Just received this e-mail greeting card from the PR agency AsiaMedia. They do a pretty good job with their clients, as I frequently get e-mails and invites to events even if I don’t always mention them in my writing. Sure, it’s their job, but I know plenty of flaky PR agencies who live off of a handful of big pocketed global firms and do some very superficial outreach.
Having said that and given that many of AsiaMedia’s clients as well as the media contacts they have are foreigners, I had to marvel at either the agency’s sly sense of humor or its insane obliviousness to Christian religious iconography. The Chinese propaganda-era imagery of the happy, braided youths in the foreground pointing to China’s Communist red star atop the Shanghai Exhibition Center, with the nativity title “We looked up and saw a star shining in the East,” is a masterstroke of ironic dissonance.
Ok, so it’s obviously a joke; the people at AsiaMedia aren’t that stupid, especially now that the venerable Dan Washburn has indicated that the firm is headed by a very liberal American — wait, so liberal he’s a socialist, mayhaps? In any case, it made cynical media types like me (yes, that’s right, I just called myself a media type) pause and take notice. Good Christmas cheer, everyone.
Tags: asiamedia, chinese propaganda, christmas
