The Nanfang Home

The Nanfang / Blog

Guangxi

Under Immense Pressure, Yulin Cancels Infamous Dog Eating Festival [UPDATED]

Posted: 06/17/2014 11:49 am

dog eating festival

UPDATE 3, 7:06pm June 22: The Yulin Summer Solstice Dog Eating Festival did in fact take place on June 21; please see here for our report.

UPDATE 2, 10:29am June 19: A new development indicates the Yulin dog eating festival has already been held after all. Organizers moved the date to avoid detection.

UPDATE 1, 8:42 June 18: A comment from Sina suggests these statements were made by the local government in order to completely dissociate itself from the dog eating festival by cancelling tours for the festival and completely withdraw support.

***

The Yulin Dog Eating Festival has drawn so much criticism from around China that it appears to have been cancelled, according to Caijing.

The annual festival was to be held on June 21 as part of a long tradition in Yulin, Guangxi in which approximately 10,000 dogs are consumed.

READ: Animal Activists Clash with Dog-Serving Guangxi Restaurant

A government official not willing to be identified gave this statement:

The government of Guangxi and the city of Yulin have decided to withdraw from hosting the dog eating festival because the pressure given to us by people from all walks of life is simply too much!

The cancellation seems to have been confirmed by local residents. A young boy at a concealed slaughterhouse for dogs said on June 12:

The government is not letting us sell any (dog meat). After killing the dogs today, there won’t be any more dogs to kill. (Anymore new) dogs from outside the city aren’t allowed in. 

A local dog meat proprietor complained about the withdrawal of support from the government:

I still remember the words that department head Li Junqing from the Food and Drug Inspection agency had said at last year’s festival, ‘If you dare to interfere with the eating of dog meat, they will pick up a knife and kill you!’ Didn’t think that so soon after saying that, the government’s position would reverse so suddenly.

READ: Shocking: The Brazen Capture of a Dog in Broad Daylight in Guangdong

The local Yulin government had previously tried to dissociate itself from the local dog eating festival. Under mounting public pressure, the Yulin municipal government announced on June 6 the dog eating festival would be a private and commercial venture not associated with the government.

The local government had made concessions earlier to try to reach a compromise between local residents and animal rights activists. The government issued a directive to local residents to hide any advertising of dog meat on restaurant signs and to refrain from slaughtering dogs in public places.

Furthermore, an order given by the government to doctors and nurses to refrain from eating dog meat has also been revealed to include all Yulin civil servants.

Related:

Photo: OCCUPYLAC

Haohao
Tagged:

Toothpaste at hotels the latest item to be faked

Posted: 08/8/2013 11:00 am

Guangzhou police led an operation with police in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hunan and Guangxi provinces that in the past week busted a criminal gang that was producing, packaging and distributing fake toothpaste for hotels, Nandu Daily reports.

The gang was using 22 locations to produce the mini toothpaste and 125 people were arrested on suspicion of being part of it. Among them, 31 are currently under criminal detention. Police say the criminal gang did over 20 million yuan of business.

The alarm was first raised in early June by the food and drugs department of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau. They discovered that warehouses in Baiyun District’s Taihe Village and Longcun Village were producing toiletries without a license.

They later discovered that the warehouse on 22 Yunmei Street, run by a man named Mr. He, had been operating illegally since January 2011. They also discovered that he had been distributing his ware to five provinces, which sparked the nationwide investigation.

It then emerged that Mr. He was using his contacts in other provinces to distribute fake tubes of mini toothpaste to hotels around the nation. He and his accomplices now face jail time.

In 2011, Stan Abrams of China Hearsay kindly reminded China watchers not to use the words fake and counterfeit interchangeably. However, it appears that this gang was guilty of distributing both fake and counterfeit products.

Haohao
Tagged:

Dongguan’s single men are the nation’s loneliest, Guangzhou’s are the least

Posted: 06/20/2013 1:00 pm

An online survey of 33 major Chinese cities showed that Dongguan has the nation’s loneliest single men and that Guangzhou has the least, Hefei News reports.

The Jiayuan matchmaking website released its loneliness index on Wednesday, showing that single men suffered more severely from loneliness than single women. Methods included asking single people how uncomfortable they felt at matchmaking events and how often they felt overcome by loneliness. Among the 26 provinces, Inner Mongolia had the loneliest single men and Guangxi had the loneliest single women.

83,656 people participated in the survey which also showed that 89% of single men and 82% of single women got lonelier with age. The main reasons cited for failing to find a partner were “still waiting for the right one,” “personal problems,” and “work being too busy.”

“Personal problems” was a problem particularly common among single men who earn less than 2,000 a month. And being too busy was often cited by educated white-collar workers.

And, remember this if you have single friends, 60% of single people resent being pitied, according to the website. However, the entire premise for conducting the survey seems to be based on the assumption that being single is a bad thing.

In spite of having all this data, the website did not suggest reasons behind the findings. Why might Dongguan’s single men be the loneliest in the land? What comforts does Guangzhou offer to its single men?

Haohao
Tagged:

More than 30 Vietnamese workers, seeking higher wages, caught illegally in Shenzhen

Posted: 03/11/2013 7:00 am

Thirty-three Vietnamese nationals who had entered the country illegally and intended to work illegally in Fujian Province were arrested in Shenzhen March 6, CCTV News reports. The youngest of the illegal immigrants was just 17.

Courtesy of Baidu images

The Guangdong Province Public Security Bureau received a tip off last month that a criminal organization intended to transport the illegal immigrants from Pingxiang and Dongxing in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to YESKL.

After an investigation, the operation saw three buses with Guangxi license plates seized at the toll booth on the Longgang stretch of the Jihe Expressway at 1:45 a.m. on March 6.

