Surrounded by lush vegetation and dotted with ponds and pools of water, the Chinese village of Ding Wuling should be teeming with mosquitoes, especially during the summertime. However, the tiny bloodsuckers allegedly haven’t been seen here in almost a century.

Located in the hills of China’s Fujian province, 700 meters above sea level, the village of Ding Wuling is home to the hakka minority, a people with a very rich history and culture evidenced by the unique architecture of their stone houses. But in recent years, the culture and architecture of this picturesque village have been overshadowed by a mystery enhanced by national media – the absence of mosquitoes. Despite being virtually covered by a lush canopy and surrounded by vegetation, the village has reportedly been mosquito-free for several decades.

Read More »

A life-threatening pandemic isn’t exactly what you would call the best time to find love, especially with social distancing and self-isolation measures in place, but one New York man is trying to make it work.

If you’ve been jogging through Central Park or any of the Big Apple’s running paths, you may have seen these bizarre flyers from a “healthy, attractive and well-employed man” allegedly looking for a “germ-free, healthy, fit and clean” woman interested in a monogamous relationship. It’s not the most original or the most romantic way to find a partner, but the man who came up with it says it’s a more “targeted” alternative to online dating services.

Read More »

A luckless Chinese man who reportedly spent almost two months in his home after being quarantined three times in a row became a trending topic on Chinese social media this week.

Mr Xiong, from the city of Jining, in East China’s Shandong Province, spent almost the whole month of February and half of March cooped up in his home in an unlucky triple quarantine that the media hilariously dubbed “buy one, get two free”. The first time Xiong was confined to his apartment was when Jining went into lockdown on February 8th, two days after returning from the Philippines. He was forbidden from leaving his home for 14 days, which was tough, but not as tough as spending 50 days inside…

Read More »

A famed restaurant in Peru was recently fined $62,000 for discriminating against women by giving ladies who dined with men menus that didn’t feature any prices.

La Rosa Nautica, a pricey restaurant built on a peer overlooking the ocean in the Peruvian capital, Lima, was ordered to pay a 210,000 sol ($62,000) fine for offering women a different menu when they dined with men. While gentlemen were given a blue menu that featured both the dishes available and their prices, ladies got a gold version that mentioned no prices at all. The owner of the high-end restaurant defended the practice by calling it a way for women to enjoy a romantic night out without having to worry about costs, but Peruvian authorities ruled that it was discriminatory against women.

Read More »

We’re no strangers to weird stories here on OC, but this one’s a bit too weird even for us. A French burglar intentionally left traces of DNA all over the crime scene just so he would end up in prison and watch encrypted TV channel Canal+ for free.

A monthly subscription to French premium television channel Canal+ costs around 10 euros ($11), but inmates in French prisons can apparently watch it for free, which was apparently a good enough reason for an ex-con to commit a crime and get himself caught. Over the course of the summer, the unnamed 25-year-old man committed a series of burglaries in the Toulouse suburb of Colomiers, but there was something about his modus operandi that left investigators scratching their heads. He left traces of saliva over the crime scenes, as if he wanted his DNA to be identified.

Read More »

The people of Sommarøy, an island in northern Norway where the sun doesn’t set for a full 69 days during the summer, want to make time keeping obsolete making this the world’s first time-free zone.

After enduring the long polar night, when the sun doesn’t rise from November to January, the residents of Sommarøy try to make the most of summer, when the sun stays up in the sky from May 18 to July 26. During this time, conventional timekeeping is virtually ignored, and it’s not uncommon to see people doing all kinds of things at late hours of the “night” – say 3 a.m – like doing house chores, swimming or playing ball in their yards. Since it’s always daylight, everyone sleeps whenever they feel like it. It’s been like this for generations, but now the people of Sommarøy want to officially declare their island a time-free zone.

Read More »

Smartphone addiction is getting so bad that restaurants are offering customers free food if they agree to part with their handhelds for the duration of their meal.

Curry Pizza Company, a pizza place in Fresno, California, is offering customers a “Talk to Each Other Discount”, which requires customers to agree to have their smartphones locked up while they are in the restaurant and simply talk to each other during their meal. The discount is only applicable to groups of four people or more, all of whom must be carrying a working smartphone. If they qualify for the offer, diners will receive a free large pizza that they can enjoy on their next visit, or, if they’re in a giving mood, donate to the homeless in downtown Fresno.

Read More »

Breathtaking photos of vineyards in northern Italy lit up at night by hundreds of torches have been doing the rounds online for the past week. As temperatures unexpectedly dropped below zero last week, winemakers had to come up with a way to keep the vineyards from freezing, and fire was apparently their best choice.

