Le Van, the man who made headlines two years ago after it was discovered he had been sleeping with his dead wife for five years, has confirmed he is still sleeping with his beloved, and authorities can’t do anything to stop him.

The story about Le Van’s bizarre sleeping habit broke out at the end of 2009. Vietnamese papers posted photos of a man sleeping with a human-shaped gypsum statue that contained the body of his dead wife. we covered the story and you can read about it here, but long story short, the man couldn’t cope with the loss of his soul mate so he dug up her remains, put them inside the statue and continued sharing a bed with her. It was one of the strangest news of 2009, but I was sure that once word got out, local authorities would somehow convince Le Van to bury the remains of his beloved wife. I was wrong. Read More »

Karla Flores, a 32-year-old street vendor from Culiacán, Mexico can consider herself after she survived being shot in the face with a live grenade.

On August 6, 2011 Mexico’s “Miracle Woman”, as she’s come to be known, was selling seafood on the street when all of a sudden she heard an explosion. As she turned around to see what had happened, the woman was hit in the face by an object, and the powerful impact caused her to fall on the sidewalk. She felt a burning sensation in her face and when she touched the point of impact with her hand there was a lot of blood. Karla passed out after that, but luckily for her an anonymous passerby took her in his car and drove her to the nearest hospital. There she woke up and when the doctors asked her about the wound Flores told them she thought a stone hit her. But their investigations would reveal it was something a lot deadlier than a stone.

From the x-ray and tomography, doctors could tell some sort of projectile was stuck between her superior and inferior jawbones, and military experts called on the scene identified it as the live explosive head of a fragmentation grenade. It had been fired with a grenade launcher, causing the bang Karla heard, but it didn’t detonate when it hit her face. Still, the grenade was extremely dangerous, just one wrong move and it could go off killing everyone in a 10-meter radius. The hospital’s patients and staff were evacuated, and something had to be done to help Karla, who could barely breath with the projectile locked in the side of her face.

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Fashion designer Rachel Freire has recently been called “sick” by animal rights activists, after she presented a series of creations made from 3,000 yak nipples, at London Fashion Week.

And you thought no one could top Lady Gaga’s famous meat dress, right? Well, yak nipples seem a lot more bizarre than some sewn pieces of red meat. 32-year-old Freire, who has previously worked with celebrities like Christina Aguilera and Courtney Love, had her models parading on the catwalk wearing two dresses and bras made from thousands of yak nipples given to her by a tannery. The show caused quite the scandal and several animal activists as well as members of Parliament used words such as “sickening”, “grotesque”, “repulsive” and “disturbing” to describe the Liverpool-based designer’s creations. Justin Kerswell of animal rights organisaton Viva said: “Isn’t the way we treat farmed animals bad enough without turning their dead bodies into a runway freakshow?” Read More »

We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids Book of Freedom is a coloring book about the tragic events of 9/11 2001, featuring pictures of the burning World Trade Center towers and the execution of Osama bin Laden.

Although Wayne Bell, publisher of Really Big Coloring Books Inc., in Saint Louis, says the book was never meant to be controversial, and that it’s simply based on market research, on what people are looking for, the fact that it contains scenes like Osama bin Laden being shot by a Navy SEAL has sparked some controversy. Bell goes on to describe the coloring book as “a simplistic honest tool” to “educate children on events on 9/11”, but do kids who still like to color need to see scenes of mourning, burning buildings, and the execution of a Muslim man portrayed as hiding behind his veiled wife? may

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Most people would prefer to stay out of a coffin for as long as possible, but for devotees at the Looi Im Si temple, in Penang, Malaysia, sleeping in a coffin is the best thing that could happen to them.

