Animal rights activists are up in arms with recent comments made by the head of the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

Fang Shuting, in a press conference last week, said that there is a great misunderstanding among the media and the public about the process of extracting bear bile.

"Such cruel practices happened more than 20 years ago," he said at a news conference on Thursday afternoon. The process of extracting bear bile now only takes about 10 seconds. During that short period, the black bear feels no pain or any strange sensations, and can play and eat as usual," he said. "Based on what I saw on the farms, the bears look very comfortable after the extraction."

According to online reports, a journalist from China's Xiaoxiang Morning Post took up Fang's offer for media to visit a farm harvesting bear bile.

Here are screengrabs from the video he took of his experience:

Click on thumbnail to view (Screengrabs: Youku)