However, they said their concerns were quickly addressed by their hosts, and all problems have been resolved, or were in the process of being resolved.

On July 25, Australian Olympic Chief (AOC) Chef de Mission, Katy Chiller, refused to allow her country’s athletes to move into their designated facilities, which she called “unliveable”.

A view of facilities provided for the Chinese delegation for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“Due to a variety of problems in the village, including gas, electricity and plumbing, I have decided that no Australian Team member will move into our allocated building,” said Chiller. “Problems include blocked toilets, leaking pipes, exposed wiring, darkened stairwells where no lighting has been installed and dirty floors in need of a massive clean.”

The Australian delegation has since relocated its athletes to stay at local hotels until the issue is rectified.

Other Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and Great Britain have expressed similar complaints about their facilities.

China’s 534 Olympic athletes will be housed over 18 floors of Building 13 of the Olympic Village. Facilities include a swimming pool, tennis court, grassy area and grill. As the People’s Daily reports, the facility is already decorated with five Chinese flags: four in the main hall on the ground floor, and one from a balcony.

The $1.5 billion Olympic Village will host 17,000 athletes and officials in its 31 building complex.

The Rio Summer Olympic Games begin August 5 in Brazil.

The post China Calls Living Conditions at Rio Athletes’ Village “Unliveable” appeared first on The Nanfang.

There was a lot on the line going into Tuesday night’s World Cup qualifying match between China and Hong Kong: national/local pride, bragging rights to a long-standing rivalry, and a chance to progress in qualifying towards to the biggest show on earth.

The match was big news in Hong Kong, where tensions with the Mainland have boiled over in the past few years, most notably during the 79-day Occupy street protests last fall. Screens were set up around Hong Kong for people to cheer on the home team, with fans hoping the Chinese team could be knocked out of contention. And that’s basically what happened with the 0-0 draw. Now there’s only a slim path for China to qualify for the next round.

In China’s Group C division, Qatar remains in first place, and has secured a place for the next round. In order to advance, third-place China must win its next two games against the Maldives and the undefeated Qatar as well as hope other second-place teams in other Asian divisions perform poorly.

Chances also appear slim for second-place Hong Kong, but the team didn’t waver against an aggressive China in what turned out to be a tense game with several controversial moments involving disallowed goals.

In the 52nd minute, a shot from Hong Kong’s Festus Baise that wound up squarely in the Chinese goal was disallowed by the referee because he ruled teammate Paulinho had first fouled Chinese goalkeeper Wang Dalei.

Later, at the 78th minute, a header from forward Yang Xu to striker Yu Dabao resulted in a pair of shots on goal, with the second deflecting off the goal post and into the arms of Hong Kong goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai. Despite Chinese players celebrating the shot as a goal, the referee disallowed it even though many Chinese fans thought the ball was saved after having crossed the goal line (seen above).

As contentious as these two disallowed goals may be, they paled in comparison to the real controversy of the game as Hong Kong fans loudly booed the national anthem. Hong Kong soccer fans at Mong Kok stadium were seen carrying signs and T-shirts saying “Boo”, “Support Your Own People” and “Hong Kong is Not China” as they chanted “We are Hong Kong” while holding up their middle fingers and shouting profanities against the mainland Chinese team.

The booing of the PRC anthem comes after Hong Kong fans were warned by the Hong Kong Football Association after previous booing that occurred during games with Qatar and Bhutan this past June. Although it can compete independently in the Olympics and the World Cup, Hong Kong S.A.R. is considered a part of of the People’s Republic of China, and so shares the same anthem. Future punishment could involve the Hong Kong football team playing their games without their fans present.

Many Hong Kongers considered the draw to be a win for the home team. Desperate for a win, though, Chinese soccer fans were bitterly disappointed by the draw.

A poll held by Sina revealed that half of the 18,000 respondents said they were angry with the results of the China-Hong Kong match-up, with another 27 percent saying they were disappointed. Seventy-five percent of the respondents asked for Chinese men’s soccer head coach Alan Perrin to step down.

This sentiment was taken to extremes by a fan who hacked into the Chinese Football Association’s website, leaving a note that criticized Perrin’s strategy (seen above). The hacker asked for Perrin and Chinese Football Association president Cai Zhenhua to be fired, along with Cai to be investigated by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Commission with a “discipline inspection”.

