Korean Job Discussion Forums

[charlieDD]

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/06/1997953.htm?section=world

S Korean pet shop sparks growls from China
Posted Mon Aug 6, 2007 5:28pm AEST

A South Korean pet shop owner has sparked a minor diplomatic incident with a signboard depicting a dog's head in place of Chairman Mao Zedong's on Beijing's Tiananmen Gate.

The shop at Yongin, 45 kilometres south of Seoul, has now changed its sign after complaints from Chinese citizens and the foreign ministry in Beijing, a local official said.

"The shop's owner had no intention of defaming Mao when the signboard was installed three years ago," district official Choi Byong-Kwan said.

But he says China believed it insulted the founder of the People's Republic, who died in 1976 and whose embalmed body is displayed in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.

Mr Choi said the row was provoked by a picture of the signboard which was taken by a Chinese student and posted on the Internet.

In response to complaints from its citizens, the Chinese foreign ministry summoned a South Korean diplomat in Beijing to protest, Mr Choi said.

"I pulled down the signboard on August 2 after the shop's owner accepted the request of our government," he said.

"The owner agreed that the signboard should not provoke a diplomatic row between the two countries."

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[b]Sort of like those Nazi cafes, huh?[/b]