The Taoist temple located in Jelutong worships deities linked to the afterlife, like Xiao Xian Bo, one of the two guards responsible for bringing the dead to the other side. Chu Soon Lock, the temple’s secretary, claims his grandmother founded the temple after receiving instructions in a dream, from hell deity Di Fu Bao Zhang. As the years went by the temple started worshiping various other deities like Ji Gong, Si Da Jin Gang and Mile Buddha. The weirdest part of the story of Looi Im Si temple started in 2007, when the spirit of Xiao Xian Bo arrived at the holy place and began addressing his devotees through the body of Chu Soon Lock’s brother.

Chu Soon Chye says he doesn’t know a word of Teochew, yet he speaks the dialect fluently each time he is possessed by Xiao Xian Bo. Back in 2008, when he was in a trance, Soon Chye instructed temple devotees to place five coffins within the temple, and only allow people with serious problems caused by bad luck to sleep in them. Only one of the five coffins is used, because the other four are apparently too small to fit into.

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Zelli Rossi, from Sao Paolo, Brazil, has been sleeping in a coffin for the last 23 years, as a way of honoring the memory of a friend who died in 1988.

The story of Zelli Rosi and his bizarre sleeping habit would have probably remained a family secret if his 14-year-old grandson hadn’t decided to write a story about it in the school newspaper. Apparently, he and a childhood friend once promised each other to buy the coffin of whoever of them died first. In 1983 he was involved in a serious car crash, and his good friend, who had heard rumors he had died, honored their agreement and bought a casket for Zelli. But he wasn’t really dead. A speeding car had crashed into him while he was sitting on his bike and he was hospitalized for four months. He tried to return the casket but his friend wouldn’t take it back, so he kept it in his home. Read More »

Inspired by the jewels in his wife’s teeth, Chandrashekhar Chawan, an optometrist at India’s Shekhar Eye Research Center has created gold plated, diamond encrusted contact lenses that will bring that special twinkle in your eyes.

If you’re looking for the most extravagant trend in eyewear, look no further than the over-the-top contact lenses of Chandrashekhar Chawan. His wife had diamonds planted on her teeth recently and that made the optometrist realize people love jewelry everywhere and anywhere, so he decided to develop a series of diamond encrusted, gold plated contact lenses. He uses Boston Scleral lenses to hold the jewelry in such a way that it doesn’t touch the cornea, thus making the fashion accessory “very safe”.

Chawan says his invention got mixed responses; some people thought it was scary, but most of them loved it, and the optometrist believes this will be the next big thing in Bollywood. He admits his jewel-studded lenses are an accessory, not a necessity, but thinks they’re a must-have for people who want to attract attention. “We always talk eye to eye,” he told TODAY.com, “and if your eyes are sparkling with diamonds, no one can look away; their eyes will be glued to you and  your personality.”

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A young couple, from Dongguan, China, have reportedly sold all their three children for money needed to keep playing online games at Internet cafés.

According to Chinese newspaper Sangxiang City News, Li Lin and Li Juan, both under 21, first met back in 2007, in an Internet café. It was their obsession with online gaming that fueled their relationship, and a year later, the two welcomed their first baby. Actually, “welcomed” is a bit of an overstatement considering that just days after they brought him home, the couple left him alone and went to play video games at an Internet café 30 km away.

In 2009, the irresponsible couple had another child, a baby girl, whom they decided to sell in order to fund their online gaming obsession. They managed to get RMB 3,000 ($500) for her, which they spent in a matter of days. Having run out of cash they proceeded to sell their first born as well, this time for ten times as much, RMB 30,000 ($4,600). At this point they probably decided having kids could be pretty profitable so they had a third baby, a boy, that got them another RMB 30,000 ($4,600). They would have probably continued like this for years, if the boy’s mother hadn’t learned of their deeds and alerted the authorities.

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Jazz Ison SInkfield, 48, from Atlanta, Georgia, hasn’t cut her finger nails in the last 22 years, in the hope that they might one day bring her the fame and glory she’s always been dreaming of.

