Dozens of Taiwanese rushed to government offices over the past few days seeking to change their names to "salmon" to qualify for a restaurant promotion offering free sushi, local media reported Thursday.
Mirror Media reported that a total of 133 people had changed their names to "salmon" over the past two days after Japanese sushi restaurant Sushiro offered the two-day deal on Wednesday and Thursday.
Under the deal, any customer whose ID card contained "Gui Yu," the Chinese characters for salmon, would be entitled to a free all-you-can-eat sushi meal along with up to five friends.
Only those whose name contained the two Chinese characters could claim the free meal, with those who had one or two of the Chinese characters homophonic to the fish able to get a 10 or 50 percent discount.
A 22-year-old man in New Taipei City, northern Taiwan, changed his three-character name to one consisting of the maximum allowable 50 characters, including the two for salmon, according to the United Daily News.
The Ministry of the Interior warned that a person can only change their name three times, and a miscalculation could result in the change becoming permanent.
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