Featuring 20 ramps intertwined over five levels and connecting three major expressways, the Huangjuewan Overpass in Chongqing is considered to be the world’s most complicated overpass.

When the first photos of Huangjuewan Overpass first hit the internet, a few years back, they cause a mix of shock, amazement and concern, especially among motorists. Many were wondering how on Earth less-experienced drivers were supposed to find their way with so many ramps and lanes to choose from. And, even if you consider yourself an experienced driver, Huangjuewan does look a little daunting, at least at first sight. Despite its designers’ claims that it looks much more complicated than it truly is, Huangjuewan has become known as the world’s most complicated overpass.

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Built according to the “Bagua”, or the Eight Trigrams used in Taoist cosmology, Tekesi County has a unique and eye-catching layout that allegedly renders traffic lights obsolete.

Bagua represents the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. It is a complex concept of Taoist cosmology which also has correspondences in astronomy, geography, anatomy, martial arts, medicine, and other disciplines. It’s also an essential tool in the majority of Feng Shui schools, used to map a room or location and see how the different sections correspond to different aspects in one’s life. But one thing the Bagua isn’t really used for is city planning; with one notable exception – Tekesi County, a city of 150,000 people in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

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A staple of Huaiyang cuisine, hydrangea tofu soup is a testament to the impressive knife-cutting skills of chefs specializing in this type of Chinese cuisine.

Looking at a bowl of hydrangea tofu soup for the first time, you’d be forgiven for mistaking the slender tendrils swaying in chicken broth for anything but tofu. It looks like a white hydrangea, hence the name of the dish, but it could also be some sort of edible sea anemone. In reality, it’s a block of soft tofu carefully cut 60 times in one direction, then turned around and cut another 60 times in order to create 3,600 delicate tendrils. It’s challenging to make, as the tofu needs to be sliced just three-fifths in, otherwise, it will break apart and the flower illusion will be ruined.

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A blood-filled mosquito squashed in a burgled apartment in China’s Fujian Province helped investigators catch the mysterious criminal.

It sounds like the plot of a CSI episode, but according to Chinese news sources, authorities in Fuzhou, East China’s Fujian Province managed to bring a burglar to justice by analyzing the blood stain left on a wall by a squashed mosquito. While examining the crime scene – a burgled apartment in a high-rise residential compound – police noticed that the burglar, who appeared to have breached the home after climbing onto the balcony, may have spent the night there, and after finding a blood stain left by a squashed mosquito on a wall, they decided to have the blood tested for DNA.

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A Chinese woman reportedly spent the last decade of her life writing hundreds of bogus Wikipedia entries on Russian history and contributing to hundreds of others.

Wikipedia is nothing less of an online treasure! Whether you’re looking up general information out of pure curiosity, or you’re writing an important paper, Wikipedia almost always delivers the best results. But it’s not a perfect system, and this recent story from China is a perfect example of that. According to online reports from several established news sources in China, a mysterious woman is allegedly responsible for one of the biggest hoaxes in Wikipedia’s history – over 200 made-up articles on Russian medieval history, complete with fake locations, events and characters created over a period of 10 years.

This bizarre story began a while back, when Yifan, a Chinese fantasy novelist, started browsing Chinese Wikipedia as a source of inspiration for his new book. Focusing on Russian medieval history, the writer stumbled over the great Kashin silver mine, originally owned by the Tver, an independent state from the 13th to 15th centuries, and then by the Grand Duchy of Moscow, until it closed down in the 18th century, due to its resources becoming exhausted.

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Scientists at the University of Chicago have developed a new algorithm that forecasts crime with up to 90% accuracy by analyzing data and learning patterns.

Minority Report is a very popular sci-fi film about a special police unit that can arrest murderers before they commit their crimes with the help of three clairvoyant humans called Precogs, which can visualize impending homicides. It’s a brilliant film, if you like sci-fi murder mysteries, or you’re simply a fan of Tom Cruise, but the reason we bring it up in this story is that a team of researchers claims to have come up with a real-world, AI-powered system that is also able to predict crimes with an accuracy of 90%. And their systems doesn’t require Precogs, just past data so it can predict the future.

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A so-called ‘career exam taker’ in China was investigated by authorities for allegedly acing the world’s toughest university admittance exam three years in a row and reportedly earning $300,000.

The Gaokao is a notoriously difficult university entrance exam that many Chinese spend years, sometimes decades to pass. The King of Gaokao, for example, has been trying to get into his dream college for 25 years now, but China’s top schools are just too tough to get into for the vast majority of Gaokao takers. Then there are the lucky few that manage to get into these elite learning institutions, like Peking University or Tsinghua University, and finally, there are the ‘career exam takers,’ who earn high sums of money by acing the world’s toughest university exam year after year.

