A couple of weeks ago the Joy City Mall opened, conveniently located just a few hundred meters from my office. Even though not all restaurants have opened yet I now regularly go there for lunch. While walking to my favorite (Japanese) restaurant I noticed a lot of strange (or at least interesting) things in the mall and I took a couple of pictures them.
First of all this ad. As the saying goes “Sex sells”, but I am not sure if the Chinese copywriter really understood what he was writing in English. Combining your ‘soft opening’ with a ‘sex roll’ in an ad certainly gave me a good laugh. But whether I want to try the sushi once the store opens I don’t know yet.
Not all the elevators are working yet and when I walked by one I noticed an engineer sitting on top of the elevator reading a magazine! Not the most logical place to sit, but at least nobody can disturb him there.
The ad for the ‘Ministry of Waxing’ store is also quite nice. Coming up with a decent ad for a waxing salon is not an easy feat (esp. not in conservative China), so I like the creativity of combining a hairy ape with two girls just wearing a bikini.
And when going up the escalator I suddenly realized that the ‘Ministry of Waxing’ has a glass front where you can literally see the women laying in the waxing chairs. I am not sure if that’s really what I want to see when going for lunch. And even though the word privacy is virtually unknown in China, I still don’t think that clients like to be watched while they get a waxing treatment.
Wages for waiters and waitresses are still quite low in China, but increasing fast. This restaurant found a good way to reduce the number of staff required and also made the ordering process a lot easier. They use terminals outside the restaurant where you order your food before you go in and get seated. Smart idea.
The last picture that I felt worth taking is of the ferris wheel that was built next to the mall in order to attract customers. The idea itself is a good one, free entertainment always attracts crowds, but the only thing is that the views from the mall itself are much better than from the ferris wheel. This picture was taken from a middle floor in the mall, and you already look down on it. And as I wrote in an earlier blog post about this ferris wheel, they advertise with looking at the Suzhou Creek from the wheel but as you can see in this picture there is no way that you can see the actual river from up there. Nice try though.