Anger over Chinese eating live fish

Animal rights campaigners have criticised the Chinese over their extreme eating habits after a video of diners eating a live fish surfaced on the internet. The film, in which a part-fried fish is shown breathing and wriggling on a plate as it is being slowly eaten alive in a restaurant, has been posted on the video-sharing website YouTube. 

In order to keep the carp alive chefs cook its body but wrap its head in a wet cloth to keep it breathing. it is then covered in a sauce before being served. In the video diners can be heard laughing and joking, prodding the fish while it is still moving, before picking it apart with chopsticks. Speaking in Cantonese, the Chinese language spoken mainly in Hong Kong and parts of southern China, the diners can be heard to comment on the dish before them. "It doesn't seem to be moving," one woman says as a second woman interjects, "Try moving its head." Laughing is heard as someone prods the fish with chopsticks and the fish opens and closes its mouth. A male diner then exclaims, "I'm not touching that," and a female companion reacts saying, "Wah, that is so scary." More laughing is heard and chopsticks can then be seen removing a piece of the fish before the video ends.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), an animal rights group based in Virginia USA, called the video "disgusting". A spokesperson said, "Every decent person should be shocked when anyone mocks or abuses a helpless dying animal."

The video has attracted more than 120,000 views and many comments have been posted condemning the practice. Newspapers which carried the story also attracted outraged comments from readers. Britain's Sun received around 60 comments. One reader said, "This is absolutely horrendous.   Sick to the core.  They have no humanity." Another asks, "What is wrong with these people? Fine eat them, but at least make sure they have been killed humanly. I hope they go to hell. It's not funny!"

It is not the first time that the Chinese have been criticised for their extreme eating habits. There are claims some restaurants offer monkey's brains. Other dishes include rats, dogs, cats, snakes, lizards and baby mice. Last month Stephen Fry was criticised by the Chinese embassy after he singled out the Chinese culture as being the biggest threat to some endangered species. "It is not very pleasant for us to single out a culture, but, if you care about lions and tigers and whales and sharks, it is the Far East and the way they eat, or the way they attempt to cure themselves, that seems to be the biggest threat," he said.

A spokesman at the Chinese embassy responded, "I don't think it is fair to accuse other cultures of having certain negative habits and traditions...We have our traditions, as the Spanish have bullfighting, and you, until recently, had foxhunting. We did not criticise you or the Spanish for this. Tiger bones for traditional medicine are now banned, to the suffering of the Chinese industry."

tvnewswatch, Beijing, China