Mermaid event gets online attention

SHANGHAI - The recent live broadcast of a few people swimming, with some even climbing up to the head of the famous Little Mermaid sculpture in the Mermaid Pool at the Denmark Pavilion, has aroused much controversy online.

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The scene, which happened at about 1 am on Wednesday, was recorded by surveillance cameras and shown in real-time online and on a LED-screen in Langelinie, Denmark.

A Denmark Pavilion official, Zhang Aidi, clarified that the swimmers were staff members of the pavilion, who, after a tough day of work on the National Pavilion Day, were allowed to have a party in the pavilion. As a part of the celebration, they went swimming, Zhang said.

Netizens called the incident, in which people climbed on the sculpture and dived off it, an "insult" to the Denmark national treasure, but the Denmark Pavilion organizers seemed to accept it well.

"We all knew about this. The pool was planned to be open to the public to allow people to swim in to see the sculpture closely. But considering the deep water in the pool, we had to cancel that to avoid accidents," Zhang said.

When the famous statue left its spot in Copenhagen, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei installed his work, titled "Remote", at that same spot. His work utilizes modern surveillance techniques and the Internet to recreate the image of the missing icon on a LED-screen.