Chinese Restaurant Offers Discounts For Women Based On Bra Size

Originally published at Squawker Media. 

A restaurant in Zhejiang, China named The Trendy Shrimp has recently offered discounts for women based on, yes, you read the title correctly, their bra size. Here is the following list of discounts correlated with various bra sizes:

• A-cup = 5% off.
• B-cup = 10% off.
• C-cup = 25% off.
• D-cup = 35% off.
• E-cup = 45% off.
• F-cup = 55% off.
• G-cup = 65% off.

Upon implementing this system of offering discounts, The Trendy Shrimp found that customers had responded positively to the campaign. “Once the promotion started,” says Lan Shanggang, the general manager, “customer numbers rose by about twenty percent. Some of the girls we met were very proud… they had nothing to hide.”

“The whole city is looking for BREASTS,” a poster that was taken down on August 7th.

One must inquire how bra sizes were checked by the restaurant. Did female customers have to provide a tag, or was a trust system in place? Thoughtfully, the restaurant allowed female customers to avoid embarrassment by inquiring about the discount from waitresses rather than the male staff.

Unfortunately, the successful advertising campaign was brought to an end after complaints were made to city officials. One customer said the posters were “vulgar advertising” and “discriminatory towards women.” However, one must inquire how a system geared towards offering women discounts exclusively on the basis of their being women is “vulgar” or “discriminatory.” It could be safe to say that if a restaurant began offering discounts to men on the basis of the size of their genitals, there would be little backlash, and most would simply laugh about it, as it is obviously intended to be lighthearted.

This is not the first time that the Chinese food industry has harbored such odd campaigns. In 2014, it was reported that a Chinese restaurant in Chongqing provided discounts to overweight males and underweight females, and in 2015, a hot-pot restaurant in Henan allowed “beautiful” customers to eat for free.

Was the campaign inherently offensive, or did some customers simply overreact? There is a fine line between advertising a somewhat humorous discount campaign and slandering the female figure – did The Trendy Shrimp go too far in the latter direction? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Featured image taken from IB Times.