For years, students at Beijing's top universities lined up for roasted legs from a street vendorvendor/ˈvendər/L2小贩；摊主a person who sells something, usually on the street or at a market known as "Auntie Goose Legs." However, this week she admittedadmitted/ədˈmɪtɪd/L2承认（尤指不情愿地）to agree that something is true, especially when it is bad or embarrassing the legs were actually duck. The admission came after a customer filed a complaint with local authorities. Officials from the market supervision administration are now investigating the case.
The vendor, Chen Xiufeng, became a minor celebrity among students at Peking University and Tsinghua University. In addition, students formed dozens of WeChat groups to order her legs, and she limited the number of purchase slots. In 2024, she spoke at Peking University about her entrepreneurial journey. "Initially, I did sell goose legs, but later, due to a shortage of ingredients, I switched to duck legs," she told China Newsweek. She kept the name because "Auntie Duck Legs" did not sound good.
As a result, the hashtag 'AuntieGooseLegsSellsDuckLegs' got over 28 million views on Weibo and 18 million on Xiaohongshu. Many users accused her of misleadingmisleading/mɪsˈliːdɪŋ/L2误导的；骗人的giving the wrong idea or impression; not completely true consumers. She suspended her business after the controversycontroversy/ˈkɑːntrəvɜːrsi/L2争议；争论a strong disagreement about something that many people have different opinions about. Officials will release their findings once preliminarypreliminary/prɪˈlɪmɪneri/L2初步的；预备的happening before the main or final part of something; first or early results are available. Some people wondered how students could not tell the difference between duck and goose.
