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June 8, 2023

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So, is it a ‘duck neck’ or a ‘rat head’?

EDUCATION authorities in east China’s Jiangxi Province said they have launched an investigation after a student found an alleged dead rat head in a meal he bought at the campus canteen, which college officials, after a preliminary investigation, claimed was a duck neck.

The student of Jiangxi Industry Polytechnic College in Nanchang, the provincial capital, discovered the black, hairy object in a meal he bought from the school canteen. He posted a video of the object online on June 1.

What seemed like a simple food safety problem took an unexpected twist two days later when the college issued a statement saying that the object in question, was, after “repeated examination and comparison,” a duck neck.

The statement quoted the local market watchdog, which examined the object, as saying that it was a piece of duck neck.

On the same day, Jiang Xiexue, head of the Changdong branch of the market supervision administration of Nanchang’s Gaoxin District, confirmed on a Jiangxi Radio and TV Station program that local law enforcement officials had confirmed the strange item as a duck neck after repeated comparison.

The next day, cnr.cn reported that the regional market watchdog would conduct professional comparisons on food samples from the college and announce the results in 3-5 days. The city’s market supervision bureau also joined the probe.

Despite the statement, many netizens insisted that what they saw in the video was a head of a dead rat. The debate over whether it was a “duck neck” or a “rat head” has sparked discussions online, with myriad memes being created.

According to an expert who has been studying rodents for over 30 years, “If the image is authentic, there is an 80 percent likelihood that it depicts a rat’s head,” news portal cqcb.com said on Tuesday.

Despite the canteen still operating, the number of those eating there has fallen. Many students now choose to order takeout and eat in their dormitories instead, Dingduan News reported yesterday.




 

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