A chubby round panda decked out in a suit of ice has become a national sensation in China, with people in Beijing lining up in freezing temperatures overnight for the chance to buy stuffed versions of the Winter Olympics mascot.
Those who do not want to line up are paying as much as 17 times the retail price for toys featuring the panda named Bing Dwen Dwen.
Prices have surged so much on the secondary market — stuffed toys are selling for more than US$500 online — that police in Beijing have issued public warnings against buying the mascot from scalpers.
Photo: AFP
As of yesterday, they had punished three people in a crackdown over price gouging.
The start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, which began on Friday last week, has helped fuel the frenzy, as have social media memes of the mascot dancing at the opening ceremony and struggling to squeeze through doors.
A clip of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) suggesting that Prince Albert II of Monaco take two of the toys home for his twins has further propelled Bing Dwen Dwen’s popularity.
Exacerbating the situation has been a shortfall in supplies.
Because the opening ceremony fell in the middle of the Lunar New Year holiday this year, many of the factories producing Bing Dwen Dwen toys were closed just as demand for the mascot surged.
Beijing Winter Olympics spokesman Zhao Weidong (趙衛東) at a briefing on Sunday said that officials were taking steps to remedy the situation.
“We’re now making efforts to coordinate the production and supply of Bing Dwen Dwen,” Zhao said.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS