Who's right and who's wrong isn't important. What is important is that this commercial for I-mei popsicles, which began airing in January, not only made its product famous in one shot but also opened up the domestic advertisements to the style of mixing dialects.

At first I-mei continued with its advertisements of popsicles in a variety of flavors--pearl-barley and mashed green bean, peach and mashed taro--and added the use of Foochowese and Hakka. For example, in the green bean popsicle advertisement the female lead uses Hakka to read "Love Pea Poem?" while the male lead at her side interrupts her by using the Taiwanese. The interplay calls the audience's attention to the Hakka word for green bean. In the commercial for the taro popsicle, the Foochowese word kaliu is used to describe the smooth and delicate feeling of taroin the mouth.

Watch Commercials and Study Dialects: After I-mei used this series of commercials to become the leading brand, they were followed by a gabble of copycats, which used the theme of dialects to advertise other products. Take, for example, one commercial for a brand of dumplings. Not only do actors in the commercial use Taiwanese and a mixture of Taiwanese and Mandarin to debate the merits of "better filling" versus "more filling," but Mandarin characters that sound like the Taiwanese for "better" (Kahao) are adopted as the product name. In another commercial Chou Jun-fa uses his Cantonese-accented Mandarin to introduce a brand of drink to his Taiwanese friends. For emphasis, he uses the Taiwanese word for "lucky" at the end of the commercial just so you won't forget.

As commercials that use dialects proliferate, some viewers watch happily to study, learning a new word a day and tracing the etymology of some Taiwanese words. But there are also those who are worried. "At the moment there is great fighting in Taiwan over whether Taiwan should be independent or united with the mainland. Commercials using dialects fan the flames," said a high school Mandarin teacher in a recent letter to a newspaper. Doesn't emphasizing dialects only make clearer the linguistic differences between mainlanders and Taiwanese and between Changchowese, Chuan chowese and Foochowese? Doesn't it only strengthen people's consciousness about the separation of the provinces?

When advertising people look at these ads themselves they do it from the perspective of insiders. "These kinds of commercials are only using dialects for substitution or contrast to stimulate interest and attract the viewer's attention in order to promote sales of the product," says the creative director of Ogilvy and Mather, David Sun.

After Ku Hsiao-tu: Nevertheless, he points out that with such heated competition, the advertising industry needs to grab hold of current social phenomena, sensitive issues and fashionable vocabulary in order to get the focus of consumers. "Commercials can also pass along information about social changes," explains David Sun. For example, when the government had allowed the visiting of relatives in the mainland, the curled tongue sound of Peking mandarin was all the rage. Suddenly, television commercials were full of accents like the mainland child star Ku Hsiao-tu's. "Take as an example our 'Buddhist chant' series of commercials last year for air conditioning."

This wave of commercials using dialects is related to political liberalization.

Previously, in accordance with regulations about the production of commercials, Mandarin and dialect television were completely segregated. Advertising in dialect, as well, could only be broadcast during programs using dialect. Last October when the Government Information Office revised its rules, these restrictions were eliminated.

In addition to the elimination of these restrictions, the dramatic series Love, which was set in the period shortly after the restoration of Taiwan and was aired at the end of last year in the 8:00 p.m. time slot, used both Taiwanese and Mandarin to make a lively portrayal of the mixing together of Taiwanese and mainlanders. The program broke new ground by mixing the two languages. In the wake of this highly rated series came no small number of commercials in dialect.

The actor selected for the I-mei peanut popsicle commercial, for example, was Ma Ju-feng, one of the stars of Love. With a simple and honest look of a farmer, matched with authentic Taiwanese and heavily accented Mandarin, he was extremely effective at using local flavor to add to the persuasiveness of the commercial.

"Cut-and-Paste" Postmodernism: Another star of Love, actress Chin Su-mei has lent her coddled- and pampered-sounding voice to recommend canned food that tastes like the kind made by a beloved Taiwanese wife.

"Besides creating interest, dialect is even more appropriate for molding product image and separating targeted consumers," says Kuo Sheng-nan, the ad director of Bozell CCAA. "Popsicles, peanuts and pig's knuckles are all traditional food products. Isn't using dialect a more appropriate manner of conveying information about them."

Interestingly, these commercials have not just been used for domestic products. Several commercials advertising foreign products have also been built around the use of dialect.

Take the series of commercials made for the Danish chewing gum stimoral when the brand was changing its wrapping. While the narrator of the first commercial speaks Mandarin, he has a heavy Cantonese accent of Hong Kong, and at the end he adds on one Taiwanese phrase for "the real McCoy," which sounds like the Mandarin for "real Hongkongese." The second commercial in the series uses exclusively Taiwanese.

"Basically speaking, we use a collage or cut-and-paste postmodern method, using the technique to strengthen a consumer's impression of a commercial," explains Hsu Shun-ying, who is creative director at the Yi Shi Hsing Tai Agency, which is responsible for Stimoral's ads. The choice of Taiwanese as a piece of the collage was done in the hope of fostering identification with the product through using the current way young people talk. "Aren't young people today all part of a bilingual Mandarin-Taiwanese generation?"

Keeping Up with What's In: The former creative director of Kuo Hua Advertising Huang Chun-ming, a writer of the Nativist school, states, "When even Lo Ta-yu, who become famous because of writing Mandarin songs, begins to write in Taiwanese, advertising will naturally want to coddle up to what's currently fashionable in society."

Hence, more than a few Taiwanese songs are being used for the soundtrack of Mandarin commercials. "Afraid of Nothing, Go Straight Ahead!" by the new-age Taiwanese singer Lin Chiang catches the spirit of a youth's motorbike. A Taiwanese song "Precious Baby" by Feng Feifei is used in a commercial for powdered milk. Although the last phrase of the narration is in Taiwanese, Mandarin is used for the product name.

If one is neither discussing their creative merits nor their technical sophistication and is merely looking at the phenomenon itself, "Taiwan commercials are increasingly reflecting social trends and are more free to and quick witted about using creative material," says David Sun.

[Picture Caption]

Currently commercials using Taiwanese, Hakka and other dialects are in fashion. Besides creating interest and attracting the public's attention, what are they telling us about society?

Commercials that mix dialects are interested in grabbing the viewer's attention through the ears as well as the eyes.

Commercials that mix dialects are interested in grabbing the viewer's attention through the ears as well as the eyes.