Meanwhile, reaction to possibly yet another failed campaign to qualify for the World Cup brought out anger and disappointment from netizens:

gladyholiday:
Chinese (Men’s) Soccer Team: Last time in Shenzhen (in September), the explanation was that there was a problem with the air. This time, they’re saying that Mong Kok Stadium is too small. You say this in spite of not being out of breath and having flushed faces! What a joke! Huh… maybe we should give them an award for “most creative (explanation)”?

梅州校园新鲜事:
Steps taken by the Chinese Soccer for every competition:
1. Upon drawing lots (for upcoming games), be sure to say many bold, visionary words. 2. Off to a good start, predict a good outcome against opponent. 3. Lose the initiative. 4. Maintain suspense. 5. Citing only theorhetical possibilities, watch how the opponent reacts. 6. Completely say goodbye to the small group by getting knocked out early. 7. Find new people who will fight for the honor. 8. Switch around personnel, get ready for the following World Cup.

写给远方：
Firmly request the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection make an inspection of the Chinese Soccer League!!!

人帅腿长毛也长：
Goodbye to this era, hello 2022. Get lost Perrin, you have destroyed yourself with this game.

景俊记：
There will always be a tomorrow. Why are there so many of them?

我系万远涛：
This is the emotional rollercoaster that China always does. Once a problem arises, they transfer attention in order to muddle the feelings of any patriotic Chinese. Heehee, it’s the same trick used by the party I belong to. 

进击的南大学生：
Encourage them for what? Since I was a child, I’ve been watching the Chinese men’s soccer team for ten years now. Encourage them? It’s been fricken ten years of encouragement.

托雷斯他老婆：
Keep on trying to find excuses. No need for anymore of this ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ business. If you can’t get it done, then leave.

Chinese celebrities have offered their own take on the failed chances of China’s men’s soccer team. CCTV anchor Duan Xuan said, “These past few years, there have been a number of changes throughout China, but it seems that only in soccer that ‘time passes so quickly that its beginning and end are the same,'” and also mused that “There’s a type of love that’s called ‘letting go’.”

The rivalry between Hong Kong and China for qualifying for the World Cup has been especially fierce this year. Hong Kong goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai alleged that he was spat upon and insulted as a “dog” by Chinese team captain Zheng Zhi during their September match in Shenzhen. And even before competition began, the Chinese Football Association courted controversy by publishing promotional posters that singled out Hong Kong for having a mixed-race team (seen above), something the China Daily looks to prolong by pointing out the Hong Kong team had “six naturalized players in the line-up” in its follow-up report on Tuesday’s game.

In 1985, Hong Kong ruined China’s chances at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico by knocking them out with a win, leading to riots outside the Workers’ Stadium in Beijing.

China’s sole appearance at the World Cup was in 2002. At that time, the country was able to capitalize on the absence of South Korea during the qualifying rounds since South Korea had already been guaranteed a spot as World Cup hosts.

Related:

• Yao Ming Rejects Soccer As The Future Of Chinese Sport
• Newspaper Blasts China’s Soccer Cheerleaders For Being Ugly
• “Hong Kong is Not China” Artwork Spreads Fast Online

The post China Shocked After Hong Kong Deals Heavy Blow to World Cup Hopes in Highly-Politicized Match appeared first on The Nanfang.

Chinese news reports have been rife with recent stories of passengers behaving poorly and causing disturbances on Chinese airlines. The incidents have led to the creation of a tourist blacklist by Chinese authorities, who also don’t appear to be in a laughing mood when it comes to a hazing ritual involving flight attendants.

The WeChat account for a tabloid representing the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority published a number of photos recently that showed flight attendants at Kunming Airlines lying inside overhead luggage containers. According to the report, the women were all put there against their will.

Apparently a hazing ritual for new flight attendants, the report says this has been an industry tradition for four to five years. Kunming Airlines said it would not investigate the matter when they first heard about it.

The report also claims that many flight crew members wanted to complain about the hazing, but didn’t. It’s not known how long these women are trapped inside these luggage compartments, and their faces have been obscured.

The Chinese Civil Aviation Authority called the behavior “unsafe” and “irresponsible”.

On the other hand, netizen reaction to this story hasn’t been met with cries of outrage. Some readers have reacted by simply refusing to believe the story. One top-voted comment on the Caijing post said, “Just a bunch of stewardesses on their time off with nothing to do.”

