No, I’m not making it up.
China’s State Administration of Industry and Commerce issued a notice this weekend banning meals served on naked bodies, officially canceling the service offered by a restaurant in southwestern China that served sushi on unclothed female university students, a Beijing newspaper reported Sunday.
The Saturday pronouncement forbids the service because it “insults people’s moral quality,” according to the Beijing Times. Serving food on women’s bodies also “spreads commercial activity with poor culture,” the paper said, citing the administration’s notice.
In April 2004, Chinese media reported that the Hefeng Village Huaishi Cuisine Restaurant in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, was serving sushi and other Japanese food on two naked university students as they lay on their backs.
Customers would pay 1,000 yuan (about $120) each for the meal after making reservations up to three days in advance, media said.
Flowers, shells and rocks also adorned the women’s bodies, according to a photo in the Beijing paper.
The women lay calmly as people ate, a restaurant manager told Kunming media, which said this style of dining existed in “ancient Japan.”
One more reason for me to consider not moving back. They ban everything that’s fun!
1
By Other Lisa
Well, this is something they’ve been doing in New York (I think) and other places in the US. I don’t know about Japan.
I’d wonder about the hygiene, personally!
May 22, 2005 @ 1:03 pm | Comment
2
By Hui Mao
It originally started in Japan, but many other countries are starting to pick it up. Not really a surprise that it’s banned in China. After all, even strip clubs are still illegal in China.
May 22, 2005 @ 2:10 pm | Comment
3
By richard
Of course it’s not surprising. What’s surprising is that it was allowed for even a little while.
May 22, 2005 @ 2:11 pm | Comment
4
By Keir
Bloody fascists…..
May 22, 2005 @ 6:57 pm | Comment
5
By Gordon
This is clearly Japan’s fault!
May 22, 2005 @ 7:18 pm | Comment
6
By Conrad
Totalitarian bastards!
May 22, 2005 @ 9:36 pm | Comment
7
By Simon World
Daily linklets 23rd May
The while I was away edition… The Standard is benefitting from having an ex-blogger as a reporter. Doug Cret’s has another article looking at blogs and profiling ESWN and Glutter. As usual ESWN has been churning out great material: a personal account…
May 22, 2005 @ 9:49 pm | Comment
8
By Imagethief
Sex, sex, sex. Is that all you think about?
May 22, 2005 @ 10:22 pm | Comment
9
By Imagethief
Sex, sex, sex. Is that all you think about?
May 22, 2005 @ 10:22 pm | Comment
10
By pete
Customer: Oh,waitress, there is
something on
the dinnerware.
Waitress: Where is it?
C: There.
W: Where?
C: Right there. Can’t you see it?
W: No. Oh wait. You mean that
stuff on her breast?
May 23, 2005 @ 7:03 am | Comment
11
By Shanghai Slim
No great loss — in China you are never more than six or seven meters away from a brothel, and I’m sure one of the xiaojie there employed would be quite happy to be your “table” for a lot less than one thousand rmb!
Now, what I want to know is would they serve the meal on a *guy* if you requested it? 🙂
May 23, 2005 @ 7:27 am | Comment
12
By Filthy Stinking No.9
I’ve suspected that this was going on for a while … I have a feeling that Peking Duck has even been visited by one. Here’s a story from Sydney Morning Herald:
China recruits special agents for internet battle
By Hamish McDonald Herald Correspondent in Beijing
May 23, 2005
Ma Zhichun is one of a new breed of Chinese communist propaganda officials – licensed to roam incognito in the ideological badlands of the internet and argue with bad thoughts.
At the end of April, the 40-year-old was officially appointed an “internet commentator” by the External Propaganda Office in his home town of Suqian, in the coastal province of Jiangsu.
He and 25 others have been selected for their understanding of government policies, “political reliability” and how the internet works. Their job is to surf the net, joining in chatroom discussions and blogs, and to subtly guide opinion among China’s estimated 94 million internet users to the advantage of the party.
The new force of internet agents was revealed last week in the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend. (The report has since been removed from its website.) According to the newspaper, Suqian pioneered the internet offensive after its party officials found that a propaganda campaign seeking criticism of city officials turned into a public backlash against the entire administration. To counter this, Mr Ma and other officials began making “timely explanations” to counter “pessimistic talk” on the internet. Their success led to the adoption of a full-time force of undercover commentators ranging the medium.
