Somebody probably thought they were so clever and cute when they thought of this
Someone needs to tell these guys how incredibly wrong and offensive this is (or here and here in case that link didn't work).
I went to the UW bookstore the other day to buy a present for the holiday gift grab, when I found, to my horror, a display table filled with open, pseudo-Chinese takeout boxes, stuffed with a ball a yarn, and topped with two knitting needles sticking into the ball, poking into the yarn like they were chopsticks.
I don't know if it was the manufacturers of these knitting kits who didn't do their research, or if maybe they originally come packaged differently and it was the individual resellers who put them on display who didn't know this, but in Chinese culture (and possibly some other East Asian cultures as well), it is disrespectful to stick chopsticks into your rice because it looks like the way the Chinese burn incense for their dead ancestors, like this. I remember doing it once as a kid, not knowing what it meant, and getting yelled at by my Chinese mom.
Really not a good way to market your product.
I went to the UW bookstore the other day to buy a present for the holiday gift grab, when I found, to my horror, a display table filled with open, pseudo-Chinese takeout boxes, stuffed with a ball a yarn, and topped with two knitting needles sticking into the ball, poking into the yarn like they were chopsticks.
I don't know if it was the manufacturers of these knitting kits who didn't do their research, or if maybe they originally come packaged differently and it was the individual resellers who put them on display who didn't know this, but in Chinese culture (and possibly some other East Asian cultures as well), it is disrespectful to stick chopsticks into your rice because it looks like the way the Chinese burn incense for their dead ancestors, like this. I remember doing it once as a kid, not knowing what it meant, and getting yelled at by my Chinese mom.
Really not a good way to market your product.