The statue of what appears to be a three-member family of dogs erected at a flower street in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta has left visitors confused and sparked instant Internet meme, as none of them really looks like a canine.
Besides the iconic Nguyen Hue Flower Street, which opened in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday night, many localities across Vietnam also held similar events to celebrate Tet, or the Lunar New Year festival. All venues feature canines and hounds as their main themes, with 2018 being the Year of the Dog in lunar calendar.
At the Hung Vuong Flower Street in My Tho, the capital of Tien Giang Province, many visitors find a ‘parent dogs’ as depicted by the decoration look more like a pair of pigs, foxes or weasels than dogs.
Even worse, their ‘son’, despite its recognizable design, features a sorrowful face as if it is in grief or “hates everyone,” according to local netizens.
The design has left visitors bewildered as it apparently does not come with the joy and happy theme of Tet.
A visitor jokingly told a reporter at the scene that the dog looks like it is being “prompted to pay its debt.”
Visitors also took to social media to give the sad-faced canine different nicknames, including “the dog that hates the whole world” or “the dog that loves no one in My Tho.”
Many memes and cartoons mocking the bizarre ‘family of dogs’ quickly went viral on social media on Tuesday night, prompting Tien Giang administration to ask My Tho authorities to look into the case.
Tran Minh Duc, head of the urban management office of My Tho, confirmed that his agency is working to figure out a way to fix the controversial installation.
Duc said the Hung Vuong flower street, inaugurated on Monday night, cost some VND3 billion (US$132,000) to set up, with VND990 million ($39,600) from the private sector.
The sad-faced dog that broke the Internet was designed by one of the sponsors, according to the official.
Duc said without elaboration that it is impossible to repair, replace or remove the ‘dog that hates everyone’ at the flower street.
“The most feasible solution is to ‘correct’ his eyes so that he looks more joyful, which we will start doing on Wednesday morning,” he said.
Source: Tuoitrenews