SCMP reported that Chinese artist Yang Yexin's efforts to warn people about the serious problem of food waste in China faced fierce public criticism when Yang threw 1,000 "golden rice" seeds into the Hoang Pho River in Shanghai and other areas of the city.
Golden rice is not rice but 500 grams of pure gold that is cast into small grains like rice. The gold is estimated to be worth 230,000 yuan (35,700 USD).
Performing artist Yang Yexin wrote in a Weibo post on October 17: Wasting normal things cannot attract everyone's attention at this time. Only extreme waste can make people see how serious the problem is and then change their thinking and behavior.
Yang spread these "golden rice" seeds into the Hoang Pho River, throwing them into trash bins, manholes and the grassland on October 15-16, the 41st World Food Day.
Instead of being widely accepted by the public, the performance was met with fierce criticism last weekend, with many saying that Yang had "exaggeratedly advertised".
Some ironically pointed out that Yang chose to pay attention to the waste of food by wasting another resource.
Gold can be used in many different technology industries. Is it a waste to throw away rice and gold? Is it also a waste to throw away gold and rice? - a Weibo user commented.
By the afternoon of October 18, more than 60% of the 27,000 Weibo users who responded to the story said that the act of throwing away gold was a waste and did not raise public awareness about saving food, according to a survey by China Newsweek magazine based in Beijing.
The Hashtag "Put 1,000 golden grains of rice into the Hoang Pho River" has attracted 200 million views on Weibo. Some supporters said Yang was successful in creating a public debate.
Some people say it is a waste when people throw away a grain of gold, but they do not care at all when a grain of rice is thrown away. Those are exactly the people that artists want to mock, a user wrote on Weibo.
Yang responded to criticism by pinning rice with gold and gold with garbage.
In recent years, the Chinese government has repeatedly warned about food waste, starting a nationwide campaign called "hollow land". The government's anti-wasteful campaign calls on people not to prepare or order more food than they can eat.
In April, Beijing also passed an anti-food waste law to punish food wasteors - a phenomenon that Chairman Xi Jinping once described as "shocking".
