For years, students at some of Beijing’s most prestigious universities lined up for the roasted goose snacks sold by a street vendor known simply as “Auntie Goose Legs.” This week, she admitted the legs were actually duck, upending a campus legend and prompting an official investigation.

The controversy erupted after screenshots circulated online of a message Chen Xiufeng, the vendor behind the nickname, posted in a customer group chat. She acknowledged that the roasted legs she sold were made from duck rather than goose after a customer filed a complaint with local authorities.

The disclosure stunned many of her followers. According to domestic media reports, a goose leg typically costs around 11 yuan ($1.50) wholesale, compared with about 5 yuan for a duck leg, fueling accusations that customers had been misled.

The backlash was amplified by Chen’s unusual status. The 56-year-old became a minor celebrity in 2023 among students at elite universities including Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Renmin University of China, where competition for her roasted legs helped turn her into an internet sensation.

Students organized themselves into dozens of ordering groups on messaging app WeChat, many with hundreds of members, while Chen allocated only a limited number of purchase slots to each group. The scarcity helped turn the roasted legs into a campus obsession.

As demand grew, Chen’s popularity spread far beyond the campuses where she sold. In 2024, she was invited to speak at Peking University about her entrepreneurial journey. Later that year, she partnered with Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, in a promotional campaign that included giveaways of her product.

Her story also attracted the attention of major state media outlets, including People’s Daily and state broadcaster CCTV, which featured her transformation from a migrant worker and street vendor into an unlikely internet celebrity.

But a day after the controversy erupted, Chen suspended operations as online criticism mounted. The hashtag #AuntieGooseLegsSellsDuckLegs drew more than 28 million views on microblogging platform Weibo and over 18 million views on Xiaohongshu, while users accused her of misleading consumers and debated the potential legal consequences she could face.

Others wondered how students at some of China’s most prestigious universities had failed to distinguish duck from goose for years.

Chen maintains she had not always sold duck. “Initially, I did sell goose legs, but later, due to a shortage of ingredients, I switched to duck legs,” she told China Newsweek.

She said “Auntie Goose Legs” had become a long-established nickname. “I first sold fruit inside Peking University, and everyone called me ‘Fruit Auntie,’” she said. “Later I switched to selling roasted legs, and that’s how I became today’s ‘Auntie Goose Legs.’”

Even after switching to duck, she chose to keep the name. “But when I sold duck legs, I felt ‘Auntie Duck Legs’ didn’t sound good,” she added. “So I kept ‘Auntie Goose Legs.’”

Chen moved to Beijing from Lianyungang, in the eastern Jiangsu province, with her husband in 2000. According to domestic media reports, she first sold boxed lunches at construction sites before running a fruit stand near Peking University.

The business that eventually made her famous remained a family operation. Her son, Liang, told domestic media the family employs two or three workers and typically roasts around 500 duck legs a day, though production can reach nearly 1,000 at full capacity. He said the business generates about 50,000 yuan ($7,000) in monthly income.

Today, the family lives in a three-story commercial-residential building in Beijing’s northern Changping District. The ground floor serves as both a storefront and a processing area, while the upper floors are used as living quarters.

The operation is now under official scrutiny. Officials from Beijing’s Haidian District Market Supervision Administration said Wednesday that they had received reports related to the case and would release their findings once preliminary results become available.

Additional reporting: Shen Zhuzhe; editor: Apurva.

(Header image: Students gather around Goose Leg Auntie in Beijing, 2023. Inset: A student holds a braised goose leg purchased from the vendor near the entrance to Tsinghua University, 2023. VCG)