The illegals consisted of 23 men and 10 women and most were from the same town in Vietnam.

This 2010 article in China Daily talks of a surge in illegal immigration from Vietnam because the pay is better in China. In one case last year, 42 Vietnamese illegal immigrants were nabbed.

Forbes offers this analysis of the situation of illegal immigration into China from Southeast Asia.

Haohao
Tagged:

Foreign woman kidnapped in Shekou after being drugged and sold into prostitution

Posted: 03/4/2013 7:00 am

A report on Shaanxi Satellite Television tells the story of a woman from an unspecified foreign country who was rescued in Shenzhen’s Shekou area after being drugged and sold into prostitution by her foreign boyfriend.

The foreign woman, identified as Lily, was drugged and sold into prostitution in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region before being rescued. Afterwards, she was kidnapped in Shenzhen’s Shekou area and a foreign man was beaten for trying to come to her rescue, Shaanxi Satellite Television reports.

The beating took place on the first day of Chinese New Year at around 6:30 p.m. when at the gate of a residential community near Shekou’s Rose Garden, a group of armed men kidnapped Lily. The foreign man, Scott, who tried to come to her resuce was then set upon by the gang. The gang then fled with Lily, according to a source close to the matter.

A subsequent investigation exposed the extaordinary story behind the incident.

Earlier, Lily’s foreign boyfriend had drugged her food, causing her to lose consciousness. When she came to, her boyfriend had gone and she discovered she had been sold into prostitution in Guangxi, a source told the TV station. Scott was responsible for rescuing her, first to Wuhan and eventually to Shenzhen.

When Lily was resuced, she insisted that her rescuers also help her friend, who had been sold into prostitution. When in Shenzhen, she would often sob while talking about her friend’s plight. Scott promised her he would do what he could to rescue her friend.

At this point, the television report puts the question: “Why did nobody get the police involved?” Rescuing a woman who has been sold into prostitution takes more than bravery and good will.

After Lily was kidnapped from Shekou, the police were finally notified. The report says that Lily and her friend have both been rescued and those responsible for the kidnapping were arrested in Dongguan.

As information emerges – such as the nature of Scott’s relationship with Lily and which country they are from – we will try to bring it to you.

Haohao
Tagged:

A 58-year-old spends 4 hours on Dongguan roller coaster, wants to set world record

Posted: 09/24/2012 1:00 pm

A 58 year-old man spent 4 continuous hours on a roller coaster ride at the Xinhua South Mall in Dongguan on September 23, according to Southern Metropolis Daily.

The ride consists of a 60-metre vertical drop. The 58 year-old native of Hunan Province said he would have stayed on even longer if a thunder storm hadn’t begun, according to the paper.

He Kuiming comes from Shenyang City and after retiring he came to Dongguan to live with his daughter. From 2:45 p.m. until around 7 p.m. he rode the roller coaster, occasionally snacking on bread during intervals.

He first experienced this type of theme park ride in Shenzhen in 2009. Although it made him dizzy, he got addicted. He later discovered that for 198 yuan, he could ride enjoy any ride at Dongguan’s Xinhua South Mall throughout the day.

He’s other hobby is bungee jumping, but because of his age, he is often refused the opportunity to bungee jump. “On October 1, I intend to go to Guilin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to attend the World Bungee Jumping Championship,” He told the paper.

“I want to enter the Guinness Book of Records for doing the largest number of consecutive bungee jumps,” said He.

However, in spite of his good health, he may not receive permission to attempt this because he has no formal training in bungee jumping.

Haohao
Tagged:

A 7 year-old drowns in Shenzhen, playmates flee the scene

Posted: 09/19/2012 7:00 am

A seven-year-old drowned after accidentally falling into a creek when playing with friends in Pinghu Municipality in Shenzhen on September 16, according to Southern Metropolis Daily.

After police searched the creek next to Pinghu Pingnan Railway, police found the body of the boy, Li Jianping. It later emerged that his three playmates had fled the scene without seeking help or even telling their parents.

When the body was found at 8 p.m., Li had already been dead for three hours, an autopsy showed. The opportunity to save him was wasted, even though there was a vegetable farmer working 30 meters away from the scene of the accident when it happened.

After finishing Sunday lunch, the boys parents had to go to work in a nearby factory and his 16 year-old brother was unwilling to play with a 7 year-old. After returning home for dinner, the parents noticed the boy missing, they asked a neighbour’s 7 year-old daughter where he was, and she said he had fallen into the water.

The family live in a close-knit community of workers from Liuzhou in Guangxi, so neighbours came together to search for the boy.

According to Li’s female playmate, he fell into the creek while they were playing and because he couldn’t swim he was immediately submerged and couldn’t scream for help. She tried to grab him but could not reach.

Their two companions, both boys, then saw the clothes and shoes that he had hung by the side of the water and hid them in a woods some 100 meters away, the children later confessed to their parents.

According to Hong Kong-based child psychologist Yang Guang blamed the tragedy on society’s failure to teach children how to act during a crisis. She also blamed lack of respect for human life in China.

On the evening of the tragedy, Liu’s family burned all of his photographs, saying it would be too painful to look at them.

He was consistently an A-student and was so adorable that his parents’ colleagues often insisted he come to the factory so they could hold him, according to his mother.

A photograph of Li Lianping taken on a mobile phone on his 9 year-old brother’s birthday

Haohao
Tagged:
Popular Stories
AROUND THE WEB
Keep in Touch

What's happening this week in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou? Sign up to be notified when we launch the This Week @ Nanfang newsletter.

sign up for our newsletter

Nanfang TV