Most people would consider lying in a coffin and having the lid shut over them to be a traumatic experience, a special psychotherapy service in Shenyang, China is using it as therapy to treat psychological problems and heavy stress.

The Shenyang Evening News reports over 1,000 patients have so far been”reborn” by simulating death with the help of psychologists. Tang Yulong, a consultant at this unique psychotherapy clinic in Shenyang, says people who suffer from psychological problems can be helped by simulating death. People go in a 5-square-meter “death experience room”, write down their last words, lie down into a coffin in the floor and are covered with a white cloth. To make this “dying” experience even more realistic, the “deceased” can even hear a dirge being played in the room. After five minutes of “serene time”, the sound of a baby crying breaks the silence, and a consultant opens the coffin with a cheery tune playing in the background. This rebirth apparently helps people get a new outlook on life. Read More »

A family of migrant workers in China too poor to rent a proper apartment, have made their home in a public restroom, on Beijing Road, the busiest and most popular shopping strip in Guangzhou.

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about a resourceful Chinese family in Shenyang who managed to turn an abandoned public restroom into a cozy home. Their story was pretty unbelievable, but the one I’m presenting today is even more so. 33-year-old Liao Xiaoming, his wife and their child all live in a functional public toilet on the busiest street in all of Guangdong province. Not wanting to leave their child behind in their native village as they left to the big city in search of a better life, the two accepted the job of contract public restroom cleaners, because kids of contract cleaners can attend local schools in Guangdong without paying temporary schooling fees. Normally, Chinese residency restrictions prevent children of migrant workers from attending local public schools in cities where they parents are serving. Since their child’s education is very important, the two parents agreed to the contract, even if that meant they had to live in it too.

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A Chinese airline has sparked controversy after it was reported it included a zero-body-odor requirement in its pilot recruitment tests. Applicants had their armpits sniffed by company staff, to check for any bad smells.

You think requirements stink in your line of work? Think again. Chinese company Hainan Airlines demanded to smell under the arms of students interviewing as trainee aircrew. Obviously, there were other requirements as well, including 20/20 vision, a maximum height of 1.87 meters and a very good knowledge of the English language, but meeting them and failing the bad odor test meant instant elimination for candidates. “I passed everything, but I was doomed by my armpits, which are always a bit whiffy”, said one of the applicants. Asked about the purpose of this unusual requirement, one of the Hainan Airlines testers said “our staff works very closely with the public, and no passenger wants to smell a pilot’s armpits. And if they can keep their cool min this test, they aren’t going to sweat in the cockpit.” The photos below paint a pretty clear picture of how the BO test was conducted.

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A Chinese metals and mining company has invested nearly 1 billion dollars into replicating an entire Austrian scenic village just an hour away from Huizhou city, in subtropical southern China.

Nestled deep in the breathtaking Northern Limestone Alps, the village of Hallstatt is one of Austria’s most popular tourist attractions. Featuring a rich culture and history dating back to prehistoric times, and gorgeous natural surroundings, this unique piece of heaven draws in hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Did I say unique? I meant once unique, because Chinese company China Minmetals Corporation has recently completed a replica of the iconic Austrian village in a scenic location, close to the city of Huizhou. The cost of this knock-off project was around $940 million. The Chinese have always been known for their skill in creating knock-offs, from designer clothes to smartphones, and fueled by China’s economic growth, their projects are becoming even more ambitious. They started out by copying iconic landmarks from around the world, then they moved to whole districts inspired by western civilization  and now they’re building replicas of entire settlements. I’m betting they’ll be replicating entire countries pretty soon.

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A video of an 84-year-old man who appears to be moving objects with only his internal energy has become viral in China. The man also slices his stomach with a cleaver but remains unscathed.

The power of Qi is often demonstrated in various styles of Chinese martial arts most often practiced by Buddhist monks. You’ve probably seen those Shaolin shows where they make their bodies immovable or unraisable, and even immune to the sharp tip of a spear, but an 84-year-old man from China takes things to a whole new level. He claims he can channel his inner Qi (Chi) to move and even break various objects. To prove his ability he allowed a camera crew to record several of his feats, including moving bricks and a bowl full of water and breaking a glass bottle. The video of him performing these extraordinary stunts has been doing the rounds for about two years, but so far no one has been able to explain just how he’s doing it.