Qingdao Airlines recently grounded a member of the flight crew because she was “too fat to fly“.

The post Photos: Chinese Flight Attendants Stuffed into Overhead Luggage Compartments in Hazing Ritual appeared first on The Nanfang.

The match was broadcast on CCTV-5, so the Hong Kong fans’ reaction was witnessed by many mainland viewers. Although mainland sporting reports made no mention of the booing, and the subject has not been very popular on Chinese social media, there have been some extreme reactions from mainland Chinese:

深圳的陆陆:
After watching the broadcast of the Hong Kong-Bhutan soccer match in which Hong Kong soccer fans intentionally hissed the (Chinese) national anthem, all I can say is: get the hell out of here! Forget it, (we mainlanders) are not going to recognize such rude offspring (as you Hong Kongers).

虚无の栤幽:
It’s already hard for me to describe this in words. Just give me a tank already.

earth000kkk:
Murder them all.

万国行:
(When the Chinese national anthem played,) the (Hong Kong) team members were solemnly standing at attention, but spectators were being rowdy. There weren’t many that sang along. What does this signify? That Hong Kongers don’t recognize China (as its country)? Possibly.

管至父:
Doesn’t Hong Kong have its own anthem? The central government is too small minded. When Scotland competes, is it prefaced by the English national anthem?

花心小衰哥丶:
What song does the Taiwan team play during the qualifying rounds for the World Cup? Is it the (same as the PRC anthem)?

管至父 (in response to above):
(They play) the anthem to the Ming Dynasty.

等你回来丶v:
We… have reached… our limits…

老衲无悔4:
Give me a tank. I can’t take it anymore.

萨内蒂爱国米:
If they’re going to boo, then let them. What can we do as the losers that we are? We’d just curse at them from behind our keyboards.

心碎的王子 (responding to above):
Isn’t it illegal to insult the national anthem in a public place?

伊不拉稀我拉稀:
Can you give me a tank?

蓝黑Interview:
Cut off the supply of water and food.

重庆重庆LIFAN:
It doesn’t matter because when the time comes, it will be a 20-0 bloodbath for the national team. Both at home and away. A massacre at Mongkok.

The Chinese Football Association had previously released a number of posters promoting the Asian qualifying rounds, which had been controversial in their own right, by describing the Hong Kong soccer team as a hodge-podge of “black skin, white skin, and yellow skin”. Some netizens considered this to be the reason why Hong Kongers booed the PRC national anthem.

Here’s what netizens had to say on this issue:

NAKACHEN:
Because the China Football Association had released a series of provocative posters, this had sparked anger in Hong Kong soccer fans. So when they play the ‘March of the Volunteer Army’ (the PRC anthem), fans hissed in retaliation.

混世球魔LZ:
This is all the fault of the Chinese FA! Those posters were beyond the pale! If these piggy team members won’t prove to be disappointing, their management sure will!

bonafantasy:
This has nothing to do with the poster. Glorious Hong Kong has always been this way!

baozi1101100:
The soccer league can’t badmouth the national anthem. The national anthem is sacred and cannot be blasphemed against! Hong Kongers notion of national pride has gotten watered down.

tcjtsw (responding to above):
It hasn’t gotten watered down. They simply don’t have any.

折翼泪:
Simply just a bunch of brainless brats.

黑郁金香_u0:
(Hong Kongers) don’t have any morals. China, Japan, and South Korean dispute with each other all the time, and yet they’ve never booed at each other’s national anthem!

hh12390的春天 (responding to above):
This is a reasonable (response). Hong Kong’s power of independence must be quickly squelched.

104五:
(Hong Kongers) always consider mainlanders to be locusts (a derogatory term implying ravenous consumption). Even if there wasn’t a poster (from the Chinese FA), they’d still boo us.

The post HK Soccer Fans Boo PRC Anthem; Mainlanders Enraged appeared first on The Nanfang.

With the festival’s annual start date on the summer solstice just weeks away (this year on June 22) , Chinese news organisations have picked up foreign coverage of the event and online appeals to stop the festival.

The hashtag “#StopYulin2015” has been forwarded on Twitter some 250,000 times, while a Change.org petition calling for the cancellation of the festival started by animal welfare group Duo Duo has gathered over 200,000 signatures.

