A few weeks back, we covered the story of a Quang Nam man who was arrested for fabricating a tale about mythical sea creatures that went viral on Vietnamese social media.
In case you've been lying awake at night wondering what happened to now-noted mermaid enthusiast Pham Dac Hau, the answer is here. According to Tuoi Tre, the mobile phone repairman will be fined for his fake mermaid-catching story.
The news outlet's article begins: “A man in central Vietnam who hogged the headlines late last year with his made-up story about a mermaid is in the news again today, as authorities have finally found out which law he had broken.”
Note the “finally” in that sentence, as it took Quang Nam authorities two weeks to decide which laws Hau had violated. When the mermaid storyteller, who admitted to penning the tale to “create some fun”, was first summoned by police, local officials were quick to bring him in and slow to figure out the legal reasoning behind their action.
“We have reviewed many legal documents, none of which regulate such a situation, so we are very confused,” Tuoi Tre quoted a Quang Nam police department inspector as saying.
In the end, Hau was charged with “providing false information” under a government decree on civil offenses in information and communications technology, Quang Nam officials told Tuoi Tre. That's right: the story was made-up. A story about a woman who lives in the sea and breathes underwater and has a fish tail for legs. Who would have guessed? Perhaps it was the accompanying photos – borrowed from a Hanoian couple with a really weird wedding album – that gave it away.
Photo via Tuoi Tre.
We're not sure exactly how police determined that the tale of a local fisherman catching a 48-kilo mermaid, bringing it to the hospital, holding the creature at a local medical facility “pending studies by US scientists” and refusing to sell it to a wealthy Japanese man for US$1 million was fictional, but we've learned our lesson. The moral of the story here? Let your imagination run wild; just don't do it on the internet.
[Photo via Playbuzz]
