TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Netizens have flooded social media with photos of singer Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) feasting on all manner of Taiwanese seafood after she claimed on Chinese TV that eating seafood in Taiwan is a "luxury."
Over the weekend, a clip from an episode of the Zhejiang TV program "The Journey of Poetic Soul" which featured Yang in July drew the ire of Taiwanese netizens. In the clip, the program participants were eating fried fish and one of the Chinese guests mentioned, "There is no tofu fish in Taiwan."
Yang replied by claiming, "Actually, I didn't eat much seafood in Taiwan. My family had been struggling financially in my early years. In fact, eating seafood is a luxury there." She then added that she grew up in Taipei, "but I am Cantonese."
Yang eating sea urchin wrapped in seaweed. (YouTube, Rainie Yang screenshot)
Many netizens questioned her claims that seafood was a luxury in Taiwan given its ubiquity on an island surrounded by the ocean and its longline fishing fleet of 1,100 vessels, the second largest in the world. They soon started inundating social media with photos of Yang eating a wide variety of seafood dishes in Taiwan and made comments such as:
"Taiwan is an island surrounded by the ocean and has the most seafood. Seasonal seafood is available all year round. You can eat cheap fish, shrimp, crab, and shellfish every day."
Yang eating an oyster. (YouTube, Rainie Yang screenshot)
"Who hasn't had ginger clam soup? It's often seen on household tables and food stalls."
The Facebook page "James's Gossip Time" (詹姆士的訐譙時間) on Monday (Sept. 5) uploaded a post berating Yang as a "50-cent artist" from the "Guangdong District of the Chinese Communist Party, whose birthday is the same day as the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4th." The author wrote that Yang's humiliating remark about Taiwanese seafood "outraged all of Taiwan, of course stimulating the fighting spirit of Taiwanese villagers, who found a bunch of photos and news showing Rainie Yang eating seafood in Taiwan."
Yang in Taipei dining on sushi at Sushi Solar in Taipei two years ago. (Instagram, Rainie Yang photos)
After again labeling Yang a "50-cent artist," the author closed by sarcastically stating "Your life in Taiwan is spent too luxuriously." Below were included eight photos of Yang eating a plethora of Taiwanese seafood dishes from her own social media accounts.
Currently, the comment feature on Yang's Facebook and Instagram accounts have been locked, preventing Taiwanese netizens from posting messages. In 2019, Yang married Chinese singer Li Ronghao (李榮浩) and her career focus has gradually shifted to China.
