Taiwanese financial expert mocked for saying many mainland Chinese ‘can’t afford pickles’
- Huang Shih-tsung said on television that the economy must be in trouble because shares in a well-known producer of the condiment were down
- Social media users posted pictures of costly items like seafood since ‘pickles are too expensive for every day, so we have to have other food now and then’
A Taiwanese financial expert’s remark on a television show that many mainland Chinese could not afford a 2 yuan (28 US cents) packet of pickles – a popular condiment usually made from mustard tuber – has been met with derision and disbelief across the strait.
Social media users had a field day on Friday mocking Huang Shih-tsung after he concluded on the EBC News show Crucial Moment that the mainland Chinese economy must be in serious trouble because shares in a well-known pickles manufacturer were down.
“Everyone knows [mainlanders] add pickles to their instant noodles. Middle-class and low-income, they always have pickles when the economy is good,” Huang said during his regular segment on the show on Wednesday.
“Recently, shares in Peiling Pickles have been falling because they can’t afford to buy pickles,” he said, mispronouncing Fuling Pickles, a company based in the city of the same name near Chongqing in southwest China.
The comment drew a similar reaction to that of a Taiwanese professor who, in 2013, declared on television that mainlanders were too poor to afford tea eggs. The popular street food, made by cracking the shell of a boiled egg then boiling it again in tea, sauce or spices and letting it steep to absorb the flavour, usually costs about 2 yuan.
On Friday, mainlanders took to social media to express their disbelief over the pickles remark – mainly with a sense of humour – after state-run tabloid Global Times posted the video clip of Huang on Weibo, China’s Twitter. It has been liked, commented on or forwarded by more than 930,000 users since it was posted on Thursday.