With the World Cup currently taking place back home, everyone wants to have a piece of South Africa.

Including American comedian and talk-show host Jon Stewart who sent one of his reporters (John Oliver) to South Africa to look for, wait for it….

Race riots!

Oliver was rather despondent because at first he couldn’t find any racists.

Until he met Dan Roodt.

Do you think Roodt knew that this guy was essentially taking the mickey?!

It is a fact that the 2010 World Cup has brought South Africa a huge amount of marketing exposure.

While there were so many doubting Thomases before the kick-off of the world’s biggest sports event (both locally and abroad), most people are now more than convinced that South Africa has indeed managed to pull it off with aplomb.

Brand South Africa has never in the history of the new South Africa encountered this amount of exposure in all the corners of the world…

…except in Chicago.

What wrong with this picture? (Cheers to SA Promo Magazine on FaceBook for the pic)

Eish!  What more is there to say?  One would think that with the might of the American media machine behind them, WGN would get this right.

WGN9 is a television channel in the US city of Chicago.  We wanted to link to their website, but the bumbling idiots do not deserve it.

Forgive them, they live on an island…

Then of course, there is the report from Rugby15.co.za on Facebook telling of the New Zealand reporter asking the Springbok media manager (with a straight face nogal) what “TRIBE” Springbok fullback Gio Aplon is from.  Needless to say, the Bok media man could not keep a straight face and could not stop laughing.

In this day and age.

Fooi tog!

Former BlitzBok & Springbok fullback Gio Aplon faces the Kiwi media in Auckland. (Pic: Gallo Images)

As the world counts down to the start of the 2010 World Cup, trust South African fast-food group Nando’s to come up with a great promotion.

South Africa plays Mexico in the first game of the World Cup and Nando’s couldn’t resist making the Mexicans a culinary offer they (hopefully) cannot refuse!

What say you, Companeros?!

(Make sure to read the fine-print at the bottom.)

(Cheers, Jonathan Cherry)

Many years ago, popular and sometimes controversial South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) got together with Thierry Cassuto to put together the country’s first daily news show using puppets.  

Using amongst others, characters from daily political and sporting life, ZA News takes the mickey out of personalities, issues and controversies that consume the South African psyche.  In fact, the government deemed it too controversial to be shown on the national broadcaster SABC.  However, thanks to corporate sponsorship, in particular from local budget airline Kulula.com, ZA News goes out over the internet and posts a brand-new show every day.

Howzit-HongKong.com will post some of our favourites right here so stay tuned.

So, in the words of ZA News host Tim “Thunder Balls”…

Goodbye, Goodnight and Voetsek!

Here’s our favourite for this week: Agent Dee-Double-Oh-Ess

(Additional Malema picture from nando’s)

Before I went home to Cape Town in July 2009, having to endure fellow patrons smoking in my favourite watering hole was quite a chore.  However, when I returned to Hong Kong in September, most (granted in some places at the time, not all) had changed and smokers were banished to the sidewalk.  There were even dedicated smoking areas in “sitting out areas,” public parks and outside company offices. 

However, these days we non-smokers have to contend with street corners filled with smokers gathered around garbish bins equipped with ashtrays.  Some puffers don’t even need ashtray bins, they just gather on street corners and flicking their stompies*  in the nearest drain!

Having said all that, recently I came across a copy of a radio advertisement for a famous South African cigarette brand from waaay back and I have to confess, it brought a nostalgic smile to my face! 

Hearing it took me back to the (segregated) cinemas of my youth where cigarettes adverts were still the order of the day. The same adverts that made the likes of the Rupert family filthy rich! In fact so rich that they even own Shanghai Tang. 

The days when, in addition to Bruce Lee karate classics, all we could watch were cowboy (Western) movies with a big, bearded guy called Bud Spencer moering*  thinner, considerably smaller okes.   There were also the Afrikaans classics featuring a bloke called Lieb Bester, running through Boland vineyards, singing and chasing after Afrikaans doedies*!  I still remember Bester’s penchant for khaki outfits!

Let’s see what you make of this:

Colloquialisms:

* Stompies – Afrikaans word meaning cigarette butts

* moering – Afrikaans word for hitting

* doedies – Afrikaans word for girls

Below: The ubiquitous Hong Kong smokers’ hangout (Pic: Mike Jansen)