Chinese condom brands

Last night, at the checkout of one of my local 7/11's, I thought I spotted a new one.

Small One, I thought it said. What a charmingly frank innovation in the world of condom marketing!

Alas, no. The box was on its side, and some way away from me. It actually said Salome - which is still fairly inventive, but not groundbreaking.

One of the most popular brands around at the moment appears to be the more prosaically aspirational Strong Man (yes, they're all named in English!).

And another I've spotted recently is Roman (yes, I know the Americans have had Trojans for years, but I rather suspect we have Russell Crowe's Gladiator to thank for this in China).

The leading manufacturer over here seems to be the Japanese Okamoto company (responsible for such intriguing brand concepts as 'Skinless Skin' and 'Beyond 7'). For cheap laughs, though, they are easily outperformed by their leading domestic rival, which rejoices in the name of Jissbon (pronounced - at least by sniggering foreigners - 'Jizz....').

I also find it curious that the packaging always seems to portray Caucasian rather than Asian couples. I wonder if this wasn't originally intended to stigmatize and discourage casual sex: "This is a Western vice that we Chinese should not engage in." In fact, of course, it only serves to glamourise it. All things Western seem to be seen as terribly fashionable and desirable here these days. I was reminded of the classic example of an advertisement for birth control in Africa - I think it occurs in Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief, but was inspired by a real-life example - which had quite the opposite of the intended effect: its African readers saw a man with a modern home and a full belly but only one child as a loser.

[An aside: when I first came here, there were quite a lot of vending machines around - not in bars or toilets, but just bolted to the wall here and there on the sides of the street. They invariably featured rather arousing photographs of very beautiful Western couples embracing each other - no nudity, but much passion. Alas, these all disappeared after a year or two. I gather that they were being broken into too often - not for the money, but for the condoms themselves. Hmm, yes.... there's another thing: never having investigated them myself, I don't know how they were supposed to operate. The highest value coin in China is only 1 RMB, and even those are confined to the more 'sophisticated' cities like Shanghai; you hardly ever see them in Beijing.]