Because the Gaokao is so ridiculously hard to ace, many reputed schools in China offer their students considerable monetary prizes for getting into the country’s top-rated universities. And because there is no limit on how many times a student can take the Gaokao, some exceptionally-gifted individuals get to earn a nice living by simply acing the exam years in a row.

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A young Australian woman is allegedly being denied access to a $12 million inheritance because she refuses to fulfill her late father’s condition – getting a steady job.

Clare Brown is entitled to a $12 million fortune, but is famously being denied access to her inheritance because she has yet to fulfill the requirements laid down by her late father in his will. Apparently, she has to get a permanent job and “contribute something to society” in order to gain access to get access to the millions, but she refuses to do so, calling the conditions unrealistic because of her health condition. Meanwhile, she is living on welfare and is “constantly broke”.

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A 30-year-old woman in China has become the face of the Asian country’s obsession with slimness after losing 40 kg in a year despite weighing only 65 kg to begin with.

The unnamed woman, who reportedly hails from China’s Hebei province, is just 165-cm-tall and lost over 40 kilograms over the last year, after extreme dieting caused an eating disorder. She apparently decided to adopt a very restrictive diet after delivering her second baby, as her weight had reached 65 kilograms. Within a year, she lost over half her body weight and started experiencing serious health problems. It was only after feeling unwell that she decided to visit a hospital.

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A Shanghai man recently went viral in his home country after asking his ex-girlfriend to compensate him for all the expenses incurred while they dated.

Last week, Chinese media reported the unusual case of an unnamed Shanghai man who allegedly compiled an incredibly detailed list of expenses incurred while dating a woman who had since broken up with him. The unusual list features hundreds of line items, complete with dates and times, as well as descriptions of specific expenditures for clarity. He allegedly sent his ex the list as proof of the money he spent on her during their relationship, demanding that she compensate him.

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Chinese social media was recently rocked by the controversial story of a man who sued his stepson after divorcing his mother, asking for compensation for raising him.

Only a few months after divorcing his wife, a Chongqing man surnamed Tang reportedly took his stepson Liu to court, asking for 35,200 yuan (approximately $5,285) as compensation for the money spent on raising him during the marriage. Tang reportedly married Liu’s mother in 2009 when the boy was 10 years old and helped raise him until 2021, when the woman filed for divorce. About three months after the separation, Tang filed a lawsuit against his stepson, asking for over 30,000 yuan as compensation for living expenses.

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Xiang Duan is a multi-talented Chinese artist who dabbles in painting, sculpting and engraving, among other things. Her tiny bottle painting technique, however, is perhaps her most impressive skill.

While most of us can barely draw or paint a straight line, some artists can create stunning masterpieces with their eyes closed. One such example is Xian Duan, an incredibly talented Chinese artist who creates detailed scenes and portraits on the inside of tiny bottles, using a specially-designed tool. It’s hard for an artistically-challenged person like myself to even imagine the level of concentration and patience this sort of work requires, but it’s definitely the kind of skill that leaves one in awe.

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Photos of a male lion at a Chinese zoo sporting baby bangs went viral online, leaving many wondering how the staff managed to pull off the haircut. They claim they didn’t…

The lion’s mane is the most recognizable feature of the species, and even though its size and color vary by a variety of factors, both genetic and environmental, we can say that it almost never has that tidy “salon” look. But there are exceptions, like this specimen at a zoo in Guangzhou, China, which recently went viral for sporting an impeccable mane that seemed styled after the baby bangs we see female celebrities sporting on the red carpet at various events. The unique look has sparked some controversy online, with many accusing the zoo staff of cutting the animal’s hair, a claim that the zoo has repeatedly denied.

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A 24-year-old man from Chengdu, China has to pay at least $150,000 in repair costs after trampling and vandalizing four luxury vehicles in a hotel parking lot while drunk.

The incident occurred on the evening of May 21, when a clearly inebriated man was filmed kicking and trampling on a number of luxury vehicles despite his girlfriend’s best efforts to stop him. It’s unclear what prompted this sort of reaction from the perpetrator, referred to only as Gao by Chinese media, but considering that he looks very drunk, a logical explanation may not even exist. The damaged cars include a Lamborghini and two Rolls Royces, and the repair costs have been estimated at over 1 million yuan ($150,000).

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To celebrate World Bee Day properly, Italian beekeeper Rocco Filomeno recently listed the world’s first bee farm on Airbnb, allowing guests to sleep to the sound of over 1 million buzzing insects.

Located on Rocco’s olive farm just outside the picturesque village of Grottole in southern Italy, the unique accommodation was designed by artist Davide Tagliabue, financed through crowdfunding and built with the help of local volunteers. The modest structure was made entirely of fir and birchwood and cost only $17,000 to make. It might not look like much at first glance, but what really makes it unique is that it is built around a giant hive of over 1 million bees. The main idea was for visitors to fall asleep to the buzzing of bees, a humming sound known to have a soothing effect.

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