iPhone 14 Scalpers Allegedly Forced to Sell Phones on the Street at a Discount

Chinese iPhone 14 scalpers are apparently struggling to recover their investment as they are forced to sell the handheld for less than the MSRP.

Like it or not, scalpers are an integral part of the free market, and there is little anyone can do about them. Whether it’s the Playstation 5 or the newest iPhone, they’re always ready to scoop up whatever inventory is available and sell it for outrageous profits to diehard fans with little patience and loaded pockets. That said, scalping does have its risks, and the recent iPhone 14 launch is a clear example of that. Chinese media has been reporting that scalpers have been forced to sell their brand new iPhone 14 smartphones on the street for less than the official launch price just to cut their losses.

Read More »

Company Installs Cameras in Toilet Booths to Monitor Employees’ Toilet Breaks

A Chinese company has come under fire for installing surveillance cameras above the toilet booths so it could monitor employees during their toilet breaks.

Toilet use during work hours has been a controversial topic in China for quite a while now. In the past, we’ve written about companies that cut employee salaries for spending too much time in the toilet, others that fined workers for using the toilet more than once a day, and even a company that installed timers on its toilet booths. But none of those examples even come close to the “solution” of one technology company in Xiamen, Fujian Province, which reportedly installed cameras above the booths of its employee bathrooms to monitor phone use during bathroom breaks.

Read More »

Parents Sue Daughter They Abandoned as Toddler for Not Buying Her Brother an Apartment

A Chinese couple who abandoned their daughter when she was only a toddler, suddenly reappeared in her life decades later when they learned she was well off, to ask her for a home for her brother.

Zhang was only 2 years old when her parents decided they couldn’t raise her anymore and placed her in the care of her brother’s sister. They had little to no other interaction with her ever since, and the now 29-year-old woman always considered her aunt’s family her biological one. It was for this reason that she recently used part of her savings to help her cousin, who she considers her brother, buy an apartment. However, she never anticipated that her generosity would suddenly make her biological parents come knocking, asking her to buy an apartment for her biological brother as well…

Read More »

Company Sparks Controversy by Rejecting Applicants With Unlucky Phone Numbers

The superstitious manager of a Chinese education company has come under fire for rejecting people with ‘5’ as the last digit of their phone number.

Chinese news outlets have been reporting the bizarre case of an education company in Shenzhen, Guangdong that allegedly rejects job applications of people who have ‘5’ as the fifth digit in their phone numbers, because the boss considers it back luck. Such applicants are advised to change their phone numbers if they are truly interested in working at the company. The bizarre condition, which has nothing to do with competencies or work ethics, has sparked a heated online debate in China, where superstition is still a big part of daily life.

Read More »

Woman Left With Double Eyebrows After Botched Tattoo Job

After a botched eyebrow tattoo procedure in Thailand, a young woman has had to walk around with two pairs of eyebrows on her face for over a year.

Eyebrow tattoos are pretty popular all over the world. When done correctly, they look great and don’t require much maintenance, but sadly that wasn’t the experience of one 32-year-old woman from Thailand, who has been living a nightmare because of a botched tattoo job. About a year ago, Nipapron Meeking paid 1,500 THB ($41) at a tiny hole-in-the-wall beauty clinic in Rayong province, eastern Thailand, hoping to walk out with a thick, well-defined pair of eyebrows. She got what she paid for, only the fake eyebrows didn’t cover her real ones, they stood above them…

Read More »

Woman Accidentally Locks Herself in Bathroom for Three Days, Survives on Tap Water

A 54-year-old Thai woman who accidentally locked herself in the bathroom awaited her inevitable demise after screaming for help for three days.

Living on your own certainly has its benefits, especially for people who enjoy their privacy, but it also some downsides, as one woman recently discovered. The Bangkok-based lady, whose name has not been revealed by Thai news outlets, went into her home bathroom on August 22 not knowing that she would spend the next three days stuck there. As soon as she closed the door, a faulty door knob turned the restroom into a prison for the woman, who hadn’t even bothered to take her phone with her, not to mention food or drinks. She resorted to banging on the door and screaming for help, but no one came to her rescue…

Read More »

Company Comes Under Fire For Making Employees Eat Raw Eggs as Punishment

A Chinese company has sparked controversy online after it was reported that it forces employees to eat raw eggs as punishment for not meeting expectations.

