Happy Farm is in the news again, this time because the Ministry of Culture, apparently unhappy that a popular online game glorifies stealing, has directed the different sites that offer the game to get rid of the (very crucial) stealing component. From ESWN:
On December 21, pursuant to an order from the Ministry of Culture, the Kaixin001 farm game and the QQ farm game all changed the wording of “theft” to “harvesting” and “picking.” So if you used to “steal” a black rose from someone else’s plot, now you “picked” a black rose from someone else’s plot of land.
“Dear fellow thieves, there is good news! The government has re-named ‘stealing vegetables.’ It is now known as ‘picking vegetables’ just like you picking vegetables from your own plot.”
Don’t they have better things to do with their time? I like ESWN’s closing comment:
Some netizens fail to understand why the name change was necessary. Some say that it was because the people at the Ministry of Culture has time on hand to meddle in such matters. Others say that “thievery has been legitimized by a name change to harvesting” and recommend that the relevant departments also think of a new term for “taking bribes out of corruption.”
"Stealing books isn't called 'stealing', it's called 'pilfering'"; "Stealing vegetables isn't called 'stealing', it's called 'picking'"