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China’s Latest Tourism Stunt – Make Money By Showing “Flying Pigs”



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May 05 2015
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While thousands of Malaysians took to the street on 1st-May days ago to protest Emperor Najib Razak’s lavish spending and the newly introduced GST, tourists in China were being entertained with a new bizzare stunt – piglets flying, into the water – from a huge platform. As sickening as it looked, the event was instantly a sellout success, until netizens took to a Chinese CCTV Facebook page criticizing the animal cruelty.

China Animal Cruelty - Man Pushing Pigs Into Lake

The May Day performance took place at Shiyan Lake, a popular holiday spot for tourists in Changsha (capital of central China’s Hunan Province), and saw the animals race towards a finishing line to the delight of spectators. The hourly stunt was arranged in such that 10 poor pigs were herded onto a bridge above the lake. These pigs, identified by red numbers painted on their sides, would then be forced off the bridge by a man holding a stick.

 

The pigs soared through the air before hitting the water with a splash, and while they were cheered on by the crowd, would race towards the finish line for edible rewards. Obviously, the piglets were denied to safety on the shore with the use of a bamboo barrier alongside the race area. Amazingly, tourism officials of China are thinking about plans to make the “Pigs Can Fly” stunt a regular weekend event, despite backlash.

China Animal Cruelty - Pigs Jump Into Lake

Shi Huang, the organiser of the event, however defended the performance. Amusingly, Mr Shi claims the piglets are carefully trained to perform this special stunt and they get well rewarded with food. He also claims once the pigs get over their nerves, they clearly enjoy it. Of course, there’s no way to tell nor ask the piglets if that was really the case (*tongue-in-cheek*).

China Animal Cruelty - Pigs Swimming To Finish Line

Even if it’s true that pigs love water, certainly jumping into it at the height of at least 20-feet from the top of a platform isn’t something natural, let alone enjoyable. The simple fact that they were forced to swim for their lives because of bamboo barrier had been set up stopping them getting to the shore illustrates animal abuse. Interestingly, this is not the first time the city of Changsa attracted bad publicity.

 

About two years ago, a pig farm (Tianxin Husbandry Pig Farm) in Changsha has been found using an alkaline solution to dissolve pig carcasses before dumping the mixture into the nearby Xiang River, a source  of drinking water for the area. Then, there was pig farmer, Huang Demin, in the same province who boasted about his secret to tastier bacon – by “pushing” his pigs to dive, every day, from a roughly 10-foot-tall wooden platform into a pond.

China Animal Cruelty - Pigs Swimming To Finish Line While Tourists Cheered

But do you know what’s most sickening about this May Day “flying pigs” performance? It’s the tourists or spectators who couldn’t care less about the animal cruelty stunt but cheered (and probably bet) about which pig would emerge victorious from the race. There’s nothing funny about the event. But this is China, a country with a long list of human and animal rights violations.

 

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Comments

“But this is China, a country with a long list of human and animal rights violations.”

That is such a politically blinkered and ignorant statement. A lot of Chinese detest such a cruel act too, so do not generalise.

If you want to talk about rights violations, the US, UK and Japan are countries with long list of human and animal rights violations too.

The US has been going around the world killing people with their weapon of mass destruction. Most of these are innocent civilians in countries like Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and in the South Americas, to name a few. They kill innocent people in the name of “freedom”. In their own country, their police have no qualms about shooting unarmed black people.

Likewise, the UK has a long history of killing people around the world for centuries. The history books have been strewn with these crimes. Go look at how they rounded up and massacre the Indians when they colonised the sub-continents.

Japan has also has a long history of killing each other during the samurai days. They even went to the extent of disembowelling each other and let their intestines spilled onto the floor and lobbing each other’s heads off. During WW2, they went on a killing orgy and in Nanjing alone, killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese.

So, do not generalise ….

Hello Chinese,

In case you didn’t realise, that statement was meant to mean the “Government of China” …

Unless you agree with the “flying pigs” stunt, you don’t have to start talking about “Wars” to justify other countries’ involvement in killing people too …

Of course we also know while some Chinese people in China and some Vietnamese people in Vietnam happily slaughter dogs and cats as snacks, Chinese people in Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, US, UK and whatnot do not …

So, relax and don’t get too sensitive on the statement …

Thanx for writing from Hong Kong, and we hope you didn’t get pepper-sprayed recently …

Cheers …

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