Gross Olympic Souvenir: Goldfish in a Key Ring
June 22, 2008 · Print This Article
If you were going to fly to China to attend the Olympics this summer, what kind of souvenir would you want to bring home? A t-shirt, a framed photograph? How about a plastic bag full of murky water and a decaying goldfish to attach to your key ring? Sounds like such a wonderful way to remember your great Chinese vacation.
From InventorSpot:
A plastic bag with a picture of Huan Huan, one of the cartoon mascots of the Games, on the outside. And inside: a live goldfish. The bag is part of a plastic key ring. According to the Telegraph story, the bags are sealed, so the fish live in a small pool of water, with little access to air, and no food whatsoever. The goldfish key rings are, of course, not a piece of official Olympic merchandise.
The story quotes a spokesperson from the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals calling the key chains a gimmick which “show no respect for the animals at all,” though there’s no record of the story on the RSPCA’s web site. A manufacturer of the key chains could not be identified. This could mean the entire thing is a hoax, although there is a picture here of something that looks like a live goldfish in a tiny plastic bag.
A lot of people seem to think it’s a hoax, and we sure hope it is. A few months driving around with that thing on your keys and you’d be sure to end up with rotting fish remains all over your lap at some point or another.
Link [InventorSpot]
- To carry reusable bag with me to shopping and to avoid plastic bags
- Let us ban plastic bags
- Plastic Bag Ban
Related Posts:
Student Group Eats a Cat in the Name of Animal Welfare‘RepRap’ Robot Can Replicate Itself
Officials in California Filling Pools with Mosquito Fish
After Sewage Spill Cleanup, Fish in Lake Washington Evolving in Reverse
Indoor ‘River Ecosystem’ Aquarium and Hydroponic Garden
This isn’t a hoax, believe me.
this is the king of pointless-it’s-going-to-be-garbage-the-next-day souvenir.
So if people in China printed a picture of a kid leaving a fairground in England with a fish in a bag that has a logo printed on it would we be seen as having an evil and vile culture?
Kneejerk xenophopic twaddle over an image taken entirely out of context. Unless you know 100% that the intention is for the buyer to keep the fish in the keyring until it dies, which I highly doubt, then your judgement says more about your own prejudice than about the people of China.