What is the most shocking thing you have ever seen in China?

• Source: Global Times
• [22:55 February 08 2010]
• Comments

Paula Mancini, an Italian freelance writer living in Beijing

The fur factory

Several years ago I was traveling in Zhengjiang Province in East China. I was just a poor student back then, and when my friend Lucy told me that Haining is the fur capital of China, I was excited and intrigued and couldn't wait to buy a fur coat at a price I was told would be a tenth of the Italian cost.

After an hour's bus trip from the center of Jiaxing to a fur market in Haining, I was astonished by the roughly-made but beautiful coats.

With a Chinese friend by my side, we soon got the price down to 800 yuan ($117.13) for a beautiful fox fur coat. But I wondered how they could make any money out of this.

We started having a friendly chat with the shop owner and probably because he thought a foreigner would not pose any danger to his business, he agreed to take us to the factory where the fur was produced.

It is located at a remote countryside area by a river. Not knowing what to expect, I was too shocked to speak when I saw the "factory." Cages were all over the place with dogs and cats and foxes inside.

On the other side of the factory, a worker was peeling the skin off a dog.

Blood was everywhere. The sharp barking and crying didn't stop even after the skin was ripped off.

"These can only make cheap waistcoats," he told Lucy in Chinese, "Because Western people don't like dog fur. "

"They think it sheds hair and is not expensive enough. Our expensive fox fur will be sold to big Western clients," he said.

Every animal was wailing and it seemed like they all knew what would happen to them.

As a client there, I felt too ashamed to speak. It was the demand by people like me for fur that generated these scenes, and I felt personally guilty for the animals' suffering.

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