For some officials, New Year visits simply a chance to put on a show

AS LUNAR NEW YEAR approaches, leading local officials, as part of established practice, will visit poor residents in their communities and bring gifts for them. However, China Disciplinary Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the top anti-graft agency, found some of them pretended to make such visits by faking photos:

The practice of leading local officials visiting poor families during Lunar New Year festival used to be rather heartwarming, as the officials would not only bring gifts to the poor families, but also show them the State had not forgotten them. The practice gave people confidence in the country's social welfare.

However, increasingly more local officials have turned such visits into shows. Some of them sit less than two minutes with the poor families, just enough time to have a photo taken; some of them even did not know the names of families they visit.