Visitors are divided over exhibition that features 10 preserved human bodies
Featuring everything from complete human corpses to nerves, organs and fingers, the controversial Body Worlds exhibition has opened in Beijing.
The display, put together by German anatomist Guenther von Hagens, features 10 plasticised human bodies displayed alongside nearly 200 chemically treated body parts. It will run for the next three months at the Beijing Natural History Museum.
The exhibition of human corpses has been touring the world for several years, and has been staged in Vienna, Berlin, London and a number of Asian cities. Wherever it appears it provokes a strong, and often negative, reaction from the public.
But controversy on the mainland started weeks before the display arrived.
In late November a media report stirred nationwide anger over a body processing plant in Dalian, Liaoning province, which was preparing exhibits for the exhibition. The plant imports more than 100 corpses every year and reprocesses them into 40 plasticised works of art.