Although she has difficulties performing the easiest of household chores, Jazz claims she feels “very, very blessed”. The nail-obsessed grandmother thinks she has a talent for growing and taking care of her long nails, because it’s not something anyone can do. I’m not very sure that’s true, considering she regularly visits the nail salon, for five-hour nail care sessions and spends over $500 every time; I’d say most other people choose not to spend their time and hard-earned money like that and avoid the complications that come with such “trophies”.

Mrs Sinkfield considers her long fingernails “a girl’s best friends” and can’t even conceive ever having to clip them. “I just can’t stop loving my kids, so how can I stop loving my nails?” she asks. Her longest fingernail is 24 inches long, and all of her painted “babies” add up to 19 feet. She’s very proud of what she’s accomplished and of the attention she draws whenever she goes out, but admits that not everyone is impressed. Some women will turn their nose up to her, but according to Jazz that’s only because they’re jealous. She feels everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they don’t have to be mean about it.

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While it might look like they are protesting against something or staging a gruesome mass suicide, the people of Rawa Buaya are actually looking to cure their illnesses by laying on the train tracks.

In western countries, most people think high levels of electric energy cause cancer, but to the inhabitants of Rawa Buaya, in Indonesia’s West Java, electricity is the ultimate cure. From young children to old folk, they all lie on train tracks passing through their settlement, hoping the electric energy from them will cure their various sicknesses. Not even the potentially lethal trains passing on opposite tracks don’t seem to be scaring these Indonesians away.

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Deepa Ahirwar, a 22-year-old woman from India’s Madhya Pradesh state, has recently accused her husband of drinking her blood on a regular basis, for the last three years.

Although it sounds like the story of a cheap vampire movie, young Deepa swears she’s telling the truth and even bears the scars to prove it. She and her husband, Mahesh Ahirwar, an agricultural worker, got married in 2007, in Shikarpura village. A few months later, he started drawing blood from her veins, emptying the contents of the syringe into an empty glass and drinking the contents. He threatened he would do terrible things to her if she dared tell anyone about his habit, and she kept quiet for about three years.

Mahesh claimed drinking his wife’s blood kept him strong and boosted his virility, so he didn’t stop playing the vampire even when Deepa was pregnant. After she gave birth, seven months ago, she started protesting for the first time, because she would feel weak and nauseated after each blood extraction. Every time she resisted, her husband beat her, and when she couldn’t take it anymore, she ran to her parents, who after hearing her disturbing story, alerted the authorities.

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For decades gasoline has been used to power vehicles and machinery, but 71-year-old Chen Dejun proves it works very well for humans, too.

Chen Jejun lives alone in a thatched cottage on a hill in China’s Shuijiang municipality. He’s known by the locals as a stone cutter and master bamboo weaver, but also for his unusual habit of drinking gasoline. The slender old man estimates he drinks around 3 to 3.5 liters of gasoline every month, to relieve any physical pain. He buys gasoline from a station at the bottom of the hill, and although it’s hard for him to calculate how much gasoline he has consumed throughout his life, judging by his daily habit, reporters of the Chongqing Evening News estimate he has drunk around 1.5 tons of fuel over the last 42 years.

He first started drinking gasoline in 1969, when he suddenly began coughing and felt a sharp pain in his chest. He tried some medicine, which didn’t seem to help him much, so after the elders of his village told him he might have tuberculosis and should try drinking some kerosene, he didn’t think twice about it. After drinking his first cup he felt sick to his stomach and decided to go to bed. One hour later he woke up feeling much better, so he continued drinking the stuff to ease the pain.

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Ok, what’s the last thing you’d expect to see at a funeral? So maybe stripper isn’t the first thing that pops into your head, but you have to admit it’s pretty darn strange. Apparently, in Taiwan, bringing a stripper to the funeral is an important part of the grieving process.

Taiwan’s funeral strippers would have probably remained a mystery to the western world, if not for the efforts of anthropologist Mark L. Moskowitz, who wanted to show US audiences what real culture is. His 40-minute documentary, Dancing for the Dead: Funeral Strippers in Taiwan, sheds light on the bizarre practice through interviews with strippers, government officials and common folk.

