Guess it’s hard to break the habits of several life-times or even dynasties!
“Even as Chinese President Xi Jinping clamps down on excessive wining and dining—and even fancy funerals—the controversial delicacy shark fin soup remains on the menu in plenty of China’s upscale restaurants.
That’s shown by a survey of 207 high-end restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen carried out by Humane Society International and the Nature University, an environmental organization in Beijing. More than three out of four staffers queried, or those from 156 restaurants, said shark fin soup remains available. “Consumption of shark fin represents animal cruelty, wasteful extravagance, and is environmentally unsustainable,” Iris Ho, HSI’s wildlife program manager, said in a statement. China is the largest consumer of shark fin soup in the world, with the dish popular at official banquets, despite years of efforts to restrict it.
In March 2011 a group of Chinese legislators tried unsuccessfully to ban the country’s shark fin trade. The “soup represents wealth, prestige, and honor as the gourmet food was coveted by emperors in China’s Ming Dynasty because it was rare, delicious, and required elaborate preparation,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported at the time.”
via Shark Fin Soup Still Sells Despite China’s Extravagance Crackdown – Businessweek.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 