Standing at the checkout counter at 99 Ranch, I noticed a vaguely familiar white bunny. But wait, this bunny was anthropomorphized. The face looked the same, but clothes? Blasphemy! I knew that White Rabbit candy had been hit by the melamine milk scandal back in 2008, but I had assumed it returned back to the market after resourcing its milk.
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Well Shanghai's Guan Sheng Yuan Food did indeed bring back the iconic candy with milk now from Australia. It looks like in an effort to distance itself from poisonous candy, it changed from what most people remembered:
Photo Credit Mike Gonzalez/Wiki Commons
Now it's Golden Rabbit Creamy Candy. Gone is the plain white motif. I do wonder though, what makes the candy "golden." After all, the candy's the same color, right down to the translucent piece of rice paper.
Did you know that the candy was first branded with a red Mickey Mouse when a British merchant opened a candy plant in Shanghai? Or that Premier Zhou Enlai presented a bag as a gift to Richard Nixon on his visit to China? This white candy has its hands deep in China's culture. Wonder if billion-plus Chinese can handle a rebranding.
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