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It was bound to happen at some point, I guess. Chen Guangbiao, a famous Chinese businessman and philanthropist, has recently launched a line of canned fresh air collected from various parts of China and Taiwan. The product is called “Chen Guangbiao: Nice Guy” and sells for about $0,80.

It’s no secret China has a huge air pollution problem, but while authorities don’t seem to be taking any action to resolve it, billionaire Chen Guangbiao, aka “Brother Biao” is trying to raise awareness in a very original way. He has recently started selling canned fresh air collected from “revolutionary” areas of China, including Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi Province and some ethnic minority areas and Taiwan. “One only has to open the can, directly ‘drink’ it or put the nose close to the can to breath deeply,” Chen said. He also mentioned there is a chip in the can, and during the “packaging process”, when the negative oxygen ions reach a certain concentration the lid is triggered by the chip and closed. And since the air is compressed, it stays inside the can even without a lid, the quirky philanthropist claimed. Before the big launch of “Chen Guangbiao: Nice Guy” canned air, Brother Biao said he was confident of its success, because there are lots of people in big cities inhaling air mixed with vehicle exhaust every day who are dying for a breath of fresh air.

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No, this is not a joke, it’s not fake, Chinese hospitals really are using automatic sperm extractors for the most serious medical purposes. Still, I thought this was weird enough to post an article on.

So, an entry about automatic sperm extractors being introduced in a Nanjing hospital recently went viral on China’s Weibo social platform. It contained some photos of the unusual machine, and a brief description of its functions. Apparently, the “massage pipe” in front of the device can be adjusted according to the height of its user, and the speed, frequency, amplitude and temperature at which it operates can also be set according to personal preference. When turned on, the screen of the extractor starts playing movies with surround sound to get the user in the right mood. The entry also said “now you can make that money standing up”, referring to the usage of the extractor for sperm bank donations, but the director of the urology department at Zhengzhou Central Hospital was quick to dismiss this rumor. Apparently, the machine is only used by infertility patients who are finding it difficult to retrieve sperm the old fashioned way. Read More »

Beggars at a religious festival in Nanchang, southern China, have been ordered to either stay in specially-built metal cages or risk being removed from the city, in an attempt to stop them from harassing visitors.

Living in a country where begging is a very lucrative business, I know what it’s like to constantly be disturbed by various characters asking for money (not food, money), but what these Chinese festival organizers did is a bit extreme. According to a Nanchang official, in recent years the number of beggars turning up for the local religious festival has increased to a point where they’re actually making temple visitors uncomfortable with their lamenting and pleading for some pocket change. So this year, to make sure everyone attending the festivities will be left alone, they decided to separate the hundreds of beggars in small metal cages around the festival grounds, where people can still give donations if they wish, but without being followed around and nagged while they’re on a day out with their family. Organizers did point out that the beggars in this pop-up human zoo entered their cages voluntarily and that no one is actually forcing them to beg for a living…

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A man from Jinan, China’s Shandong Province, has spent six months building a Transformer-like robot that morphs into a functional car, at the push of a button. If you’re expecting a real-life Bumblebee, you’re going to be disappointed…

But finally, right!?! A real transformer and it’s not some guy in a suit either. Frankly, I was getting a bit tired of seeing people build all these awesome looking Transformer replicas that didn’t do anything but look pretty, and I was really hoping someone would one day take it to the next level. Enter unknown Chinese Transformers fan with a passion for DIY stuff. According to RocketNews24, the man has wanted to build his very own Transformer ever since watching the first film in Michael Mann’s trilogy, four years ago. He didn’t have any kind of mechanical or electronics knowledge but that didn’t stop him from finally accomplishing his dream. It took the Jinan-native six months and 70,000 yuan (US$11,000) to finally complete his life-size Transformer, but just look at it…

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How long can you survive without food? It all depends on a person’s weight, overall health and metabolic rate, but according to scientific data, a human being can’t go much longer than 3 weeks without food. Now, a 22-year-old man from China means to challenge this theory claiming he has survived 12 years on water alone.

Ning Xuefa, a young man from China’s Henan province, has recently made headlines for claiming he hasn’t had a bite of food in the last 12 years. Looking at the 1.50-meter-tall, 40-kg-heavy Ning one can tell he doesn’t like to eat much, but his story seems almost impossible to believe. He told Chinese media that he completely renounced food when he was just a 10-year-old child. Just looking at bread or vegetables at the dinner table made him nauseous, and he always had a dry throat and a weird sensation like something was stuck there that made him drink lots of water all day long. He currently consumes up to 15 liters of water in a day, and his father back up his story that he never touches a single scrap of food, whether it’s rice, steamed bread or meat.

