Exactly a week from now, on Friday Sept. 13, Asian communities the world over will be celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. They’ll likely enjoy a family dinner, gaze up at the full moon, light colorful paper lanterns, and slice into mooncakes they’ve been gifted. And perhaps more so than in years past, they might talk politics.
Shaped like an oversized hockey puck and filled with thick lotus seed paste, the sturdy mooncake pastry is believed to have been used by Ming revolutionaries to deliver secret messages to orchestrate an uprising to overthrow the Mongols at the end of the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century.
Inspired by ISRO? Here’s how much money you can make in Indian space research
Fast forward to 2019, and mooncakes are again being used to spread a revolutionary message. In July, several weeks into the protests that kicked off in early June in opposition to an extradition bill, the decades-old family owned Wah Yee Tang bakery in Hong Kong started stamping its mooncakes with slogans of the protest movement. These include the not entirely family-friendly “journalist your mum” and “freedom cunt”—insults flung at protesters by police officers, and which protesters quickly re-appropriated as rallying cries—as well as more innocuous ones like “Hong Konger,” “add oil,” and “Be water.” The subversive pastries were such a hit that the shop at one point had to stop taking orders.
Another mooncake maker has been less lucky in the run-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival. Taipan Bread and Cake is a large bakery chain in Hong Kong, known for a pristine white mooncake, and it got swept up in political controversy after it was revealed that a company director had written Facebook posts in support of the city’s protesters.
In an article on Monday (Sept. 2), Communist Party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, denounced the director, Garic Kwok, for “supporting activities of those dressed in black,” accusing the cakes of being filled with “bad thought.” China Daily echoed a similar sentiment the next day, noting there was a “price to pay for angering mainland consumers” with “improper words.” Taipan’s official online store was soon taken off Alibaba’s Tmall, and mooncakes were pulled from supermarket shelves. Kwok, who is also the son of Taipan’s founder, deleted and apologized for his Facebook posts, but it appeared that the damage had been done. By Thursday (Sept. 5), a mainland Chinese importer of Taipan goods said it had no choice but to destroy a huge stock of mooncakes after retailers sent them back en masse.
Taipan is just the latest in a long string of companies that have incurred the wrath of Chinese state media and consumers for having allegedly offended political sensibilities. Cathay Pacific, the embattled flagship carrier of Hong Kong, has faced similar pressures, only on a much larger scale. Other foreign companies that have been singled out in recent weeks include Coach, Versace, Zara, Asics, and Swarovski.
Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news.
More stories from Quartz:
InMobi’s newly-created lockscreen technology business just raised $45 million
Delhi consumes more weed than Los Angeles, Mumbai more than London
Wake up and smell the diesel.
Elon Musk is under siege. The billionaire entrepreneur has been the object of public attacks for several weeks now by some of Tesla's major and most vocal retail shareholders. There is one that stands out: it is Leo KoGuan, a chinese investor.
How Social Security income is taxed depends on how much income you have from other sources. Here are the 2022 IRS limits for individual and joint filers.
Time flies. But it also crashes.
The finance icon doesn't mince words when it comes to debt.
These innovative stocks are surefire buys following a peak decline of 38% in the growth-driven Nasdaq Composite.
Bigger isn't always better though.
Although the dividend yield is tempting, investors need to dig deeper into the companies to understand why it's so high.
Some Twitter employees finally received their severance after several delays, but the emails are being marked as spam.
A $10 million nest egg will pay for a comfortable retirement for the majority of retirement savers. However, whether that much is enough to fund any specific retiree's golden years depends on a number of factors. This includes pre-retirement lifestyle … Continue reading → The post Is $10 Million Enough to Retire? appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plunged 33% in 2022, coming off its worst year since 2008. After tech's heady days earlier in the pandemic, inflation reared its head for the first time since before the Great Financial Crisis, and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at its fastest pace in decades. While some may be expecting a big bounce-back from the most beaten-down tech stocks (which have fallen the farthest), lots of uncertainty remains.
Oil prices enter 2023 in the mid-$70s — around the same level they were at the start of 2022. Three that stand out to a few Fool.com contributors for their resiliency in any type of oil market are Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD), Enbridge (NYSE: ENB), and Chevron (NYSE: CVX). Reuben Gregg Brewer (Enterprise Products Partners): Profits in the upstream (oil production) and downstream (chemicals and refining) segments of the energy sector are heavily impacted by highly volatile oil and natural gas prices.
Berkshire owns New England Asset Management (NEAM), a financial institution with $5.9 billion in invested assets, but none of those securities will appear in Berkshire's 13F filings. Instead, NEAM files its own Form 13Fs with the Securities and Exchange Commission. To be perfectly clear, Buffett does not control NEAM's invested assets, at least not directly, but he does run the company that ultimately owns those assets.
If you have a high net worth, one of the most powerful tools available to you is a trust. They can help you pass your wealth to your heirs and may be able to shield your money from creditors. However, … Continue reading → The post 6 Trusts for High-Net-Worth Estate Planning appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.
On Tuesday the IRS announced its annual adjustments to the standard deduction and tax brackets for the 2023 tax year. They are a considerable increase over 2022. This is a response to ongoing inflation, which has the effect of eroding … Continue reading → The post Inflation Tax Adjustments For 2023: What You Need to Know appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.
In this article, we discuss Jim Cramer’s recession-proof stock picks. To skip to the top four stocks in this list, go to Jim Cramer’s Top 4 Recession-Proof Stock Picks. Warning bells for recession started ringing in 2022 and they haven’t stopped since. As if investors weren’t already spooked enough, a fresh warning comes straight from […]Market forces rained on the parade of Silvergate Capital Corporation ( NYSE:SI ) shareholders today, when the analysts…
EV stocks have multiplied in Tesla’s wake and as electric cars look to go mainstream. Here are the top-rated electric-vehicle makers.
I believe the gold's technical setup is very attractive, and here's how I've chosen to play it.
In this article, we discuss 14 best stocks to buy before the 2023 recession. If you want to see more stocks in this selection, check out 5 Best Stocks To Buy Before the 2023 Recession. Investment advisory Barclays forecasts that 2023 will be one of the worst years for the global economy in forty years. […]
