Throwback Thursday: Where in Neptune’s Name Did All the Fish Go?

Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our 12-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful stories of Beijing's days gone by.

At this point, the COVID-19 second-wave scare has, thankfully, almost completely receded, but that hasn’t stopped Beijingers’ continued fear of imported seafood, as local officials refuse to rule out the possibility that fish and other aquatic critters could be contaminated. With this in mind, we’re reminded of another seafood scare in Beijing – but this time, the controversy surrounded domestic fish.

In late 2016, we reported on the curious case of the empty fish tanks, a mystery that would have certainly stumped Nancy Drew, if for no other reason than the fact that her lack of Mandarin skills would have prevented her from interrogating the city’s grocers. The story even made headlines in foreign newspapers as Bejing’s fiery fish fanatics faced the following fiasco with fury: All of the carp and other freshwater fish had disappeared from grocery store tanks overnight.

With the markets mum on the matter, shoppers looked to the local government for answers. Their response? “Nothing to see here.” The municipal Food and Drug Administration claimed that the emptying of the tanks was “normal” market behavior, explained by a decrease in demand for the fish – a dubious claim, given that a lack of demand is not usually associated with angry customer’s demanding to know what happened to their product. But hey, I’m no economist.

Furthermore, as the Beijinger’s Mike Wester pointed out at the time, the administration neglected to address concerns that the fish were removed due to excessive antibiotics or other such contaminants, which has been a long-held worry for Chinese consumers.

Later, a rumored explanation was finally confirmed: Stores had sold off all the fish at a discounted price in response to a notice of an incoming safety inspection. While this doesn’t prove that the fish were contaminated, it certainly says something about the faith they had in their products.

However, in yet another positive to come from the utter mess of COVID-19, we can rest reassured that seafood will be the subject of scrupulous oversight from now on. That means that once the coronavirus vaccine finally surfaces, it’ll be time for a fishy feast like never before.

READ: Throwback Thursday: When Foreigners Taught, and Were Taught, the Rules of the Road

Images: Msweekly, RFA