‘Difficult to earn a living with dignity’: viral Chinese anger as frog-costumed vendor moved on by Shanghai officials over inflatable froglet sale
- A wave of indignance has swept mainland social media after video emerged of officials ‘harassing’ a man in frog costume selling his ‘babies’
- Inflatable frog-selling craze swept China last year and led to a flood of viral videos which have brought joy to customers and online observers alike
The Chinese public has been enraged by a video of an adorable costumed street vendor selling inflatable baby frogs being moved on by Shanghai city officials.
In the video, taken on May 10 in a crowded street, chengguan, or city administrative and law enforcement, officials order the “frog” to take off its costume while one of them scolds the man inside: “What does it feel like to dress like this every day?”
Two days after the incident, the director of Shanghai Urban Management and Law Enforcement Bureau, Xu Zhihu, responded on a television programme, saying that it was illegal to sell things in public without a permit, except in officially sanctioned areas.
Xu added that the frog was “a disturbance to passers-by and the urban environment”. However, he also called for officials to be “flexible” when it comes to law enforcement.
On mainland social media, many people said Xu’s response was unconvincing.
One said: “I don’t think the frogs are a disturbance. They make me happy every time I see them.”
A “baby frog-selling” craze swept China last year, gaining popularity among customers and online observers.
On the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao, which is operated by Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, a costume can be bought for little more than 200 yuan (US$28). Each inflatable “offspring” costs around four yuan and retail at between 15 and 30 yuan.
Videos of the adorable frogs dancing, “lying flat” on the ground and practising “producing babies” – pumping up the inflatables – have consistently gone viral online.
Even previous footage of “frogs” being educated by other chengguan officials in a “flexible” way gave people a laugh.
In one incident in March, a frog in eastern China’s Zhejiang province was told by officials to “face the wall and reflect on what it had done wrong”.
In January, another frog confronted officials in the southern region of Guangxi by refusing an order to leave after officials threatened to confiscate his “babies”.
One official then tried to placate the unruly frog by saying patiently: “We can’t turn a blind eye just because you are adorable.”
The Chinese magazine New Weekly hailed the frog as “a totem of ‘sang’ culture”, a term that literally means “mourning culture” and refers to the pessimism, loss and lack of self-motivation felt by Chinese middle-class youth.
In response to the Shanghai frog scolding incident, many people online said they were always happy to see them until the moment this one took off the costume revealing a helpless young man inside.
As more and more images of the loveable frogs appeared on social media, it became clear that not only disaffected youth had embraced the frog culture but also grey-haired elderly people trying to make a living.
“All of a sudden the smile on my face froze,” said one online observer.
“Why is it so difficult for people to earn a living with dignity?” another asked.
