An unusual promotion deal in a restaurant in Hangzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, has been making the rounds on social media in the country. This is because the discount offered is only for female customers – and it’s based on the size of their breasts.
The ‘Trendy Shrimp’ restaurant put up a sign on July 31 with the message: “The whole city is looking for BREASTS”, alongside a line-up of female characters from the online multiplayer video game “League of Legends”. Each character has successively larger breasts, and each one advertises a different discount according to bra cup size: from A cup (measured as 10cm), for which the customer will have to pay 95 percent of the meal price; to a G cup (measured as 25cm), for which the customer will only pay 35 percent of the meal price. The sign also states that if coming in a large party, customers need only take the woman with the largest cup size into account.
Locals called the town council to complain about the sexist advert.
(A photo of the advert, which was published on the Qianjiang Evening Post)
The restaurant took the advert down on August 2, after authorities received a deluge of complaints and declared that it breached advertising codes.
Customers can speak to a female staff member to “avoid embarrassment”
The restaurant manager Lan Shenggang told Chinese media that the controversial stunt did help to raise brand awareness for the restaurant – and that they’d seen a marked increase in female customers coming in. He added that female customers can ask for the discount from a female member of staff to “avoid embarrassment”, and that male members of staff will only be serving food.
Some people were quick to take to social media to express their disgust at the offer.
“Why not do a promotion according to the size of your penis?”
This person left a review of the restaurant on Dianping, a Chinese reviewing site similar to TripAdvisor or Yelp. He wrote: “Besides the taste, the idea of a shop is more important. The taste is good. I knew about the promotion when paying the bill. It is disgusting. Why not do a promotion according to the size of your penis? They don’t respect women. It is vulgar. It is in my blacklist regardless of the good taste.”
Another reviewer wrote: “The promotion is awful. I can imagine the wretched boss when I see the poster. He doesn’t respect women.”
However, unsurprisingly, some people don’t seem to be too disappointed with the unusual promotional deal…
This message posted to Weibo, a Chinese social networking site that is similar to Twitter, above says: “Two kinds of people are going to accept the offer: women with big breasts, and men.”
This post reads: “Any girls with big breasts, go with me and I’ll pay for the meal.”
