Love A Duck
A giant, inflatable rubber duck which has been doing a grand tour of famous cities around the world - has caused a big stir in China where, like lots of other things, the duck has been copied.
But for some reason the Chinese Communist Party, via its official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily newspaper – has taken umbrage at the counterfeiters and in a recent article condemned the copycats trying to exploit the big, yellow duck's success in the following terms:
"We always talk about cultural consciousness and cultural confidence. The issue is where that consciousness and confidence comes from? They definitely don’t come from blindly following whatever is in fashion.”
Now Rubber Duck is 16.5 metres (54 feet) high and was created by the Dutch conceptual artist Florentijn Hofman and its visit to Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong caused a sensation in China - with hundreds of thousands of people making their way to Kowloon Bay to have their photo taken with the big, yellow duck.
But Rubber Duck sprang a leak in May causing it to collapse in a sorry heap and great misery amongst its many Chinese fans - who poured their hearts out online - before the puncture was found and the duck was restored to its former glory.
Yet while all this was happening the duck counterfeiters were hard at work producing copies of Rubber Duck.
One company offers what it claims are exact replicas of the Hofman duck - a miniature version at 3 metres (10 feet) high which is on sale for around £380 - while a full-sized one would set you back £16,000.
Apparently several giant replicas have already been bought and are being used to attract visitors to shopping malls in China.
But this nakedly commercial exploitation of Hofman’s duck has upset the Chinese Communist Party which said through the People's Daily:
"The more yellow ducks are there, the further we are from Hofman’s anti-commercialisation spirit, and the more obvious is our weak creativity. It’s good that the rubber duck is popular, but it’s sad to see the innovation of our country go down."
"The rubber duck was dragged down from its altar and becomes a mere symbol with no personality… if people just follow fashions, creativity will vanish and imagination will surrender to history."
I have to say I can't see what all the fuss is about - just about everything else gets copied in China and the Far East.
If Florentijn Hofman has copyrighted his product, just cut him in for a share of the profits - then everyone will be happy.