Farmers usually do their best to keep fire away from their grape vines, but with temperatures expected to reach a freezing -9 degrees C, winemakers had no choice hundreds of torches spread out over several hectares to keep the vineyards from freezing. This technique has long been used by winemakers all over the world to create air movement, which prevents frost pockets from forming. Temperatures under -1 degrees Celsius can cause serious damage to emerging buds, so teams patrol the vineyards all night long, making sure that the fires are burning, to at least mitigate the damage.

Read More »

Betsy, a 3-year-old cow that escaped six months ago, during the annual rodeo in Anchorage, Alaska, has been roaming the outskirts of the city ever since, despite her owner’s best efforts to capture her.

Betsy the cow slipped out of her pen amid the bustle of the annual Anchorage rodeo last year, and headed right for Far North Bicentennial Park, a 4,000-acre forest on the outskirts of the Alaskan city. Cowboys saddled their horses and went after Betsy as soon as they noticed she was gone, but it was too late. She made it to the forest and she’s been enjoying her freedom for the last six months, despite her owner’s attempts to catch her.

Read More »

Australian celebrity chef and Instagram wellness guru Pete Evans has come under fire for saying that “sungazing”, the act of looking directly at the sun, is a one of the best forms of free medicine.

“Every day I love to immerse myself in an experience within the cleansing ocean water as well as a brief gaze into the radiant light of the early rising or late setting sun,” Evans posted on Instagram. “These simple, yet powerful practices have got to be two of the best forms of free medicine on the planet for body, mind and spirit.”

Read More »

The Russian branch of Domino’s Pizza was curious to know just how much people love their pies, so they came up with a promotion that challenged fans to get a tattoo of the Domino’s logo in a visible spot on their bodies, for the chance to win 100 free pizzas per year, for 100 years. The response was overwhelming.

When Domino’s launched their unusual promotion, on August 31st, they probably expected just a few die-hard pizza fans to take them up on their offer, but they were inundated by hundreds of photos of fresh tattoos on social media, in the first couple of days. In an attempt to stave off the wave of tattoos and requests for free pizzas, the company had to clarify that only the first 350 people to get the tattoo – which had to be at least 2 cm (0.79 inches) in length – and post it on social media would get the 10,000 free pizzas. They also released an image clarifying the visible parts of the body where candidates could get the tattoo, but that didn’t help things too much.

Read More »

Zhong Congrong, a successful businessman from Chongqing, China, has become known as the “the millionaire trash collector,” for his longtime habit of scouring the streets of his city armed with a trash-picking claw and picking up any garbage he finds.

The 52-year-old entrepreneur began cleaning up the streets of Chingqing three years ago, after a family trip to southern China’s Hainan province, for the Chinese New Year. There, he met a retired university professor who had reportedly been picking up trash from one of the local beaches every day, for the last four years. He was so impressed with the woman’s dedication and commitment to trash collecting that he decided to replicate her daily habit in his home city, as soon as he got back from his vacation.

Read More »

A French family barely escaped with their lives after exiting their car not once but twice to photograph the full-grown cheetahs at a safari park in the Netherlands.

The first thing visitors are told when visiting a drive-through safari park is to never, under any circumstances, leave their vehicles. Failing to follow this most important rule can lead to serious injury or even death from the wild predators roaming the grounds. But that risk was apparently not considerable enough to deter a French family visiting the Beekse Bergen safari park, in southern Netherlands, from getting out of their car with their small children, just so they could snap better pictures of the cheetahs roaming around.

Read More »

Most alcohol-free beers mimic the real deal almost to perfection, minus the buzz and substituent hangover, which makes them a bit problematic to drink in places where alcohol consumption is frowned upon, like the workplace. But thank to Suntory’s new clear beer, people will just think you’re drinking water.

All Free All Time is a zero-alcohol, zero-calorie beer designed to protect consumers from judgmental attention from bosses coworkers and clients at the workplace. It is completely clear and comes packaged in small plastic bottles which make it look more like a bottle of water than beer. You can take a sip at your desk, while working, or in a meeting, without worrying about attracting unwanted attention to yourself.

Read More »

Free-to-play mobile video games are just that, free to play, but they are also some of the most profitable apps for developers, and looking at the case of Daigo, a 31-year-old gamer from Japan who has spent over $70,000 on his favorite video game, it’s easy to see why.

Like many other free-to-play games, Sony Corp.’s ‘Fate/Grand Order’ is  completely free to download and play. So how did it manage to bring in an estimated revenue of over $1 billion in the fiscal year ending this month? Well, it’s thanks to dedicated players like Daigo, a 31-year-old gamer from Japan, who prefer to spend real money to improve their video game characters and progress faster. He estimates that he has so far spent over $70,000 on his hobby.

Read More »