One dubious privilege of editing the Letters to the Editor section is the access its e-letterbox provides to a wide variety of mails, quite distinct from the daily intake of comment and occasional invective from Business Standard’s readers and random press releases. These non-conventional mails suggest that the vast universe of the World Wide Web has a hazy idea of what exactly Business Standard does.
Maybe the name Business Standard suggests that it is a Standard Business, which could be doing just about anything. At any rate, the name is opaque enough to prompt desperate businesspeople, scouring the internet for business propositions on the cheap, to send us all manner of proposals.
In the light of the International Monetary Fund’s gloomy forecast for global growth, these mails are interesting for what they say about the state of the global economy. Till the middle of 2012, the frequency of these mails was sparing, maybe one or two a week. Now, each day brings in four or five, their content, from the point of view of a media operation, entertainingly bizarre.
A clarification: These are not spam to which anyone with an email address is privy: about enhancing sundry body parts and sexual performance, dubious financial deals from Nigeria or billion-dollar prize offers. Indeed, the letterbox never receives such exhortations. No, these are all strictly business, addressed strictly to Business Standard.
They have one thing in common: they are written in execrable English, sometimes with startling results. So one email bore the intriguing subject line: “Bird drooping”. It offered a product that looks like a medieval torture instrument called BirdScare (™) that is, apparently, “the most effective, economical and maintenance free product to dissuade birds from perching on unwanted places” (another mail made similar promises about monkeys).
Here’s another sampler: “I would like to invite you our show [sic] for the [sic] sterilization”. Sanjay Gandhi redux? No, it turns out that this one is inviting us to a seafood exposition in Hong Kong as possible buyers of a wonder steriliser that cleans seafood, poultry, meat and vegetable. Its email for enquiries goes by the unfortunate (for Indians of a certain age, that is) address of powersterilizer@gmail.com.
Or consider this one from Tanker Yuan titled “Lotion Pump Business”. “Hello, Dear Friend, How are you?” he addresses us heartily, and proceeds to extol the virtues of a new design for a lotion pump that won an award in Germany (photos included). The text is worth reproducing at some length for a variety of reasons (readers can also fill in the sics where applicable): “The old way to press the body lotion or liquid is using two hand to finish the work. By this way, it may has risk during you do shower or washing in the wet & slip shower room. It’s not safe for the pregnant woman or the old people. But if you just use one hand to finish the work … it may more convenience and safe for the sick people, easpecially for the handicapped. Right?”
Then there are businesses wanting to sell us detergents, sofas, and one “Philip C. (Mr)” even offers varieties of crude oil from a Nigerian refinery (unspecified). Someone from Hebei tells us he is delighted to hear we are on the market for “expanded polystyrene”.
Not all the mails are sales propositions. One titled “The wooden enquiry” introduces itself as a Hong Kong company that is building a modern holiday village and peremptorily asks Business Standard to quote our most competitive price (FOB) for “80 wood houses” to be delivered in 10 months. And Jack Jin, an executive with an “industrial corporation in China”, wants to order a batch of night vision goggles and asks us to send a photograph along with the quote.
Professional economists may have a different take, of course, but it is noteworthy that the bulk of the mails come from China (mainland and Hong Kong). Among the outliers are one from Hanoi where a company offers to place Vietnamese workers (mainly welders and construction workers) with us, a car hire company in Malaysia, an apartment rental service in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar (that ominously offers apartments close to the Soviet embassy), and unintelligible mails in a Cyrillic script.
To date, the prize for weird and wonderful mails to the e-letterbox goes to Mr Tanker (he of the lotion pump business) who sends us another mail titled: “Chinese most beautiful girls” (pictures attached). He says he considers us one of his friends. His purpose for writing? Let the eloquent Mr Tanker speak for himself: “In China, there has some poor elderly old people, During their daily life, if the raining wether happen, a kind-hearted girl come on and share the unbrella with the old women. This is the Chinese, laborious, courageous, and with kind-hearted. Frankly speaking, I am really love this kind of grils, It’s the most hot and beautiful women type…. For my point, if all of us treat the others well, what a wonderful world will be?” But instead of “most hot and beautiful women type,” the attached photos show more lotion pumps.
Gee, someone really should put in a good word about those lotion pumps.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
