Thread: Eat off a naked model's body

Eat off a naked model's body
From correspondents in Beijing
April 6, 2004

A JAPANESE restaurant which served sushi on the body of a near naked woman has caused a storm of controversy in the conservative southwest Chinese city of Kunming.

The Hefengcun Huaishi restaurant launched a promotional 'feast on a beauty's body', for local journalists last Friday, hiring two attractive fair-skinned college girls to lie on tables, with sushi and other food and flowers placed on their bare bodies covered with thin gauze, restaurant employees told AFP.

The reports caused a firestorm in the local and national press with many readers slamming the novel dining trend as offensive and insulting to women.

"This is a form of disrespect towards women. I don't know how anyone can eat such type of food," a local resident was quoted by the Beijing Star Daily saying.

Li Ailing, manager of the Japanese-owned restaurant, told AFP the restaurant received hundreds of phone calls, with many protesting the restaurant's bare cheek.

"We didn't think the reaction would be so explosive, so controversial," Li said. "The purpose of this promotion is not commercial, but to spread Japanese culture."

She blamed the reaction on Kunming people's conservative attitudes, but said the restaurant also had many supporters after reports came out.

"We had lots of people who supported us and wanted to make reservations, including people from Hong Kong and Taiwan," Li told AFP.

Known as "Nyotai Mori" in Japan, the feasts date back to ancient times and are often offered in special hotspring resorts today, but are generally left off menus. They are offered to aficionados on request.

Restaurants as far afield as Seattle and Manchester have also offered sushi in the raw and drawn similar protests from women's activists.

Li said the Kunming restaurant was planning to charge 1000 yuan ($US120) per person, far lower than the 10,000 yuan cost in Japan.

The restaurant had also protected the girl's modesty by covering their breasts and genitals with seashells, and laying gauze over the rest of the exposed flesh, and getting waitresses to serve customers rather than allowing them to touch the girls, Li added.

"We also put the food on leaves and leaves on the body. We don't put the food right on the body," she said.

Kunming residents, however, lost their appetite. Some urged the government to take action, the Beijing paper said.

But the restaurant has not lost hope.

"Currently, Kunming people may not be able to accept this, but over time, maybe they can," Li said.

Agence France-Presse

UPDATE


Naked sushi stripped off the menu
From correspondents in Beijing
April 7, 2004

A RESTAURANT in China's southwest has been ordered to take its newest dish off the menu: sushi served on the naked bodies of two young women.

The Japanese restaurant in Kunming held a trial banquet of its "feast on a beauty's body" on Friday, prompting a public outcry, the Xinhua News Agency and newspapers reported.

The event was banned this week before anyone had ordered the dinner, the newspaper China Daily reported on its Web site. It was priced at 1000 yuan ($160) per person - the equivalent of two months' income for the average Chinese person.

Some Kunming residents "were indignant, claiming it is humiliating to women", the China Daily said.

"But others were curious and tempted to have a try."

Managers of the Yamato Wind Village said they were "introducing special Japanese food culture" to China, according to Xinhua. It said the two women were recent university graduates who worked as models.

Authorities banned the event on the grounds that the women "who acted as dishes", in Xinhua's words, lacked required health certificates for restaurant employees and were improperly dressed.

A photo on the China Daily site showed a women covered with leaves and flowers and lying on a table. A woman in a kimono stood over her holding a piece of sushi with chopsticks.

The Associated Press