The festival was organised by Dongguan Tourism Bureau. An estimated 10,000 crowd took part in the food fight at Dongguan’s South China Mall on Sunday (Oct 19), with 15 tonnes of softened fresh tomatoes being used for the ‘war’.
The tomato battle has drawn quite some criticism online though; lots of Chinese netizens are critical about the food wastage, while some are questioning the logic to mimic a western festival when their own culture is not being fully promoted.
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if 15 tonnes of tomatoes can make 10000 people happy, still ok lah. the world is globalization now, the western people are learning chinese culture also, so its nothing bad for chinese to learn a bit from the west.
What a waste of good tomatoes, lol.
i think it’s a waste too.
it would take so long to clean this up.
or would they even bother to clean?
some people may argue it’s CULTURE.
but i guess i’m just someone who’s not very fond of these wild activities.
They should make salsa from the leftover. ;)
Personally I think it’s ok if it’s done once a year. Ya, it’s food wasting, but as kyon said… if 15 tonnes of tomatoes could cheer some 10,000 people, it’s not really wasted completely.
Question is what if other cities are trying to ‘learn’ the culture as well. Imagine half of the Chinese cities are doing this… that would be quite a waste then.
bb… they were doing it in a mall (one of the largest in the world btw), they will have to clean it up for sure.
Well, cultural values are always debatable as time goes by… when the tomato war was first started, their harvest might be so good that the tomatoes will be rotten anyway, so why not have some fun instead… they probably didn’t realise the meaning of starvation when mass communication was still lacking in those days. As for whether it’s worth keeping some of the controversial traditions… we’ll never come to a conclusion for the next 100 years.
cole… another big scandal after the milk saga? Hmmm…
lol, i don’t think it would make me happy. oh well, good thing not everyone’s like those 10000 people.
and wow, in a mall? the bottom left picture looks like outside to me. but anyway, the mall made a huge sacrifice!
I guess it’s at a plaza outside of the main shopping area. Considering the buzz created for the mall, I won’t call it a sacrifice actually.
btw, does anyone notice how odd it is for them to wear the same cloths. its like a staged performance than real people having fun?
kyon… ya, noticed that too, probably provided by the sponsors. I am a bit sceptical with the numbers actually… 10,000 folks having a tomato war sounds a bit exaggerating.