First it was plastic penguins. Now a ‘live show’ of fake butterflies is causing a flap in China
Visitors turn up to park expecting a riot of living colour only to find plastic that’s less than fantastic
Tourism officials in southern China are investigating why a company promoting a live butterfly show offered visitors a display of plastic replicas of the insects instead.
The incident in Guangxi comes just weeks after a zoo in the same autonomous region put inflated toy penguins on show instead of the wildlife it had promised.
The two-day butterfly exhibition in Xiaodubai Park in Mashan county attracted about 3,000 visitors over December 9 and 10. The show was advertised as a live butterfly exhibition on social media platforms, with tickets priced at 15 yuan (US$2.25) each, the website Gxnews.com.cn reported. But all visitors found were enormous, vividly coloured plastic butterflies mounted on sticks and randomly stuck into the ground.
A company called Yulin Exhibition had rented a 6,000 sq ft area within the park for 2,500 yuan (US$377), the report said, adding that the company is not in the municipal government’s business registration database.
