Sneezing
Here's a funny 3 D ad, I guess you can call it, on the intersection of Dunhua and Nanjing here in Taipei. As implied by the face mask flying away from the sneezing guy to the right, it's of course an ad for some medicine against colds.
The pharmaceutical industry must be one of the most thriving here in Taiwan. People are always worrying about their health, and everyone has at least one cure that is certain to fix any ailment you may have save a severed head. Anything edible is good for something, but preferably your liver, your kidneys, or your digestive system, and for men, their virility. Inedible stuff like dried bugs ground to a powder is even better. Watching the ads on TV here, you'd think Taiwan is a nation of impotent men. In China, they drink alcohol with a whole snake and snake's gall in it for the same reason -- I know, I've tried it (don't ask why).
As far as Chinese medicine goes, the worse it tastes, the better it is for you. And it is true. The best thing I've ever had against a cold is that ginger reduction D gives me. A liter of water and a cut-up piece of ginger. Reduce it until there's only about two cupfuls left and (try to) drink it. It is absolutely horrible, but if you can force it down, it almost always does the trick. So you see: horrible taste == effective.
Another thing I tried was acupuncture -- 10 minutes of needles in my left knee. It didn't kill off the cold, but my clogged up nose was completely opened up and I could breath normally for six hours. The doctor said that if I came back the next day, he would kill the cold altogether.
When Taiwanese people see a doctor in Western medicine they are disappointed if they don't get a cocktail of five or six different pills to combat a common cold. A single pill probably means that he doesn't know what he's doing, while I think that six pills mean he doesn't know what he's doing, which is why he gives you a blanket prescription to kill off any and all bacteria and viruses you in your body, and your immune system with it. Doctors tell you nothing but "Take this medicine, and then you take that medicine." Why? "Because I say so, that's why." This means that, "Don't forget that I am a doctor, and have gone to university to learn this (if he's a doctor of Western medicine, that is). It would be too complicated to explain what the problem is, and you wouldn't understand anyway. You'll just have to trust me." And they do. Taiwanese have an implicit trust in their doctors. It's not like back in Sweden where they do all they can to explain to you what's wrong and want to make you understand what's going on and keep asking you what you think and how you feel. "They sound like they don't know what they're doing, your Swedish doctors, asking all them questions." That's what D told me when we first lived in Sweden. She prefers it the Taiwanese way.
As a result of this fixation on medication and illness, I guess, there are more ads for headache medicine on TV here than even in the US, and celebrity endorsements of useless and maybe even dangerous medicines have gone so far that there is now a law against endorsing stuff that you don't know anything about and don't use yourself. Or something like that. The long and the short of it is that you have to be personally responsible for any endorsement you make. If the stuff is bad, there are stiff fines, and even jail sentences, no less.
The funniest medical ad I've ever seen, though, came when we lived in Texas. Don't remember the name of the laxative, but there was this African-American family sitting in their living room watching TV and reading. Then the camera moves to one of them who is making a funny face as if she was in pain. The husband looks at her and says: "You look constipated. Here, use XXX." How about that.