Political Correctness at McDonald's

Which Culture Should We Insult Today? This is one for the books. McDonald's created a series of 12 zodiac toys for their Happy Meals for the Chinese audience. The Chinese zodiac runs according to the full year in a 12 year cycle. Each of signs of the zodiac is represented by an animal, like the snake, rooster or monkey. And one of the signs is a pig. Which is verbotten to Muslims. So McDonald's decides to change the Chinese zodiac and replace the pig with Cupid. Can you imagine how the board meeting went: "Well, we can't insult the Muslims, so let's insult everyone else in China. Yeah, that's the thing to do." It's like someone representing the astrological zodiac using a frog instead of a bull for taurus.  Oh yeah, that would go over big. CNN (Jan 25, 2010) - McDonald's frantic backpedaling: The pig toy fiasco There is such a thing as being too culturally sensitive. The Straits Times reports that fast food giant McDonald's opened up a virtual beehive in Singapore when it deliberately omitted pig characters from its latest toy promotion, earning the ire of netizens and Chinese customers. The pig toy was suppose to be part of a 12-character Doraemon set depicting the animals of the Chinese zodiac calendar. However, management at the Golden Arches decided not to include the pig toy to avoid offending Muslim customers, and had a Doraemon Cupid toy in its place instead -- a move which seriously upset Chinese customers keen on collecting all 12 toys in the series. A flurry of irate emails and demands by collectors and customers followed, and now the fast food giant has reversed its decision, adding a pig toy back to the promotional line-up (Updated January 25, 2010). ... Read the full story here... Bil An Outraged Dad