Girl About Globe | Shanghai’s auto motto: go feminism!

Linda Kennedy

From G-strings at the Shanghai Auto Show to Pyongyang Pilates, this is my round up of global quirky events.

First, a new drink is to be launched called Fake News Ale. It’s produced by a craft brewing company in Canada, has a cartoon of Donald Trump on the can and is marketed under the hashtag #MakeBeerGreatAgain. But what if you’re neither male nor into ale? How about a Fake News Cosmopolitan, made with vodka Jared Kushner sourced during a Russia meeting? It’s perfect. A Cosmopolitan is everything Trump ain’t.

In North Korea, there were parades for Day of the Sun. Women wore traditional Korean outfits made of an obviously synthetic fibre, but they kept moving thereby avoiding the prospect of a nightie bomb. That many nylon outfits rubbing against each other would create a hell of a shock.

Next, there were North Korean female soldiers, goose-stepping with such calf flexibility interest grew in the possibility of a secret exercise phenomenon called Pyongyang Pilates. North Korean Military Fitness coming to a mat near you?

It also gave us the chance to be reminded North Korea has state-sanctioned hairstyles. Short for married ladies. Longer for single dames. After its missile tests, North Korea once again wields power using bangs.

At the Shanghai Auto Show, Scottish singer/songwriter Amy Macdonald performed with her guitar. Women at car beauty pageants (that’s what they are) are usually there for their C or D cups, not their C or D chords.

Go Shanghai! This new take on a woman showing off her G-string comes two years after ‘booth babes’ were banned, due to the Chinese government telling the car show to keep things classy. It’s feminism in in the fast lane.

Staying at the auto show, there was surely a ‘bums on seats’ blow when a pure-electric sports utility vehicle was unveiled by Chinese carmaker Nio. This SUV is called the ES8. But it only has seven seats. We all know how much the number eight is revered in China, to the extent the ‘e’ in e-cars is as much for the eight as electric. Did the ES8 designers try really hard – and fail – to squeeze in extra bits of seat?  Like me getting into certain pairs of jeans.

Lastly, which four-letter ‘f’ word might Hong Kong’s MTR soon allow?  Food? Or something more sweary? 

The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is the MTR is going to relax its position on swear words. It’s proposing to update its bylaws, and the fine for cursing is set to go down from HK$5000 dollars to HK$2000. 

Eating and drinking, though, will remain forbidden. Which means no cure for ‘snack rage’. I’m not the only one. Can’t be. Don’t you get mad when people are eating food, perhaps particularly smelly cooked food, on the MTR? 

Have you said anything? What happened? Were you left with egg on your face? 

To close this transport bit, a taste of the luggage lunacy which apparently occurs frequently. Some of the things people try to take on the MTR are: washing machines, refrigerators, mattresses. Of course such behavior is ridiculous. And selfish. But if I were on a carriage where the air con had broken down, and there was fridge next to me, or standing on one of the new trains with those cold metal seats, and someone with a mattress were alongside, well, I’d like to say that I would eat my words – the ones used in the early description of such behavior being ridiculous and selfish – but that would be against the rules. I’d just swear in delight and try to make friends.