Banned : long winded, weird company names in China

Weird company names are banned by the Chinese State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

The 33 new guidelines include a section outlawing overly long-winded names.

No longer will company names consist of sentences, paragraphs, or even short novellas.

Sounds over the top?

Maybe you’re not familiar with the northern Chinese condom company ‘Uncle Niu’.

Deep breath.

The full version is:

‘There Is a Group of Young People With Dreams, Who Believe They Can Make the Wonders of Life Under the Leadership of Uncle Niu Internet Technology Co. Ltd.’

The 39-character name went viral in June on microblog platform Weibo.

Any names that refer to terrorism, dissidents or any politically sensitive subjects are also banned.

(Why, Shenzhen’s ISIS clothing store?)

Overly religious terms referring to Islam or Christianity and claims like ‘the best’ and ‘national’ are forbidden.

Here are some weird (real) company names we’re going to miss:

‘King of Nanning, Guangxi, and His Friends Trading Co. Ltd.’

‘What Are You Looking At Shenzhen Technology Co. Ltd.’

‘Beijing Under My Wife’s Thumb Technology Co. Ltd.’

‘Hangzhou Looking for Trouble Internet Technology Co. Ltd.’

Weird Company Buildings

Company names aren’t the first target of the anti-weird police.

China’s more eccentric entrepreneurs were told in February 2016 to stop messing around with architecture.

This order put a stop to buildings considered too ‘odd-shaped’ or ‘weird’.

Perhaps they had in mind the building known as ‘Big Pants’.

(China Central Television’s Beijing headquarters.)

Or this office building office space built by a Chinese game developer in the province of Fujian.

It’s even more impressive here on Google Maps.

Just don’t stir up the ten-storey teapot-shaped building in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi.

The pot has the blessings of antique teapot master Wang Jinchuan, who praised the building’s design as “strongly reflecting clay teapot culture”.

If you thought all this was dotty, it gets better: the whole thing can rotate.

As John Lennon said: It’s weird not to be weird.