Duo Duo founder Andrea Gung said the group  intentionally targeted a Western audience with its social media campaign. “The main thing we have done is made people in Yulin realise that their tradition is something from the past, that is perceived negatively from the outside world.”“The main thing we have done is made people in Yulin realise that their tradition is something from the past, that is perceived negatively from the outside world,” said Gung.

With a lack of laws protecting animals in China, the issue of dog meat consumption has largely been left to Chinese people to decide for themselves. Both sides can be seen making their arguments on a Weibo page dedicated to the Yulin festival, with one side advocating that dogs have uses beyond being cooked, while the other side accuses animal rights activists of hypocrisy and asked for local customs to be respected.

However, pressure coming from abroad may have changed the tone of the Yulin argument. Instead of just concentrating on the issue of dog eating, the international response has become the focus for some netizens who are taking offense to criticism from outsiders. We’ve seen that Chinese netizens are willing to admit shocking truths to each other, but it does not appear that a loss of “face” to a foreigner is acceptable when Chinese culture is at stake.

Here then, running the entire gamut of opinions, is the reaction by Chinese netizens to international appeals to shut down the Yulin Dog Meat Festival:

布丁果果：
Foreigners are crazy, and the original poster (of the microblog) has gone crazy as well. Eating dog meat is not illegal. This is none of your goddamn business.

月球车玉兔号：
Firmly in support of eating dog meat.

CC的小小哲学人生：
Chicken, duck, fish, goose, horse, cow, and sheep all don’t agree with this… in that case, we all shouldn’t eat meat at all.

chensee看不见：
I don’t understand this at all. Aren’t cows a good friend to humanity? You drink its milk, make it work the fields, and in the end you eat its flesh? And there’s no protest against this? Aren’t sheep a good friend to humanity? It contrubutes its wool to us, and yet you still eat it? Isn’t the chicken a good friend to humanity? And when you’re lonely, you still go and…. wha? To suffer this final deviation–!

__141：
And yet, this protest will come to no good use.

一只在古灵阁数钱的地精：
Regulate the dog meat industry! Implement an official quarantine standard! And then nationalize it! And crack down on illegal traders! And dog thieves! Stop the practice of catching stray dogs on the streets from moving vehicles!

笑隆戈：
Hee hee, hey foreign netizens, have you heard about bull fights in Spain?

学土木的小明：
What’s the difference between eating dog meat and pork? Why can we eat pigs, but we’re not allowed to eat dogs?
Strange. Southerners need to eat dog meat during the Winter Solstice! What? It’s not allowed?

qq00001851：
If names were collected in support of the dog meat festival, millions of signatures would be collected.

爱跳舞的兔子咚咚：
Many people are protesting, and yet with the same mouth they can be seen with a piece of dog meat hanging from it. Aren’t you ashamed?

要当海贼王的咸鱼：
People have the freedom to eat whatever they want, just as they have the freedom to refrain from eating whatever they want. No right to interfere??? What’s more, the topic in question is the eating of dog meat!!! Not the eating of pet dogs!!! People are just afraid that their pets will be stolen by dog traders and supplied to the markets.

曹先生KL：
This is like how Eskimos hunt whales, it’s a local tradition. All that can be said about this protest is that people are getting worked up about nothing over other people’s customs.

noiseB：
We’ve set up a petition on Weibo to “free the turkeys for Thanksgiving”!!!

GalaPotato：
Dog meat eating is a custom belonging to other people, the same way that people of the Islamic Hui ethnic group don’t eat pork. They won’t protest us for eating pork. We should mutually respect each other; if you don’t want to eat something, then you don’t.

小于号K：
I don’t eat dog, but I won’t oppose people who do. This is what you call ‘respecting other people’.

实在没办法起名：
What business does eating dog meat have anything to do with foreigners? Why don’t they go to the Middle East and try promoting pork to them?

彼得小茄：
Europe has a culture of raising livestock in which dogs served as friends and helpers to people. This is why they eat beef, will hold bull fights, and kill cattle. On the other hand, China has an agarian culture in which cows are a symbol of wealth. In ancient times, the slaughter of cattle was penalized by prison time. Confucius said, ‘Do unto others as others would do unto you.’ So, to you keyboard warriors of China as well as those abroad, to arms! Shout your slogans and protest the bull fighting festival of Spain, something which is even more famous… 

全家网络：
Of course you can eat dogs, naturally! You can eat any friend of humanity, any search and rescue dog or seeing-eye dog. To you it’s just another piece of food on your plate!!!

