The Beijing TV Apology for a Cardboard/Meat-Filled Steamed Buns Dumpling Hoax Is Reassuring

The Beijing TV apology for a cardboard/meat-filled steamed buns dumpling hoax is reassuring, but not only for the obvious reasons.

The Yomiuri reports that according to a July 18 report on an online news service run by the Beijing municipal government, the July 11 Beijing TV report claiming that meat-filled steamed buns sold at Beijing stalls were using cardboard trash in place of pork had been a hoax. The municipal security bureau found that temporary workers working on "Transparency", a Beijing TV program, handed meat and cardboard to four people including migrant workers and filmed them mixing the cardboard and meat. Beijing TV apologized, stating that they "exerted an undesirable influence on society by making a false report due to the lack of supervision." The perpetrators of the hoax were summarily executed after a trial that lasted fifty minutes, which reminds you that temps are the first to go in China as well. (Okay, I exaggerated. A little. Say, does this Zheng Ziaoyu guy remind you of a certain Japanese politician or what?)

This is good news in so many ways: first, it allays domestic and global fears about China's food industry, which has been taking a beating of late. Second, it is reassuring to know that the dreaded security bureau is no longer watching over foreigners so that they do not go around humping Chinese women (seriously, I have a first-hand witnesses) and instead worry about more immediate concerns. Finally, and most importantly, nothing makes me feel more secure than to know that Beijing TV shares the same eyeballs-driven values that Japanese TV holds so dear. If this isn't what the East Community is all about, I don't know what is