![]() ![]() GM last month announced plans to sell 17 new or updated vehicle models in China and to increase its share of the luxury car market in the country that is currently the largest auto market in the The car maker first sold 1 million of its vehicles in China by December in 2007 and the rate of sales have increased every year since then GM reached the 1 million mark in 2012 sales there by May last year. ![]() Last week GM sold its 1 millionth vehicle in China for 2013, the earliest it has ever done so in a calendar year. We are conducting a full review of our advertising approval process to ensure this does not happen again in the future,” Roberts told The Star. “We apologize for the use of inappropriate content. “GM has stopped airing a commercial for the Chevrolet Trax due to the objectionable lyrics of a song used in the spot's soundtrack,” said Faye Roberts, communications director for GM Canada. Related: Was Volkswagen Super Bowl ad funny or insulting? Related: Hyundai apologizes for 'offensive' ad The South China Morning Postwas the first media outlet to question GM about the commercial’s lyrical content this week. The Chevrolet Trax commercial has been running in Canada since early April, but the song was removed and it was also to be cut from all advertising worldwide. Lyrics to a portion of the song “Booty Swing” used in the ad are: “In the land of Fu Manchu, the girls all now do the Suzie Q, clap their hands in the centre of the floor, saying ‘ching-ching, chop suey, swing some more.’” The ad features a man stepping out of a vehicle in the 1940s and going forward in time to 2013 to join a group of young people arriving in the new compact four-wheel drive SUV before heading off to a nightclub with them. The Trax is mid-rollout in various worldwide markets it's currently on sale in South Korea, and the mini-SUV will be hitting European and Canadian soil soon, the BBC reports.General Motors has altered its television and online commercial for the new Chevrolet Trax after complaints that China was referred to in a song as a land whose people say “ching-ching, chop suey”. "As a company, we are reviewing our approval processes for advertising to ensure that it is appropriate for airing in multiple, global markets," GM Canada's Roberts said. ![]() The UK version (apparently the video above) obscures the Fu Manchu lyrics, while Italian TV appears to have run the full version uncensored - a possible indication that different European markets found the ad problematic in different ways. However they were still visible on Wednesday morning on Chevrolet Europe’s website and the Chevrolet Quebec YouTube channel, as well as elsewhere on the internet. Videos including the lyrics can no longer be found on websites devoted to any of Chevrolet’s English-language markets. The television spot for the Chevrolet Trax SUV, which had been running in Canada since early April and was posted to Chevrolet’s European website, disappeared from Canadian TV screens about a week ago, and was replaced with a new edit of the ad without lyrics. Chung eloquently explained why this phrase is so offensive back in 2006, explaining its significance here in the U.S.: Though GM Canada's spokesperson didn't outright mention what kind of "negative feedback" the song's lyrics garnered, the words in the Armstrong sample refer to the Fu Manchu villain stereotype - and the "ching ching chop suey" phrase is similar to the derogatory phrase "ching chong," which is used to mock people of Chinese heritage. GM Canada communications director Faye Roberts told the South China Morning Post's Ian Young that the motor vehicle giant "received some negative feedback regarding the lyrics in the commercial's soundtrack," and she acknowledged that the people were offended with the song: "As the goal of advertising is to engage an audience and draw their attention to a featured product and it is never our intention to offend the audience, we made a decision to edit the advertisement." Say what you will about that beat, but things were different in the 1930s - mocking the Chinese language and people was accepted, for some reason, and apparently so were lyrics like "Arabs sheiks on the burning sands commanded their harems and clapped their hands." ![]()
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