久_池：
Let’s all protest the Christmas practice of eating turkey!

走不快的劣马：
Frenchmen eat horses, man’s faithful friend. As you find eating horses so enjoyable, by what right do you have to criticize Chinese for eating dog? Australians eat kangaroo. As you find eating such a cute, adorable animal so enjoyable, what right do you have to criticize Chinese for eating dog? People of Spain and many South American countries eat alpaca. As you find eating such a cute and adorable animal so enjoyable, what right do you have to criticize Chinese for eating dog?

颐香斋：
There are those that forbid others from eating dog. There are those that forbid other people from eating beef. There are those that forbid other people from eating pork. There are those that forbid other people from eating meat. There are those that forbid other people from wearing fur… That’s a myriad of variations, but they all have in common the imposing of one’s will and preferences upon others.

魏斐_Wizzarff：
Twitter doesn’t exist in China, therefore this is fake news.

QN春雷：
Japanese people hunt and kill whales. Why don’t I see these foreign bastards protesting against them?

落英有时：
I don’t own a dog as a pet, and I don’t eat dogs. What’s more, I don’t oppose other people raising dogs as pets, or eating them. However, I ask dog owners to not let their dogs run wildly all over the place, defecating and urinating wherever they want. I ask that they promptly vaccinate their dogs and not let them bite anyone. And, I ask people in the dog meat industry to not steal dogs or poison them.

嚣张小盼：
Not in support of eating dogs, and don’t protest it either. The cultures are different, and there should be more tolerance (towards others).

Local authorities have responded to last year’s controversy by banning the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, but this probably isn’t the last we’ve heard about the issue.

Related:

• Yunlin Dog Sellers Openly Taunt Dog Lovers: “Buy The Dog Or It Dies!” [UPDATED]
• Yulin Dog Eating Festival: “The More You Protest, The Better Our Business”
• Yulin Draws Foreigners Who Dine on Dog Meat
• Chinese Donors Raise Hundreds of Thousands of Yuan to Rescue Yulin Dogs
• Doctors In Yulin Told To Stay Away From Dog Eating Festival

The post Yulin Dog Eaters Doubling Down Amid Foreign Campaigns to Stop Controversial Festival appeared first on The Nanfang.

Li and his daughter posing next to one of his goddess-inspired paintings.

When Chongqing-born painter Li Zhuangping unveiled his collection of oil paintings titled “Oriental Goddess and Mountain Spirit” to the world, they were received with unanimous applause and acclaim. When the young, nude woman featured in each of the paintings was revealed to be the artist’s daughter, the acclaim took a different turn.

By the end of Tuesday, the hashtag #FatherPaintsDaughterNude# was the most searched topic on Sina Weibo, with close to 91,500 searches. Many Weibo users lashed out at Li , calling his works slanderous and immoral. Some questioned Li’s intentions and suspected him of creating a firestorm to make his daughter famous. Weibo user 精品时尚排行, who has more than 7 million followers, wrote, “Li Zhuangping have you thought about how your son-in-law would react to this? In order to make your daughter famous, you ruined art at your expense. From a moral point of view, I can’t accept this. SARFT (China’s state censor) please only use her head shots”.

Another added, “…this is like a father taking nude photos of his daughter…”.

In defence of her father, the 23 year-old Li Qin said, “Daughters modelling for their fathers is a sacred thing. My Father deeply loves me. Many Western female figures, such as holy figures and Venus figures, are naked. My Father doesn’t have corrupt, perverted ideas. He cares for me.”

Many Weibo users were not convinced of Li Qin’s explanation. One in particular,             故事胶片, suggested that instead of painting nudes, the father should, “sketch 108 cartoons of his daughter falling asleep”. The post, along with the images of the sketches, were liked more than 1,600 times.

Wang Xiojian, a fellow artist, art critic and professor at the Sichuan Academy of Arts, applauded Li’s audacity and artistic choices. “In our (artistic) circle, some artists ask their wives to model for them. But asking one’s daughter to model for his work is a first. Not only did he break social norms, he challenged ethics and morality. The Li’s collaboration on this exquisite Wushan Goddess painting is moving,” he commented.

Photos: gwdh

The post Chongqing Artist Breaks Boundaries by Painting His Daughter In The Nude appeared first on The Nanfang.

