A MAN selling condoms bearing the image of Lei Feng, one of China's most famous faces from the 1960s, has been told to close his online sales Website, local authorities said yesterday.
Zhang Zhiwen from Ningbo in east China's Zhejiang Province put a photo of Lei Feng holding a gun on the boxes of condoms he obtained in Guangdong Province and sold under the brand "Taotao."
After media attention earlier this month, the Ningbo Industrial and Commercial Bureau investigated Zhang's business and discovered his license was counterfeit, said a bureau spokesman.
The bureau has ordered Zhang to stop selling the condoms immediately.
Denying previous reports that the bureau had previously been consulted about the business, the spokesman said they would never permit the use of public images for condom sales, and vowed to punish such behavior in the future.
Lei Feng (1940-1962) is known to most Chinese households as an ordinary soldier who became a model of virtue in the early days of the People's Republic. The late Chairman Mao Zedong urged the nation to learn from Lei's loyalty to the Party, generosity and diligence.
