Chinese news media recently reported the story of an 11-year-old boy who rode his bicycle 130 kilometers (81 miles) in under 24 hours trying to reach his grandmother’s house after an argument with his mother.

After getting into an argument with his mother, an 11-year-old boy from Hangzhou, China’s Zhejiang Province, got on his bike determined to reach his grandmother’s house. He actually told his mother so during their fight, but she never actually believed him, because her mother lived about 140 kilometers (87 miles) away in Mejiang. She underestimated the boy’s determination, because he spent about 22 hours cycling day and night on busy roads and motorways trying to achieve his goal. He only stopped when his legs couldn’t carry him any longer, but by that point he had already covered an impressive distance of about 130 km.

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A Kenyan man recently made international news headlines after being caught taking part in a women’s chess tournament using a full burka as a disguise.

In what is considered a first for the Kenyan Chess Federation, a disciplinary committee is currently debating the proper punishment for a male player who disguised himself as a Muslim woman in an attempt to win a women’s chess tournament. 25-year-old Stanley Omondi was reportedly facing financial woes when he decided to try and get his hands on the £2,400 ($3,000) grand prize of a women’s chess tournament. To pull it off without attracting too much suspicion, the male chess player put on a black burka which only left his eyes and feet visible, and registered under the false name ‘Millicent Awour’. At first, organizers were none the wiser to the player’s gender, but it was his prowess at the game of chess that first drew their attention…

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A young man from China’s Sichuan province spent over 20 hours kneeling in front of his ex-girlfriend’s workplace hoping to convince her to take him back.

A lovesick man became the talk of Chinese social media this month after spending almost 21 hours kneeling outside his ex-girlfriend’s workplace in Dazhou City. The man reportedly started the extreme attempt to get back into his ex’s good graces at 1 pm on March 28 and remained on his knees until 10 am the next day, braving the rain, the cold, and the curious stares of passers-by. At first, no one really paid attention to the lone man kneeling on the street with a bouquet of red roses next to him, but as the hours passed, people started noticing him and asking what he was doing. Before long, a crowd had formed around him.

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Malaysian social media has been abuzz with the story of a young well-off couple who recently bought a Mercedes SUV as a present for their 5-year-old daughter to motivate her to go to school.

Earlier this month, Malaysian businesswoman Farhana Zahra posted a TikTok video asking her daughter, Fatima, what she wanted as a birthday present, to which the young girl answered that she wanted either a green Mercedes G Wagon or a BMW. In the same video, Farhana makes the girl promise that she will go to school if she gets what she wants and then they seal the deal with a pinky shake. Apparently, Farhana and her husband had been having problems convincing Fatima to go to school, because she hadn’t turned five yet, and they used this opportunity to persuade her. Just like our parents used to do back in the day…

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Nanami Kana (Nanamiかな) looks like a Japanese teenage girl in most of the photos she posts on Twitter, but she recently shocked her fans with photos of herself from 12 years ago in which she appeared as a bearded, overweight man.

A Japanese influencer with around 35,000 Twitter followers, Nanami Kana is actually just the online persona of a 45-year-old father-of-one who simply enjoys putting on women’s clothes and posing as a teenage girl. He does a remarkably good job of it too, as most of the people who visit his Twitter page for the first time declare their disbelief at the fact that he is a man and a 45-year-old one at that. But Nanami really blew her fans’ minds last year, when he first posted photos of himself 12 years ago, revealing that he was over 60 kilograms (132 pounds) heavier than today.

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A Chinese man has attracted the envy of his entire country after reportedly winning 365 days of paid leave in a generous raffle organized by his company.

In a viral video that has been circulating on Chinese social media for about a week, a young man can be seen sitting on a chair in what looks like a banquet hall and holding a large sign that reads “365 days of paid leave”. It wasn’t long before the footage drew the attention of mainstream news outlets who managed to identify the location shown in the video and thus the event that took place there. It turns out that this was recorded during the annual meeting held by a company in Shenzen whose management wanted to ease the tension of its employees by offering fun and enticing prizes in a raffle.

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A young Japanese waitress has been accused of ‘borderline terrorism’ by her employers after it was discovered that she mixed her own blood into a patron’s cocktail.

The Mondaiji Con Cafe Daku (Problem Child Dark Cafe) in Sapporo, Japan opened its doors for the first time on March 3rd. It hoped to attract patrons willing to pay 2,500 yen (S$25) an hour to drink all they wanted by hiring ‘mentally unstable’ and ‘problematic’ girls dressed in dark, goth-style attires as waitresses. That idea backfired when one of the waitresses took her role a little too far by adding her blood into a cocktail, reportedly at the request of a customer. The cafe fired the young woman as soon as its management learned about the incident, and apologized to its clientele, describing the dangerous actions of the former employee as ‘borderline terrorism’.