The University of Chicago decided not to renew its five-year contract with Hanban, reported Inside Higher Ed, an educational magazine. Hanban is the colloquial name for the Office of Chinese Language Council International, the quasi-governmental agency that operates the Confucius Institute.

One-hundred professors had signed a petition protesting the the university’s involvement with the Confucius Institute back in April. The professors cited a lack of academic control that had resulted in a relationship with the Confucius Institute that was not “consistent with the intellectual principles and values of the university.”

However, the University of Chicago made the decision to terminate their relationship with the Confucius Institute because of “recently published comments about UChicago in an article about the director-general of Hanban are incompatible with a continued equal partnership.”

READ: Parents Protest Opening of New Confucius Institute in Toronto

Xu Lin, the director of Hanban and the chief executive of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, had made the disparaging remarks in the Jiefang Daily in response to the professors’ petition. The New York Times reported:

“Many people have felt Xu Lin’s toughness,” The Jiefang Daily wrote admiringly, citing a letter it said Ms. Xu wrote to the University of Chicago’s president in response to the petition.

“In just one sentence she said, ‘Should your college decide to withdraw, I’ll agree,’” the article said. In Chinese, that sentence carries connotations of a challenge. It continued: “Her attitude made the other side anxious. The school quickly responded that it will continue to properly manage the Confucius Institute.”

In the ten years since it first opened in South Korea, Confucius Institutes have spread around the world with around 1,000 branches. However, Confucius Institutes have also brought controversy and accusations wherever they have gone. As noted in a report written by Tao Xie and published in the Journal for Contemporary China, Confucius Institutes tend to open in areas where where public opinion of China is low, particularly in North America and Europe. The institutes are now in decline amid accusations of censorship, academic freedom, and espionage.

In Canada, the Toronto District School Board has seen the number of Chinese students decline following a decision by school trustees to delay its partnership with the Confucius Institute. Trustee Sam Sotiropoulos said:

We should never have got involved in this relationship from the very beginning [with the Confucius Institute]. Now that it has happened, it has put us in a very precarious and difficult position going forward vis-à-vis our relations with probably our largest target market for international student recruitment.

Last December, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) issued a statement urging universities and colleges to sever ties with Confucius Institutes in Canada.  “They restrict the free discussion of topics Chinese authorities deem controversial and should have no place on our campuses,” said James Turk, CAUT executive director:

Several Canadian universities had already terminated their agreements with the Confucius Institute even before the Toronto School Board decision. The University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, the University of Manitoba and McMaster University in Hamilton have all closed their Confucius Institutes.

Similar closings and controversies surrounding the Confucius Institute have occurred throughout the USA, Israel, Australia, Portugal, and even in neighboring Vietnam where it was called a “Trojan horse and propaganda machine.”

But despite the rhetoric, Hanban head Xu Lin remains confident. Lu said the institutes will continue to operate:

The US government hurt our feelings, but Confucius Institutes across Europe have done a great job, especially with cultural promotion, which is not surprising given Europe’s rich history and culture.

[h/t China Digital Times]

Photo: chinhdangvu.blogspot

The post Confucius Institutes Fall on Hard Times Amid Foreign Backlash appeared first on The Nanfang.

UPDATE 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.

***

We’ve been duped. The infamous Yulin dog-eating festival wasn’t cancelled, it was just moved up. Traditionally held on the summer solstice in Yulin, the date was quietly changed to dodge media coverage and outrage by Chinese and international critics, reports The Guardian.

State media reported some Yulin residents gathering last weekend to eat lychee and dog meat in order to celebrate the summer solstice, even though the longest day of the year isn’t until June 21. They had reportedly done so in order to avoid attention for eating dog meat, a contentious issue raised by animal activists as well as average Chinese citizens who are pet owners.

Animal activists allege that the event is a public health risk because the dogs are not properly quarantined, but instead are stray dogs caught off the street.

PHOTOS: Shocking: the Brazen Capture of a Dog in Broad Daylight in Guangdong

The local government has distanced itself from the festival, but passed on several directives to residents.

Yulin restaurants were ordered to remove the character for “dog” from signs and menus and to refrain from slaughtering dogs or display cooked dog meat in public places. Furthermore, an order that health care workers aren’t allowed to consume dog meat in public has been revealed to encapsulate all local public servants.

The eating of dogs is not illegal in China.