Funeral strippers are apparently a pretty big part of Taiwanese culture, especially in rural areas. Up to the mid 1980s, this kind of raunchy performances took place all over the island, even in the capital city of Taipei, but after authorities passed laws against it, it disappeared from urban settlements and moved to the country. The laws aren’t as easy to enforce there and people seem to enjoy going to a funeral knowing they’ll get some adult entertainment. Strippers usually arrive on the back of diesel trucks known as Electric Flower Cars, and perform in front of the dead and his mourners. The scantly-dressed girls do pole dancing, sing, and some even come down  from their stage to interact with the audience (sit on their laps, give lap dances, shove their heads into their breasts, etc.).

According to Nury Vittachi, funeral stripping was born around 25 years ago, when the Taiwanese mafia who ran the country’s nightclub scene, took over an important part of the country’s mortuary business. At one point, the mafia bosses decided to somehow combine the two businesses and increase their incomes. From then on, anyone who booked a funeral through one of their parlors also got a stripper at discount price. At first, people were a bit confused, but after they were told this would attract more mourners to the funeral, thus honoring the dead even more, they were sold.

While Moskowitz didn’t see complete nudity while filming his documentary, he claims all the people he spoke with had seen Electric Flower Car girls perform in the nude. He suspects the girls didn’t want to do it in front of the camera because they were afraid they would get in trouble with the law. And for good reason, since funeral stripping is heavily criticized by those in power. Still he did see girl dressed in very short skirts, revealing tops and bikinis performing in rural Taiwan, for modest fees.

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Ahans 76, member of the Playstation Collecting Community, probably deserves the title of King of PS2 Collectors, after he managed to acquire a brand new, sealed copy of every game ever released for the PlayStation 2.

We’ve featured some pretty impressive collections on Oddity Central, bust as a fellow gamer, I find this one particularly awesome. What I can’t understand is how someone can just collect these games and not be tempted to open one of them and just pop into the console, to check it out. But that’s just the kind of self control and ambition that describes a video-game completionist (a person who goes after every title ever released for a console) and that’s why we don’t see that many of them. The PS2 game library is particularly large, with 1,850 original titles released, and many would have said trying to collect a copy of each is impossible, but not anymore.

Ahans 76 says his passion for collecting video-game related items can be traced back to when he was 16 years old. He saw a Sega Game Gear handheld, in the window of a Game Crazy shop, and since he had always wanted yo own one as a kid, but never got the chance, he bought it on the spot. This awakened his collector’s spirit and made him consider collecting more video games and consoles. As far as his unique PS 2 game collection is concerned, he didn’t go for the full library from the start, he more like fell into it. He was buying a lot more games than he could play, and at one stage he had about 300 to 400 sealed games, so he looked on the Internet to see how many other games here were and landed on a website where it said the PS 2 had 800 games. Seeing he was already half through, he decided to go for the whole collection.

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Kann “Superhands” Trichan got the cool nickname for his incredible ability of scooping pieces of chicken from burning-hot oil with his bare hands.

The 50-year-old Chiang Mai-based street cook can sink his fingers into 480 degrees hot grease without getting so much as a blister on his hands, and his amazing ability has won him international fame. People from all over the world come to his “Fried Chicken Iron Hands Man” food stall to see Kann use his hands to scoop out the chicken and he and his wife travel the globe showing off his gift. Superhands has no idea why he can do what he does, but he’s just happy it brings more and more customers for his business, every day.

Kann Trichan first discovered his unusual gift seven years ago, when he accidentally got hot oil splattered all over his body. While attending his giant woks, he noticed a squirrel eating a mango on a branch just above him. The squirrel dropped the big fruit right in the oil splattering it all over Kann’s body and head. A taxi took him home and when he got up the next day ready to go see a doctor, he took a look in the mirror only to see he had no burns. The redness was fading away and his skin was practically intact, so he just decided to go back to work, to the astonishment of his fellow street vendors.

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