Impossible - These Buns Are Made From Cardboard

  Many people have e-mailed me about the story in the local news media about shops in Beijing using acid-soaked cardboard as a filler (60%) for meat in the pork dumplings available all over the city.  It was the talk of Beijing.  Everyone was wondering where this shop was and whether or not their dumplings were cardboard filled.  I'll have to admit, I did make a close inspection of the next batc of dumplings I ate (and I felt so guilty, I mean, I can actually see them making the dumplings).
  For those of you worried about my health (or enjoying my comeuppance), the story has proven to be false.  A overly-eager reporter decided to generate a story when he couldn't find confirmation of rumours.
 All well and good then, no?  I don't think so.  The real point of this story (that no one seems to realize), is that everyone believed it.  It was well within people's sense of what happens in the food industry in China.  I met not one person (local or expat) who thought that this was impossible.  That's the real story.
  China is one of the few places where food poisoning is a normal reason for not coming in to work.  No one bats an eye if you call in from your toilet saying that you might need a few days.  This is the real issue.  Just because this one story isn't true doesn't have any impact on the actual situation on the ground in Beijing.