trip to the sky,’ after threatening to blackmail him.”

The lucky Lolita seemed to agree.

Speaking from a bath of asses’ milk and lotus petals, between long periods of tedium and plaiting her hair, Jiang listlessly told China Daily Show she was “grateful for the opportunity” and is currently hard at work perfecting her puppy noises.

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