By FO SHO
Cultural Correspondent
HEFEI — Accidental research by Science China Press has shattered a long-held national belief: China, long thought to be “shaped like a chicken,” is in fact “shaped like a goat.”
As the news rocketed across the country, all three major mainland stock indices nosedived, with the Shanghai Composite suffering catastrophic losses of up to 60%. Beijing, once comfortably nestled in the “neck” of the chicken but now reclassified as the “neck” of the goat, saw commercial real estate prices plunge by 83%.
Panic quickly spilled into the streets. Videos went viral on Douyin of people violently smashing chicken statues, while others hurled chicken-themed ornaments and small trinkets from their houses and apartment windows, where frenzied mobs below trampled the debris underfoot. In shopping malls across the country, chaotic scenes unfolded as citizens brawled over possession of goat statues, and any ordinary household item featuring goat imagery, even oven mitts and welcome mats.
Internal Security Service members initially tried to suppress the revelation, but their efforts collapsed when a state agent, upon hearing the news, texted his mother, instructing her to dismantle the family’s chicken shrine. Within minutes, word of China’s new zoological reality had spread like wildfire, from Guangxi to Xinjiang to Jilin.
President Xi Jinping took to the airwaves in an attempt to restore order, but his address was cut short when employees at Xinhua News Agency split into two warring factions: Goat for All China and China Chicken Forever. The newsroom descended into chaos as the rival groups fought for control of the main TV broadcast room, a conflict that quickly escalated given the Chinese Zodiac’s longstanding warning that those born under the sign of the Goat will experience irreconcilable conflict with those born under the sign of the Rooster.
At press time, a yearling goat previously meant for slaughter was being feted as a god.
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