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Meet Tina Leopard, a Chinese blogger and model who earlier this year sparked controversy among Internet users after photos showing her extremely sharp chin and large anime-like eyes went viral on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

Apparently, there’s a new fashion trend sweeping across China – the anime look. The country’s most popular social media sites are practically flooded with tons of photos of young people clearly going out of their way to look as much like an anime character as possible. The trend took off last summer, when a girl going by the name of KOKO uploaded photos and videos showing her thin body, pointy chin and disproportionately large eyes. It turned out she used all kinds of makeup tricks to achieve her anime look, and her photos were apparently also altered in Photoshop, but that didn’t seem to matter much to people who wanted to look like the characters in popular Japanese cartoons. And while some of them actually look pretty cool, others are just plain freaky. Case in point, Tina Leopard, a young Chinese model whose extreme facial features have often been compared to those of an alien.

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28-year old Wang Jian, a mechanic and farmer from China’s Jiangsu province, has spent the last year building himself a home-made replica of the Lamborghini Reventon, one of the world’s most exclusive sport cars.

Wang developed a passion for cars at a very young age, and even worked at an auto shop for 10 years before opening his own business. Although he had a chance to work on many different cars, the young mechanic felt like something was missing from his life. It was his very own Lamborghini Reventon, a beautiful Italian sport car priced around $1.3 million. And as if the price wasn’t prohibitive enough, Wang Jian knew only a few of these gems had been produced by the Italian car maker, and all of them were sold to wealthy buyers most of who’s names remain a mystery. But he wasn’t going to let these kind of technicalities stand in the way of owning his own Lamborghini Reventon, so he decided that if he couldn’t buy one, he was going to build it. He set in plan in motion in May of last year, buying an old Volkswagen, and a small Reventon model car to use as reference.

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Believe it or not, in China white guys can get a job posing as businessmen for companies who hire them to look more international to their real partners. It’s called “White Guy Window Dressing” and it’s apparently a very popular business tactic.

What makes this such a great job for white guys in China is that it has some really simple requirements: be white, don’t speak any Chinese, or speak at all unless asked, pretend like you just got off an airplane the day before, and look good in a suit. The people who usually go for this king of gig are part-time models and actors, English teachers and expats looking for a quick and easy paycheck. It’s called “White Guy Window Dressing”, “The Token White Guy Gig”, or simply the “Face Job” and it’s so popular in China these days that there’s actually a company called Rent A Laowai (Chinese for “foreigner”) that helps businesses improve their image by providing fake white employees or partners.

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Chen Guanming, a 57-year-old farmer from China, spent over two years travelling about 60,000 kilometers, through 16 countries, enduring floods, war zones and extreme temperatures,  to reach London in time for the games and “spread Olympic spirit”.

The 2012 London Olympic Games may have ended, but remarkable stories related to the monumental event are still popping up. One such story is that of Chen Guanming, a simple farmer from a village in China’s Jiangsu province, who traveled all the way to London the only way he could afford to, by rickshaw. The daring traveler said he was inspired to go on this epic journey when he watched the English Prime-Minister accept the Olympic flag, in 2008, and the media invited those watching the live broadcast to the next edition of the games. Chen took that invitation quite seriously, and in 2009, he started putting all his papers in order and preparing for an unforgettable adventure. His long rickshaw ride began on May 23, 2010, in the village where he grows rice and other crops, and took him through 16 different countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan or Italy.

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If you’ve ever walked through an IKEA store thinking about how cool it would be if you could just lay down on one of them soft beds, cover yourself with a fluffy blankets and nap, then you need to move to China, because that’s what IKEA visitors do over there.

The Chinese simply love IKEA! Millions visit the company’s mainland stores every year, but only a few of them actually end up buying something, as many just come to enjoy the air-conditioning on a hot summer day and take a nap on the comfy furniture on display. “Some of them even come in once the store opens in the morning, and won’t leave until the store closes in the evening,” a security staff from the IKEA store in Shanghai told Morning Star, but although this sometimes bothers employees, the company hasn’t taken any measures against people making themselves a little too much at home, because it sees it as a future investment. They believe when these people have more consumption power they’ll come back and buy something, but until then they’re free to loiter around.

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