‘Salmon chaos’ in Taiwan caused by free sushi stunt
Suppose you absolutely love fried chicken. And a nationwide fried chicken chain launches a campaign promising that if you officially change your name—yes, really, at the civil registry and everything—to Chicken Thigh Fillet, you can come and eat for free. What would you do?
For 1,500 young Taiwanese people, a similar publicity stunt by a sushi chain was apparently enough reason to head to a government office to officially change their names and be able to show off—or make fools of themselves with, depending on how you look at it—their new name on their identity cards: Salmon.
Tineke or Salmon, what’s the difference?
The AD reports this. We don’t know which chain was involved, but the newspaper writes that, in order to meet the conditions for eating free sushi until today, countless young people changed their names to Salmon or a variation thereof, thereby causing what local media called ‘salmon chaos’. According to the newspaper, one woman said on Taiwanese television that she had changed her name to Salmon along with two friends, and that they planned to change it back later.
Try explaining that at home
The promotion has now ended, but that doesn’t mean people automatically no longer have to go through life as ‘Explosively Handsome Salmon’, ‘Meteor Salmon King’, or ‘Salmon Fried Rice’. You can’t deny them their creativity, but their foresight—or consideration for the bureaucratic hassle this causes..? In Taiwan, residents may change their names a maximum of three times. But, says Deputy Interior Minister Chen Tsung-yen, ‘These kinds of name changes are not only a waste of time, but also create unnecessary paperwork.’ The authorities are extremely annoyed and warn of carelessness that could mean the name change turns out to be permanent.
What makes you decide to do this?! It genuinely sounds like a nightmare to me… Imagine there being a deadline for changing your name back, and you miss it, meaning that because of some stunt (and an uncontrollable need for ‘free stuff’) you’d have to go through life forever as Waffle with Golden Threads… Count me out.
Also read:
- Everything-about-sushi quiz
- 3 common mistakes when preparing salmon
- That wasabi served with your sushi is completely fake
Source: AD
