The other night I came into the living room, and the wife was watching the evening news. The segment ended, and what proceeded was proof that the whole Gangnam Style meme had most definitely jumped the shark.
In an attempt to cash in on what is quickly becoming this decade’s “Macarena”, the broadcaster somehow managed to convince (it is China, land of a million KTVs, so maybe not “convinced” so much as just “asked”) their staff to partake in what surely someone at some point explained was a “viral ad campaign” — Haikou news style.
Like a Haikou autumn, it was a hot wet mess.
And so it was that when I first saw my friend Nicki share a video called “Hainan Style” on Facebook that I figured it might be one and the same. Nope, nope nopah.
Actually it appears to be much the same premise — a couple companies (aided by uni students — and, by the looks of a stage in the vid, what appears to be a contest to be in the video) cashing in on the twilight hours of this much-overplayed one-hit-wonderful song. And if you understand Chinese, but can’t figure out what the hell they’re saying in the video, welcome to Hainan hua — the dialect spoken in a variety of hues across the island.
Note: Oddly, the video is titled “Haikou Style”, but they’re clearly saying “Hainan Style” in the video — which makes more sense considering the original title of the song. Gangnam in Chinese is Jiangnan (æ±Ÿå— – River/South), and is the name of the district of Seoul (sensibly, south of the Han River that bisects the city). Hainan (æµ·å— – Sea/South), therefore, is a better quasi-homophone.