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Party committees in several other Chinese cities have followed suit. In the Fujian province city of Quanzhou, more than 60 people applied for 20 jobs as internet commentators. In Beijing, the central propaganda department trained 127 such commentators late last year. The party’s main newspaper, the People’s Daily, noted that the internet’s breadth, openness, interactivity and instantaneous nature made it “an important ideological battleground”.
Meanwhile, the Government continues to keep a close eye on internet cafes, requiring them to keep a log of all websites visited by their customers. In the December quarter alone, authorities closed 12,575 unauthorised internet cafes, official media reported.
May 23, 2005 @ 7:36 am | Comment
13
By richard
Well, I’m paid by the CIA to post, so why shouldn’t they be paid by the CCP to comment?
May 23, 2005 @ 7:44 am | Comment
14
By richard
Shanghai, if you’re willing to pay I’m sure you can have your meal served on any kind of platter you’d like. Money talks in China.
May 23, 2005 @ 7:46 am | Comment
15
By chriswaugh_bj
Hang on a minute, this isn’t the first time such a report has appeared. I distinctly remember the same thing happening, also in Kunming, about a year or so ago. Could it be that the restaurant waited for the heat to subside and then started offering the service again, or is China Daily recycling stories to plug holes in a slow news day?
But imagine: “Waiter, there’s a pube in my sushi!” I think I’d rather not eat off a naked body, no matter what guaruntees of hygiene were offered.
May 23, 2005 @ 9:32 pm | Comment
16
By steve
I go with Shangha Slim’s above comments.
You have a massive hue and cry about serving scoff off naked lasses. Walk outside the restauranr in question (or any restaurant for that matter) and the chances are that you’ll walk into about 20 whores.
Most 3-4 star hotels in China have an army of whores pacing around outside.
May 23, 2005 @ 11:42 pm | Comment
17
By JR
Most 3-4 star hotels in China have an army of whores pacing around outside. Once upon a time in Hawaii…
May 24, 2005 @ 12:54 pm | Comment
18
By ACB
Yeah, yea, blame Japan.
I’ve never actually seen this done in Japan, I’ve only heard about it, and usually from foreigners. Maybe I’m just not sleezy enough to go into those kind of places. Still, the Brits do it, all be it on women wearing ski pants, so if it’s good enough for the Brits ……
Forget Sushi, lets eating Chinese hot pot off of a naked lady. That would be ….. er ….. interesting.
May 25, 2005 @ 9:28 pm | Comment
19
By bingfeng
they should ask the government to allow them serve hotpot in the body of a naked panda
May 26, 2005 @ 5:46 am | Comment
20
By JR
ACB,
What makes you think it is sleazy? Do Japanese think tattoos are sleazy also?
May 26, 2005 @ 12:54 pm | Comment
21
By JR
Money talks in China. Money talks in anywhere in the world too.
May 26, 2005 @ 1:04 pm | Comment
22
By richard
Money talks more in china than anywhere else I have ever been. By far. I mean, like really, really far. And everyone who’s ever lived there agrees.
May 26, 2005 @ 2:42 pm | Comment
23
By JR
If you have enough money, I am sure you can eat on Tom Delay’s naked body.
May 26, 2005 @ 5:52 pm | Comment
24
By richard
Whatever turns you on….
May 26, 2005 @ 5:55 pm | Comment
25
By JR
Yes I want to see. HAHA
May 26, 2005 @ 6:04 pm | Comment
26
By pete
I tend to think the “money talks in China more than other places” is a bit of a mis-statement.
I agreed that money in China has a way of getting things done or being obvious. But that is the point of my premise. What Chinese do with or how the Chinese handle money is just more obvious than in most countries I have been to.
May 26, 2005 @ 10:57 pm | Comment
27
By Bingfeng Teahouse
don’t blame japan
don’t blame japan
May 27, 2005 @ 1:54 am | Comment
28
By woodentown
lousy aping, japanese freaks are always contriving sick tricks. it is not culture, to any extent.
May 28, 2005 @ 8:45 am | Comment
29
By George
I wonder if any feminist is for this ban. US government used to ban alcohol- to remind those who linked the ban to totallitarism or facsism simplisticly.
I support this ban, and I guess the meal served on a naked girl is surely a humiliation.
September 13, 2006 @ 4:09 am | Comment