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Raccoons are not native to Japan, yet in the last few decades, the furry critters have become naturalized in 44 of the country’s 47 prefectures, causing all sorts of problems for humans and other animal species. And to think it all started with a cute anime series…

In 1963, American writer Sterling North launched his most popular book, Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era. It told the story of a young boy called Sterling who went on adventures with his raccoon sidekick Rascal, and it became such a huge hit that Disney decided to turn it into a live-action movie. In Japan, Rascal’s adventures inspired a 52-episode anime series called Rascal the Raccoon (Araiguma Rasakaru), which ran for a year in 1977 and made raccoons the most sought-after pets in the country. There was just one problem – there were no raccoons in Japan, so people started importing them from the United States at a rate of about 1,500 raccoons per month.

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Indigirka Salad, a Russian fish salad that originated in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited region in the world, was recently voted the worst dish in the world by the readers of online food guide Taste Atlas.

Indigirka is a rather simple dish – it consists of diced whitefish such as broad whitefish, elma, and muksun combined with onions, and seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Well, at least not so bad as other dishes we’ve featured on Oddity Central in the past. The problem with Indigirka salad is that the fish is not only raw, but frozen solid, which is to be expected from a dish born in a region where temperatures routinely drop below -70 degrees Celsius. The dish is usually served as an appetizer, accompanied by lemon wedges and a shot of vodka.

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Isolated on an island in the middle of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, the bees of Easter Island are free of all the pathogens and pesticides ravaging the global bee population, and therefore produce the purest honey on the planet.

The beekeepers of Chile’s Easter Island are fully aware that their bees may one day become the salvation of the world’s most important polinator. With bee colonies all over the world struggling to survive serious threats like pesticide poisoning, new diseases and climate change, the bees of Easter Island are probably the only ones in the world yet to be affected by such problems. And their owners hope to keep it that way. They have managed to convince the local government to ban the importation of bees, because of the significant risk of contamination.

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Wanessa Moura, a 29-year-old Brazilian model and online influencer, has been getting a lot of attention because of her new perfume, which she claims includes her body sweat as an ingredient.

The Sao Paolo-based model claims that she was inspired to use her sweat to create her signature fragrance, Fresh Goddess, after her boyfriend and her ex-partner both praised her natural body odor as ‘sexy and exciting’. Each bottle of perfume contains 8 milliliters of sweat ‘for a touch of sensuality and femininity’, making it the ideal fragrance for dating and attracting the attention of someone you like. Moura claims that online followers who used Fresh Goddess confirmed its power of attraction with one person allegedly getting invited on a second date by her crush because of the perfume.

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Japanese power tool manufacturer Makita recently unveiled a first-of-its-kind portable microwave oven powered by two large batteries that can be recharged and replaced on the go.

Mockups of a cordless microwave have been doing the rounds online as April’s fools for years, but this year Japanese power tool giant Makita decided to surprise everyone with a market-ready, battery-powered oven that can reheat dozens of foods and drinks on the go. The new Makita MW001G microwave oven is able to deliver 500W of power for up to eight minutes, after which it automatically switches to a lower power 350W mode to conserve battery life. It weighs just 19.4 lbs (8.8 kg) and can reheat about 11 refrigerated lunches or 20 drinks on two fully charged XGT 40V Max 8Ah batteries.

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Bees are considered an omen of good fortune in China, so when a man found a swarm of bees building their nest in his car, he decided to just drive the car with his new winged companions.

A man from China’s Anhui province recently went viral after posting a series of videos of himself calmly driving in his car with bees swarming around inside the vehicle. Most people would freak out at the sight of a single bee flying around their head, but the Chinese driver, surnamed Yao, was all smiles and even boasted that he was ‘going to be rich,’ referring to the belief that bees visiting one’s home was an auspicious omen. It’s unclear how the bees got into the car or why they chose it as their place of congregation, but the viral videos gave many on social media goosebumps.

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Vets in Plymouth, UK, scrambled to save the life of an alcoholic labrador retriever that had become addicted to booze because its late owner kept leaving his drinks outside overnight.

Coco, a two-year-old Labrador cross, almost lost his life and spent a month in intensive care after becoming addicted to alcohol. Staff at the Woodside Animal Welfare Trust in Plymouth, Devon, rescued Coco and another dog after their owner passed away, but they had no idea about the problems the two canines had. It turned out that they were both alcohol addicts, having gotten hooked on booze over years of enjoying open bottles that their late owner left out in the yard before going to sleep. The addiction was so bad that the other dog passed away during the withdrawal period and Coco himself had to be sedated for four weeks.

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Animal rescuers in Brittany, France were stunned by a wild duck that seemed to lead a perfectly normal life despite having a knife stuck in its neck.

Nicknamed Donald the Duck by the members of the Pinocchio et Sauvageons association, the mallard with a red knife handle sticking out of the left side of his neck had long attracted the attention of people in Saint-Nolff, north-western France. What really stunned those who saw the wild duck was how unaffected he seemed by the wound, swimming alongside other ducks, walking around on its webbed feet and being able to feed normally. However, animal rescuers at Pinocchio et Sauvageons worried that the knife could become a serious problem with time, so they decided to take it out.

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