On-House Advertising

Personal, Taiwan 9 comments

Photos by MJ Klein

When I arrived home today, I found a new ad sticker posted on the frame of my front door.  It seems that the outside of houses here are meant only for companies to put advertising stickers on, but this blatant disregard for personal property drives me wild.  As soon as I see a new ad, I remove it immediately.

On-House Advertising

This is the offending new ad.  It’s for one of the myriad of pumping truck companies that seem everywhere in Taiwan.  I got out my steam cleaner and it was gone in 2 minutes.  I have yet to catch one of these idiots pasting a sticker to my door, but when I do, I’m going to paste it on his forehead.

Now if you think I’m kidding when I say that all Taiwanese houses are covered with these stickers, take a look at this below:

On-House Advertising

These are water meter boxes.  Notice that there are ads plastered on the side rails of the roll-down doors too.  Virtually anywhere on the outside surface of your home is game.  Am I the only person that thinks this is wrong?

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9 comments

  1. I would make it a point to boycott those that advertise like that. There is no respect shown for the person’s property; so why would they do a good job for you if they do not respect the person’s property that they advertise on without permission.

    1. Carolyn, my thoughts exactly. I never call any of those numbers on the ads they paste on our or anyone else’s house. you make a good point – one that seems lost on the local people. thanks for your comments Carolyn.

  2. You should put a notice on your front door that if any of them posts on your house, you will report them to the environmental protection bureau!

    1. Yu-fen, you know how Taiwanese are! they would view that as a direct challenge and my house would be plastered with every kind of advertisement in the country, just daring me to make good on my threat! Taiwanese don’t deal well with such threats of action – they just escalate things until they go out of control and it ends in violence!

  3. I never really noticed these ads before – I guess I somehow assumed they belonged to the meters. You know basically telling you “this is electricity meter 557155” or “call this number to report an electrical defect”. I have to say: for ads they show remarkable graphical restraint. Which is actually a bit unusual for Taiwan, isn’t it?

    Of course that oversight is made possible in part due to my very limited language skills – I can make out some of the signs, but not enough to grasp the meaning.

    The benefit of that: as of now I can still enjoy occasionally reading a sign, and appreciate the beauty of the Hanzi – once my understanding improves I’m bound to get annoyed … Oh well.

    1. hi Stefan. most of the small rectangular stickers seem to be for those pump trucks. like Yu-fen suggested, i just boycott them. i have a fantasy of calling them, one by one and giving them a putty knife to scrape their ad off my door frame once they show up. but that’ll never happen! thanks Stefan.

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