SHANGHAI–Chinese officials have released an official statement today on the reason behind the almost 3,000 porcine carcasses found floating in the Huangpu river.
The well-timed statement has successfully lifted the fog of mystery surrounding this formerly intriguing incident and, at the same time, brought a sigh of relief to a tense and worried urban population.
Shanghai’s new mayor, Yang Xiong, assured the city’s residents that this had nothing to do with harmful chemicals or pollutants from China’s environmentally-friendly factories as some have spuriously suggested.
Apparently, the spirit pig became insanely jealous with all the attention being lavished on China’s serpentine golden boys–the dragon and dragon junior–and so, obviously, he sacrificed 2,800 willing volunteers to bring shame upon his rivals and make them lose face in front of the homeland and the world.
Local officials are now worried that their decision to limit the amount of fireworks for this year’s New Year celebrations might have backfired.
“What did I say?” one representative queried rhetorically at a government press conference. “The one year we try and cut back to appease the green freaks and thin-skinned and look what happens! The gods teach us a lesson.”
Normally, hundreds of thousands of celebratory fireworks are set off around the city to mark the coming of a new year, but this year the number was substantially lower–almost one percent.
“We will do everything in our power to solve this issue,” mayor Yang said. “Our next step, besides doubling the fireworks for next year, is to get everyone who was born in the year of the pig to go out and kill a snake immediately.”
So you get all of your daily protein requirements from a single glass of water. Pretty crafty.
i take back what i said about the super glue. we’ve been kept up to date (as expats here in SH) and we’re no longer concerned because they have assured us that the 6,000 diseased, rotting pigs did not contaminate the water at all. so we’re good.
Who in the hell let all of these pigs go swimming without their little pig leg swimmies? There is just something wrong with this country! Oh wait, that country.
number up to 6,000 now. planning on super-gluing my mouth shut for all future showers here.