It all started when a second-year university student surnamed Du took to social media to complain about his experience as an intern for a Zhengzhou technology company. He claimed that the said company had a bizarre rule where employees had to swallow raw eggs if they didn’t get enough orders in a set period of time or otherwise failed to meet management expectations. He claimed to have had his internship terminated after he refused to obey the rule, adding that management made him write down “personal reasons” as the reason for ending the internship to absolve the company of any liability.

Read More »

China’s ‘Pig Hotels’ – Massive Multi-Storey Pork Production Facilities

After seeing its pork production decimated by African swine flu outbreaks, China has been investing heavily into so-called ‘pig hotels’, controversial multi-storey pig raising facilities.

Talk about elevating pig farming to new heights! For the last three years, farmers across China have been investing billions of dollars into massive high-rise hog-raising facilities popularly known as pig hotels. The trend started with two and three-storey facilities, but it quickly escalated into monolithic structures of over 10 levels, with tens of thousand of animals raised on each. At the end of this month, Zhongxin Kaiwei Modern Farming, a privately-owned company in Hubei, is set to complete a 26-storey pig hotel touted as the largest such structure in the world.

Read More »

Man Ordered to Pay Ex-Girlfriend $1,150 After Urinating in Her Louis Vuitton Handbag

A South Korean civil court recently ordered a 31-year-old man to pay his ex-girlfriend 1.5 million won ($1,150) as damages for urinating in her designer handbag.

This bizarre story dates back to last October, when the defendant in this case, a 31-year-old man from Seoul, South Korea, whose identity has not been revealed, for privacy purposes, allegedly got into an argument with his girlfriend at the time. The two were at the girlfriend’s house in Gangnam-gu, and somehow started fighting about the amounts of money the woman was spending and the debts she was racking up. At one point, the man allegedly went into the bedroom, brought out one of his girlfriend’s Louis Vuitton handbags, unbuttoned his pants, and started urinating in it right there in front of her. She didn’t like that very much, so she filed a complaint against him with the police.

Read More »

Woman Sues Co-Worker for Breaking Her Ribs by Hugging Her Too Hard

A Chinese woman recently took a work colleague to court, after they allegedly broke three of her ribs by hugging her too hard.

This bizarre story started back in May of 2021, when the plaintiff, a woman from Yueyang city, in China’s Hunan province, was chatting with a colleague at her workplace. At one point, a male co-worker came over and greeted her with a hug, which allegedly caused her to scream in pain. The man had apparently hugged her so hard that she continued feeling pain in her chest even after leaving work, but she didn’t seek medical help right away preferring to rub some hot oil on her chest and go to bed instead.

Read More »

27-Year-Old Man in China Can’t Get a Job Because of His Childish Appearance

A 27-year-old man from Dongguan, China, has been having trouble finding a job because he looks more like a child than a man in his late 20s.

Saying that Mao Sheng looks a little young for his years would be a serious understatement. He claims to be 27, but everyone agrees that he doesn’t look a day over 10. And while some would consider that a blessing, the young man from Dongguan claims it’s a curse, because it prevents him from getting a job. Most employers don’t believe he is as old as he claims to be, and those who do say that they don’t want authorities snooping around and accusing them of child labor because of his youthful looks.

Read More »

This Mindboggling Overpass Is Considered the World’s Most Difficult to Navigate

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.

Read More »

Tekesi County – China’s Unique Bagua-Shaped City

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.

Read More »

Japanese Man Lives Out Every Idol Fan’s Ultimate Dream by Marrying His Favorite Idol

A 47-year-old man recently became the envy of every male idol fan on the planet after it became known that he managed to marry his favorite idol.

Let’s face it, we’ve all fantasized about getting noticed by our celebrity crush at some stage in our lives, but deep down we always knew it was nothing but a dream. However, for one Japanese idol fan, that dream became a reality. Not only did he get noticed by his favorite idol, but they ended up having a romantic relationship and eventually getting married, despite a 27-year age difference.

In 2020, Yuki Tomoe debuted as a substitute member of an Osaka-based idol group. The moment he laid eyes on her, Mitsuo, who was 44 years old at the time, knew there was something special about her. She was only 17, but he thought she was very talented and charismatic, so he decided to support her.

Read More »

“Career Exam Takers” Repeatedly Ace University Entrance Exam for Profit

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.

Read More »