The singer’s photo was used unlawfully to advertise for sexual dysfunction and infertility
Taiwanese singer-songwriter Lee Hom’s fans were horrified when they found their idol’s picture being used to endorse andrology at a hospital in Henan, China.
The star’s picture was found on an advertisement for sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment at the Gong Yi Eastern Hospital, and fans lamented, “How can we accept this, we’ll have to submit a complaint!”
This is not the first time the singer’s photos have been used illegally to advertise products, and fans were enraged that the hospital went as far as to use Lee Hom as an unwitting spokesperson for andrology.
They sighed, “Using other people’s photos without asking them for permission shows that they’ve lost the righteousness that medical practitioners ought to have!”
Adding on to the controversy, Lee Hom attracted flak for posting on his Weibo: “Bringing chinked-out to the whole world, performing in New York tomorrow!”
Netizens who did not approve of Lee Hom accused him of insulting the Chinese, chastising, “’Chinked-out’ is a severely derogatory term towards the Chinese. As an ABC (America-born Chinese), what is Lee Hom hoping to achieve by using the term to describe his songs even while he is aware of the racist and insulting meaning that it holds?”
Amidst the public outrage, China’s main search engine Baidu stepped up to support Lee Hom: “Chink is indeed a derogatory term for the Chinese, just like ‘negro’. ‘Chinked’ (in past tense) represents that the era of Chinese bumpkins has ended. The ‘out’ following it expresses the idea that this has all come to an end.”
Netizens bombarded the post with protests right after it was uploaded, stating, “I support Lee Hom for his courage in trying to re-shape the meaning of words with his influence. However, this explanation is crap. If you’re illiterate, don’t try to translate things.” Both parties insisted on their opposing interpretations of ‘chinked-out’.
Lee Hom’s fans used Baidu Baike (Baidu’s Wikipedia) to explain the singer’s words: “Lee Hom has always been influenced by black people, and they also had a derogatory term that was used to describe them: ‘Negro’. However, they made use of the popularity of their music and wrote the word into lyrics, turning ‘negro’ into a positive word. The concept of the ‘chinked-out’ style of music was born with the release of Lee Hom’s album “Shangri-La”. You call me a Chinese bumpkin (chink), but that’s already over (-ed), and now we’re going onto the world stage (out) to show our grace to the world.”
![Lee Hom]()
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