'Sin city' Dongguan goes to work on losing its sleazy reputation
Dongguan embarks on a propaganda campaign to shed its image as a city of sex and sweatshops
"Sex capital" and "sweatshop city" were just two of the labels Dongguan earned during its heyday as a booming manufacturing hub in Guangdong, but the local authorities are now flexing their propaganda muscles to rebrand the city.
A 15-second promotional video portraying Dongguan as a mixture of modern infrastructure and traditional culture was screened at least 90 times a day in high-speed railway stations in Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha and Beijing between February 4 and 20, the Yangcheng Evening News reported yesterday
Featuring parks, lion dances, Cantonese opera, a basketball tournament and some well-known entrepreneurs, the video had also been screened in 50 cinemas in Beijing and Guangzhou since February 14, the report said.
It was produced by the Discovery Channel in September, the city's propaganda department said, without saying how much it cost.
It was well received by social media users, especially those in Dongguan, who said the city's image as a sin city was exaggerated and had "demonised" it.
Last year, some online posts on popular bulletin board sites mistook Dongguan as the location of a shocking crime in Anhui , in which a female student was badly beaten by several women.