Manshu

The Beijing Olympics will be remembered for at least two things. Michael Phelps and the arrival of China on the world scene and that too in great style.

China has sparkled in every respect, be it scale or precision. The games have been organized wonderfully well and even the usually critical western media has been profuse in their praise.

China has finally arrived, and it has carved out a space for itself, one that will not be only associated with mass manufacturing, cheap exports, regulated markets and opaque financial reporting, but rather be associated with an image of a proud nation which is an emerging super-power.

China has created a category for itself and only China is in that category. In the days to come, people in the media will not be saying China and India in one breath, like they are used to.

With these Olympics China will be able to shred a lot of stereotypes associated with it and a new image of the country will be formed in the minds of people globally.

There is a GE ad that features rural India with a doctor traveling miles on trains and broken roads finally reaching a scanty one room medical facility and treats an old patient with GE equipment. Then he proceeds out and hands over gifts to the local children. Everything about the ad has ‘rural’ stamped all over it. And the tag-line says something like GE is reaching out to rural India.

There is another ad where a beautiful young Chinese girl is walking and a young guy is following her through a fruits and vegetables market and both are exchanging smiles and glances, till ultimately the guy trips over and breaks some bones (much like real life).

The next scene cuts to a spacious room with the earlier beautiful girl now wearing a doctor’s coat and getting ready to treat the young man. And the punchline is GE helping out love in rural China.

Only thing is that there is really nothing rural about the whole setting of the ad. Apart from maybe the fruits and vegetables market.

If you ever get to see the two ads you will know what I mean, one is a more glamorous rural setting and the other a more dilapidated rural one.

This ad probably marks how China will be viewed in the future, especially by the West. A flamboyant, hopeful, prosperous nation which is no longer an emerging economy but a rising superpower.

Manshu Verma