For over half a year now, border control points in Longzhou County, along China’s border with Vietnam have been using geese as part of their arsenal of detecting and apprehending illegal immigrants.

As part of China’s strategy to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the country has taken a very hard stance on illegal immigration, with border patrols and control points playing a big part role. However, China’s a big place with a long border, so keeping people out isn’t the easiest thing to do. In Longzhou, a county in Guanxi Province, the border with Vietnam stretches for 184 kilometers on land and 22 kilometers on waters, with many trails and paths for patrols to keep an eye on. Luckily, since last summer, they have had a new secret weapon in their arsenal – geese.

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Chinese real-estate giant Vanke Group recently sparked controversy after naming its advanced AI-powered debt collector its employee of the year for 2021.

Looking at a picture of Cui Xiaopan, Vanke Group’s employee of 2021, you’d think she was a woman in her 20s with a very determined look on her face, but in reality, she isn’t even human. The AI-generated photo that the Chinese company uses to depict its star debt collector is just an attempt of attaching an eye-pleasing face to what is otherwise a cold-and calculated artificial intelligence. However, when it comes to performance, the AI debt-collector managed to surpass her human colleagues by quite a large margin, registering a 91.44% success rate in collecting overdue payments.

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Chinese media recently reported the bizarre case of a woman who claimed that she hadn’t slept in about four decades but never felt tired or sleepy either.

Most people can’t go 24 hours without a little shut-eye, but Li Zhanying, a woman from Henan, China claimed to have gone 40 years without any sleep, a feat confirmed by her husband and their neighbors, some of whom actually put her to the test, only to fall asleep themselves. Li last remembered getting some sleep when she was five or six, but now in her mid-40s, sleep is nothing but an old memory.

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Romantic relationships between humans can get complicated, sometimes messy or even downright toxic, but if being single isn’t an option, technology now offers a new alternative in the form of advanced AI chatbots that make you feel like you’re interacting with a real person.

Chinese youths are reportedly turning to AI-powered chatbots as an alternative to regular dating, either after going through traumatic relationships or breakups with regular people or simply as a way of keeping things, well, simple. While a real person can sometimes do or say things you don’t particularly like, the chatbots developed by companies like Microsoft-owned Replica or fast-growing Chinese startup Xiaoice are programmed to learn from the conversations you have with it, as well as from your social media feeds and even your writing style. So it’s no wonder that some people aren’t even considering going back to regular dating after using such services.

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Zhang Ziyu, a 14-year-old basketball player from Shandong, China, has been getting a lot of attention because of her unusual height, 7ft 5in (2.26m), and getting compared to Chinese basketball legend Yao Ming.

In photos and videos that have been doing the rounds online for the past week, Zhang Ziyu can be seen towering over both teammates and opponents during an under-15s tournament in Jingzhou, where she just happened to score 42 points in a game, as well as 25 rebounds and six blocks. Chinese media reported that Zhang’s parents were both professional basketball players, but still, her stature is surprising, especially considering her age.  She is already  taller than both her father (6ft 11in/2.13m) and her mother (6ft 6in/1.98m).

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An ultra-realistic underwater drone modelled after the arowana fish has been getting a lot of attention online, after making its debut at a military expo earlier this month.

This year’s Beijing Military Expo opened on June 5th, but it wasn’t the tanks, missiles, and other potentially lethal military equipment that drew reporters’ attention, it was a rather strange arowana fish swimming in a large water tank installed on site. At first glance, it was just a fish that seemed to swim and behave normally. It would swim around normally, and raise its head for a while whenever it reached a wall, then just wing its tail again and swim in another direction. At first glance, its appearance and movements were those of an actual fish, and it was only on close inspection that one realized this was an advanced fish-like robot.

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China’s Broad Group recently showcased its innovative Living Building, a new type of modular building system, by erecting a 10-storey apartment building in Changsha City in only 28 hours and 45 minutes.

The Living Building concept developed by Broad Group sounds like it could truly revolutionize the construction industry, and the Chinese company’s recent feat of erecting a 10-floor building in just over a day was meant to emphasize just how disruptive its new system can be. Technically, the building was just assembled on a site in Changsha, by three cranes and a large workforce, as all the components were built in a local Broad Group factory and transported by truck. But that’s one of the features of the Living Building system, it consists of pre-made container-size modules that only need to be bolted together at the “build” site and have their electricity and plumbing connected.

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Fan Bingbing, a popular actress, model, singer, and China’s highest-paid celebrity for the last four years, is suing one of her doppelgangers for relying on her looks to sell products during online streams.

In many cases, looking like a popular celebrity can be considered a blessing, but in the case of one doppelganger of Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, this turned out to be more than a curse. Up until September of last year, 32-year-old Chen Xinling had been able to use her striking resemblance to Fan Bingbing to build a strong following on a series of Chinese streaming platforms and even start a lucrative business selling products on Chinese e-commerce site Taobao. But the dream turned into a nightmare when Chen discovered that her uncanny resemblance to Fan Bingbing was actually a legal liability.