For something that happened last week, the Chinese media has not extensively covered the rescheduling of the Yulin festival. The campaign against the dog eating festival continues in China with posts like this one on Weibo that believe the event is still on for June 21. 

Related:

• Animal Activists Clash with Dog-Serving Guangxi Restaurant
• Doctors In Yulin Told To Stay Away From Dog Eating Festival
• Video: Dog in Heshan, Guangdong Snatched in Mere Seconds
• Chaos in Huiyang as Dog Thieves Are Surrounded and Beaten by Angry Villagers

Photos: Baidu cache

The post It Happened: Controversial Yulin Dog Eating Festival Held Early To Avoid Attention [UPDATED] appeared first on The Nanfang.

Participants donned raincoats and threw tomatoes at each other as spectators watched from outside behind a glass window. Starting May 1, the attraction has drawn hundreds of tourists each day.

For those unfamiliar with the tradition of splattering tomatoes, La Tomatina is a long-standing festival in Bunoi, Spain in which participants fling over-abundant crops of tomatoes at each other. Since it started over 70 years ago, La Tomatina has attracted hundreds of thousands of tourists and is emulated across the world including one held during the fall in Dongguan that consumes 15 tons of tomatoes.

However, vociferous objections have been vocal online. One netizen complained, “Has [China] become so great and powerful that it is able to waste food in order to achieve spiritual consolation?” while another said, “Farmers have it tough; as well, there are many people in China who don’t eat enough so that they can save money.”

And then there’s the bill: using yesterday’s wholesale cost of tomatoes of 4.2 yuan per kilogram as a standard, it costs RMB 3,150 everyday to equip revelers with 750 kg of projectiles.

A spokesperson for the Windows of the World justified the attraction as being simple “stress-relief” that is a good complement to the other international exhibits that allow visitors to experience other cultures without the need to leave the country. As well, the spokesperson claims the tomatoes are all bought overripe; this means that they are safer, more fragrant upon impact, and are in fact helping local markets by buying tomatoes that would otherwise be thrown out.

While it’s great that fair participants have the privilege to enjoy an activity that could only otherwise take place in garbage dumpsters around the city, it still seems as though a food fight is still not yet properly done in China. Wearing raincoats, food fighters have nothing at stake as they hurl unwanted food at each other that won’t ruin their clothes as a crowd watches this exchange safely from outside, trying to comprehend the enjoyment that has clearly escaped them.

The whole point of a food fight is that you’re wasting food that could otherwise be put to good use; unlike other projectile contests, your getting hit adds to your enjoyment as you break the taboo of wearing on your body what you should instead be eating.

If this attraction is to continue, we’d suggest for this tomato food fight along with other similar Chinese festivals with names including “Grape Fight”, “Apple Art”, and “Orange Ocean” to introduce the concept properly: as an example of unabashed first-world decadence that China is still reluctant to embrace despite the advancement of its middle-class.

Meanwhile, this “counterfeit” food fight will only serve to reinforce the traditional belief that food should not go to waste, and that ketchup should be put on pizza.

Photos: Shenzhen News

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It all started a few days ago when a comment from a Taiwan TV commentator surfaced online. The commentator said most Chinese can’t afford to eat a tea leaf egg, a popular snack in the Greater China region that normally costs around one renminbi ($0.16). The comment was seen by Chinese as a proof of wide misconceptions held by Taiwanese toward China, which has paddled out of Mao’s protracted poverty to become an economic powerhouse.

Netizens from China’s social media went along with the too-poor-for-a-tea leaf egg comment and pretended to revere the egg as the new symbol of wealth. A Weibo user named Ok-lee wrote: “My mother sold all her jewelry and dowry, and my father sold his house and even asked for a bank loan to buy me this tea leaf egg. How can I ever repay my parents!”

Now even foreigners have decided to join the cross-strait feud.

Three laowai in Guangzhou, all dressed in eye-catching traditional Chinese garb, were seen giving away free tea leaf eggs to local residents outside of a MTR station in Guangzhou on April 1, 21CN reported.

While freely giving away the eggs to passers-by, one expat promoted the eggs in standard Mandarin by saying: “A single tea leaf egg is worth five phones, five iPhones, and a BMW. All of that is worth this (holds up a tea leaf egg).” (The video can be watched here.)

Home page and content page credit: Guangdong TV 

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