It's a bloody shampoo, it's not rocket science!Out with moisturizing molecules and herbal hairballs in all their CGI splendour!In with frogs, mmmuahh! 

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A tip of the turban to Dan Nainan, for his multiracial, multicultural, self-deprecating comedy. Some neat insights into how we're all different. And more importantly, how we're all the same.

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An entertaining take on the major hindu deities. Hindu calendar art meets Stan Lee. Nicely done, and defended by the designer - especially if you understand the simplistic, anti-plural, homogenizing viewpoint of Hindu fundamentalists (oh, the irony! - that this

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East IndianThis extremely irritating (to Indians) term was in common use in Canada and in North America as recently as 1996.It has fallen into relative disuse but still pops up disconcertingly, from time to time in newspapers or government documents.

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Is multicultural creative getting better? Or is it merely going downhill fast? This new commercial for Nationwide Insurance aimed at South Asians in the US is simply not good enough.

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Indian English is English with a smattering of Hindustani - and other Indian languages - as the need of the speaker demands. Hinglish is Hindustani (itself a hybrid of Hindi and Urdu) with a smattering of English. That's my preferred

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Many people mistakenly use Hinglish as synonymous with Indian English - but like others who approach this linguistically I beg to differ. There are many different descriptions for this hybridized language. This is mine - as a student and teacher of

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ABC is an acronym for American Born Chinese. It has much the same provenance as CBC or Canadian Born Chinese, and has similar pejorative nuances depending on the circumstances in which it is used.Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett

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A CBC is a somewhat less than complimentary acronym for Canadian Born Chinese. CBCs themselves often refer to more recent Chinese with the pejorative FOB (Fresh Off the Boat). Many CBCs do not speak Chinese and are often in conflict

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You've seen the print ads, and read the hype (in my earlier post on Bheja Bazaar). Now take a look at the TV spot. Remember, this is 1990 we're talking about. It's worth a laugh if nothing else. Click here

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Aamir Khan stars as the new spokesperson for Titan Watches, India's biggest watch brand. Unlike many other Bollywood stars, Aamir Khan is a real actor. A well crafted script + a well crafted spot = a great celebrity endorsement. Not

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I'm torn.Here's a brand new campaign from At&t advertising its global roaming capabilities. I've been watching it unfold in the pages of the New York Times over the last few weeks.It's beautiful, visually lush.I believe it is a precursor to

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A while ago I promised I would feature great ads on this blog from the major multicultural "home markets".By that, I meant ads from India, Hong Kong and China to start with. Ads that show exactly how high the bar

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Bollywood is a phrase the west uses to refer to Indian movies, though in reality it only applies to movies from Bombay (now Mumbai) - hence Bollywood. Bollywood is Singing In the Rain meets Indiana Jones. In a Bollywood movie,

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What are those motivations?Multicultural marketing is even more critical for grocery stores because food is central to the lives of S Asians and Chinese. Among Canada's other immigrants groups, only the Italians and Portuguese place similar emphasis on food, and

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I was talking to Marina Strauss, the Globe and Mail's retail reporter just the other day, and we circled around for quite a bit trying to identify what the issues were with the marketing of grocery stores to multicultural markets.

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Cantonese. White devil. Pale ghost. White demon ghoul. You get the gist.It has lost some of its derisive sting due to its extremely popular, colloquial use in Hong Kong, by English and Cantonese speakers alike. Used in much the same

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White dude. White man. White folks. This catch-all South Asian word is typically used to separate and distinguish, like the Native American paleface but add some spice and it takes on a bad-ass attitude and can be used to effectively

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Putonghua is quite simply Mandarin Chinese for "mandarin chinese."Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

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Guangdonghua is simply Chinese for Cantonese.Guangdong is the Chinese word for Canton. Which itself is simply a European fumbling of Guangdong.Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

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In trade, it's freight on board. In multcultspeak it's fresh off the boat.It's an insulting pejorative term, used much in the same way as hick, redneck, and the now archaic "rube".Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett This work is

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Click on the title of this article to view an excellent interactive map illustrating immigration and mother tongue data from the StatsCan report on the 2006 Census. (Courtesy the Canadian Press, via CBC.)While checking it out, keep in mind this

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The 2006 census shows that between 2001 and 2006:58.3 per cent of all immigrants came from Asia, including the Middle East.16.1 per cent came from Europe.10.8 per cent came from the Caribbean, and Central and South America.And 10.6 per cent

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More than 200 different ethnic origins were reported in the 2006 Census. 11 ethnic origins have grown beyond one million in population. The largest group was composed of the 10 million people who reported Canadian as their ethnic ancestry, either

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No, it's not Lucy's husband. Hindi in origin, desi literally means countryman and is used to refer to people and things that are of South Asian origin. If you belong to gen HipHop think of it as the South Asian

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Blessed are those who see but do not jump to believe. Click the article title to play this provocative spot by Avion Films' Mike Thompson.

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My favourite magazine covering Toronto is Spacing and writer Robin Chubb's excellent series on "Mapping our Urbanism" is a treasure trove of facts and intelligence.In an article about the GTA's diversity, what caught my eye, though, was the map accompanying

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When I was still a child, I was asked to write the relaunch campaign for Red Eveready, India's biggest battery brand. (Shown with this article: an ad from that campaign.)I don't know why.The campaign ran for 13 years. I don't

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Once again I am in debt to Harper's, without a doubt the best damn magazine in the world.In the February 2008 Harper's Index I discovered that Shaadi.com, an immensely popular matchmaking site for South Asians (or "matrimonials site", as we

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Cantonese pop music. Dominated by the Four Kings (Jackie Cheung, Leon Lai, Aaron Kwok and Andy Lau) in the 90s.Current stars include scandal-tainted Gillian Chung.Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial

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Meaning Chinese outside, white inside.Pejorative. Usually employed by Chinese-Canadians to describe some second generation (or, occasionally, first generation) Chinese-Canadians (or -Americans or -Brits) who are thought to have lost too much of their culture or language. Like coconuts, a banana

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Meaning brown outside, white inside.Pejorative. Usually employed by Indo-Canadians to describe some second generation (or, occasionally, first generation) Indo-Canadians (or -Americans or -Brits) who are thought to have lost too much of their Indianness. A coconut typically has few Indian

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Welcome to a new category in this blog. The world's first Multicultural Glossary. A handy-dandy web guide to meanings of mots multicultural.Jibes, jive talking, jargon. Patois, politically incorrect perambulations, pejoratives. In jokes, insider speak. I hope to cover it all.

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Multicultural TV work done by Barrett and Welsh.

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A Bollywood villain runs up against a far greater power than himself: a remote control. A TV spot for Rogers Bollywood Oye! video on demand service from Barrett and Welsh. Directed by Robert Maya of Mad Films for Barrett and

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