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A wedding ignored tradition in southern China (left) and one pup got a special birthday present (right). Photo: Handout
People & CultureTrending in China

Quirky China: 520 drones for a dog’s birthday, a groom in a wedding dress and feminine hygiene advertising faux pas

  • In this week’s quirky China, a woman spent US$15,700 renting drones for her dog’s birthday
  • The feminine hygiene company Kotex apologised for an advertisement featuring men using sanitary pads incorrectly
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Alice Yan
Alice Yanin Shanghai
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A woman in central China’s Hunan province spent 100,000 yuan (US$15,700) renting 520 drones to celebrate her pet dog’s birthday.

The drones were organised to form Chinese characters to spell: “Happy 10th birthday to Doudou” while flying above the Xiangjiang River in the city of Changsha, reported Thepaper.cn.
The drones would then move to form patterns of a birthday cake and a gift box containing a bone.

In the video, the dog’s owner and several friends wearing Christmas hats sang “happy birthday” to the pooch.

This drone image in the sky was made to celebrate a dog’s birthday. Photo: Weibo

The amount of drones used, 520, was also not an accident as the number is commonly used as a love phrase because the Mandarin pronunciation for the digits sounds similar to “I love you”.

The ceremony was held near a slew of high-rise residential buildings, designated as drone no-fly zones by the city’s rules on aircraft management.

The local police department said they were not aware of the event, and an official said people should apply for police approval before flying drones. The police said they would shoot the machines down if spotted.

Flipping the script

A wedding in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has become a local curiosity because the groom and his best men wore bridal dresses while the bride and her bridesmaids dressed in suits.

The groom, surnamed Wang, said both he and his wife are good friends with the six best men, who had promised the bride that they would dress up as women at her wedding.

These men have gone viral in China for their beautiful wedding dresses. Photo: Weibo

A viral video clip showed the bride getting on one knee in a mock proposal during the ring ceremony at the wedding. Another scene showed some of the men struggling to button up their dresses.

“At first, I felt ashamed, but after walking several steps, I felt fine, and it was even a bit addictive,” one best man told news portal sina.com.cn. “I will go completely crazy with my buddy on his big day.”

Advertising gone astray

The Chinese branch of the American menstrual hygiene brand Kotex has apologised after its latest advertisement featured men using sanitary pads as sleep masks, shoe insoles and window cleaners.

The video started with the question, “Do you know why this man always carries a bag of sanitary pads with him?” and proceeded to show various scenes of men using menstrual pads for all sorts of reasons.

Kotex was forced to apologise for an advertisement that featured men using female sanitary pads as sleeping masks. Photo: Weibo

Netizens complained that the advertisement mocked women and that it was strange that men were promoting a female product.

In a statement posted on Weibo on Tuesday, the company said the footage was uploaded online by its advertisement agent without its approval.

“We are sincerely sorry for our customers’ poor experience caused by this video,” said Kotex. “It is against our brand’s values and is absolutely unacceptable to us.”

Kotex said it suspended the social media account that published the video.

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