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A 73-storey skyscraper in Shenzen, China, was recently evacuated after it reportedly started shaking for no apparent reason, sending inhabitants into a panic.

On Tuesday afternoon, SEG Plaza, a 20-year-old skyscraper in Shenzen, started wobbling visibly, prompting both people inside and those on the streets below to flee for their lives. Videos shared on social media by people in the vicinity at the time of the freak occurrence, show the giant edifice leaning from one side to the other,  and furniture on the inside shaking. By the time the Shenzhen Emergency Management Bureau evacuated the building, it had stopped shaking, but the plaza remained sealed off until the investigation into the cause of the wobbling was concluded.

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A 27-year-old Russian man who has been imploring viewers to vote him out of a Chinese boy band reality show for months, has finally got his wish, but not before making it all the way to the final.

Vladislav Ivanov, a translator and part-time model from Vladivostok, Russia, is finally free after two grueling months. Earlier this year, the 27-year-old, who speaks fluent Chinese, got a gig to support to Japanese contestants on a Chinese reality-show that would culminate in the forming of a new boy band. Ivanov agreed, but upon arriving on the tropical island where the show was to be filmed, his good looks kept getting him confused with the contestants. The show’s director noticed this, and knowing that he could speak Chinese, persuaded him to participate in the reality-show, and “live in a new way”. It turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

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2020 was a rough year for gym-goers, and 2021 isn’t shaping up to be much better in that regard. Luckily, you can now get the hot body you’ve always dreamed, without moving a muscle, thanks to these realistic muscular body suits.

Thanks to silicone body suits like those made by Chinese company Smitizen, you can now look incredibly ripped without even getting off the couch. Complete with realistic looking muscles, bulging veins and anatomically-correct positioning, the muscular body suits create the illusion of a perfectly-toned upper body, especially when worn under a tight shirt. Some even come with fake body hair… Apparently, these ultra-realistic body suits have become increasingly popular on Chinese ecommerce platforms like Taobao and Aliexpress.

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A zoo in Xianning, Central China, has sparked outrage on social media after it was revealed that it had tried to pass off a Rottweiler as a wolf.

Footage showing a visitor to the Xiangwushan Zoo in Xianning, Hubei province, visiting the wolf enclosure only to find a Rottweiler resting inside went viral on Chinese social media last week. The man who recorded the video, a certain Mr. Xu, can be heard saying “Woof! Are you a wolf?” to the dog, which doesn’t seem to concerned with the fact that it looks nothing like a wolf. Xu later told Chinese journalists that he asked the zoo staff about the animal, and they told him that they used to have an actual age, but it died of old age.

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Popular Chinese film actress Gao Liu recently posted photos of her damaged nose on social media, as a warning about the possible dangers of plastic surgery done wrong.

Liu, a young singer and actress who has starred in multiple films and TV programs and was considered an up-and-coming star in China, had gone off the radar in recent months, which led many to speculate about her well-being. Earlier this month, the actress took to her Weibo account to explain that her unexpected absence had been caused by a botched nose job which had resulted in part of her nose tissue actually dying and falling off. Gao Liu also shared photos of her “plastic surgery nightmare“, which sparked an online debate about cosmetic surgery, which has become very popular in China in recent years.

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A Chinese man and his parents have agreed to move out of a Beijing hospital after living there continuously for six years, because of a financial dispute with the medical institution.

No one really likes spending more time than they have to in hospitals, which is why most people can’t wait to get discharged. But that’s not always the case. In 2014, a man surnamed Tian was admitted to a top Beijing hospital with symptoms that included nausea, vomiting and unsteady gait. He was supposed to spend a few days there after a medical procedure, but following a dispute regarding his medical bill, he ended up living there for six years, along with his parents. This weird saga finally came to an end last week, when the hospital squatters finally agreed to move out.

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A popular Chinese reality show sparked controversy last month after pixelating all elements relating to Christmas on an episode shot in a luxurious hotel decorated for the Christian celebration.

Mango TV, a subsidiary of state-controlled Hunan Television, aired the first episode of the sixth season of Who’s the Murderer, a popular online reality show, on December 24. As it was Christmas Eve, the television saw it fitting to shoot the show in a hotel decorated for the Christian celebration. However, they also decided it would be a good idea to censor all elements related to Christmas, as a way to avoid being criticized by the Government for showing Western festivals and worshiping foreign things. The result was a pixelated mess, with protagonists walking by blurred Christmas trees, tinsel-decorated plants, and even wearing blurred Christmas hats.

Who’s the Murderer is features a cast of celebrities who play different roles in order to find evidence at a “crime scene” and figure out who the murderer is. It’s not the kind of plot that would ever be associated with Christmas, but production thought that the special episode’s setting could be interpreted as a promotion of Western festivals, so a decision was made to blur out all Christmas trees, wreaths, bells, and other decorations during broadcast. Even the protagonists’ Christmas hats were censored with post-production cartoon hats.

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