Maseratis and the Chinese Red Cross

A scandal involving a 20-year-old woman, fancy cars, luxurious handbags and the Chinese equivalent of Twitter has fuelled a groundswell of disquiet regarding the Red Cross Society of China. Guo Meimei Baby, as she’s called on the microblogging site Weibo, branded herself as a “commercial general manager” for the charity organization. Controversy sprang up after she posted a series of flashy photos that lent credence to the belief among an already suspicious public that the Chinese Red Cross had been using donation money to lavish executives with fancy toys. Among Guo’s photos were pictures of herself leaning on the hood of a white Maserati she labelled “little horse,” and an orange Lamborghini called “little bull.” She also sent out images of Hermès handbags and of herself enjoying fruity drinks in business class on an airplane.

A flurry of microblog posts has since appeared, lambasting both the Red Cross and Guo. At one point, the online furor garnered 600,000 posts a day on Weibo. Although both Guo and the Red Cross deny any affiliation, the latter issued a statement on July 1 saying it would allow auditors to scour its financial records for any wrongdoing.