A small village located on the banks of the Yangtze River, in Sichuan Province, has become known as one of China’s premier suppliers of ornamental stones, generating millions of dollars in revenue every year.

Positioned in an idyllic location, right next to China’s largest river and surrounded by green, forest-covered mountains, Hejiaba village gets a decent number of tourists every year, but tourism isn’t the most profitable local business. That title goes to the collection and sale of ornamental river stones; not the small ones that fit in the pocket as good luck charms, but heavy boulders that enthusiasts all over China pay good money on to add them to their collections. It’s estimated that Hejiaba village generates around 20 million yuan ($3.08 million) annually from the sale of this virtually inexhaustible resource.

Read More »

A retired elderly couple has been fighting the desertification of their home in North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for the last 19 years by planting hundreds of hectares of drought-resistant plants.

Seventy-year-old Tububatu and his wife Taoshengchagan live in a village on the edge of Badain Jaran, China’s third-largest desert, and they’ve been spending every day since their retirement (in 2002) fighting the advancement of the desert with the help of plant-life. Others had tried fighting the desert and failed, but Tububatu just wanted to know if he could make a difference. He started out by planting just 50 trees, but kept doubling his efforts to the point where he now plants thousands of saplings a year. His small desert oasis now spans over 266 hectares and numbers tens of thousands of drought-resistant trees.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Xin Youzhi, aka Xinba, an online personality known as China’s king of live streaming sales, recently managed to sell more products in a single day than a Hong Kong shopping mall sells in 12 months.

Born in a small village in northeast China, Xinba managed to defy the odds, becoming one of the most popular web perdonalities in China, as well as the most successful live stream seller. Operating on Chinese streaming platform Kuaishou, the young entrepreneur specializes in promoting all sorts of products to his fans, and trying to get them to buy as many as them as possible during his online broadcast. He is really good at it too, as demonstrated by his latest achievement, selling over $300 million worth of goods during a 12-hour stream.

Read More »

Xiao Zhu, a young “online supervisor” from Xinyang, China, specializes in helping people combat procrastination by texting and calling them to make sure they fulfill their daily tasks.

With so many distractions literally just a click or finger swipe away, it’s no wonder that procrastination is considered a modern-day “plague” that keeps many of us from reaching our full potential. Whether it be fulfilling work-related tasks, sticking to a weight-loss routine, or studying for a fast-approaching exam, we always find excuses to put them off and do something more fun instead. That’s where online supervisors like Xiao Zhu come in. They spend most of their day keeping track of their customers’ schedule, constantly reminding them that they have things to do.

Read More »

A 31-year-old “emotional counselor” specializes in breaking up married Chinese men from their mistresses and making sure they return to their wives, who are also his clients.

Xiao Sheng has been in the business of breaking up married men from their mistresses for six years, and has come a long way since he first started his unique business. He now has an 8-person staff working alongside him, including a situation analysts, and a customer service manager, as well as actors and directors ready to assist him when certain scenarios need to be staged. His techniques can get very complex, and very expensive, with the average contract costing the client a hefty 150,000 yuan ($23,000).

Read More »

Photos of a moldy-looking bun sold on Chinese online marketplace Taobao have been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media lately, because of its unappetizing appearance.

Chinese company Nanjing Yican Foods has been turning a lot of heads with a rather unique-looking product – match and cheese bun that looks a few months past its expiration date. Underneath its light brown exterior, the cheese matcha bun has a light green appearance that looks just like the disgusting food mold that develops on old bread products. Only it’s actually worse than that, as squeezing the bun causes the green matcha and cheese mixture to ooze out of it…

Read More »

The Polar Bear Hotel, part of the Harbin Polarland theme park in Heilongjiang, China, opened its gates this week to full bookings and criticism from animal lovers, after it was reported that all the rooms offer guests round the clock viewing of a polar bear enclosure.

Marketed as the world’s first “polar bear hotel”, the newest attraction at Harbin Polarland was jointly designed by famous Russian designer Kozylenko Natalia Yefremovna and Japanese theme park designer Shuji Miyajima. It’s built around a small polar bear enclosure, allowing guests to look at two captive polar bears both from the ground floor and from any of the 21 rooms available. The concept has attracted a lot of attention, both from people willing to pay a premium to book a room, and from animal activists who accused the establishment of profiting from the animal’s misery.

Read More »

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.

  Read More »

A Chinese man who spent a small fortune as well as a lot of time and effort turning a small wasteland into a pink paradise in order to impress his ex-girlfriend, has received a clot of compassion online, after failing to win back his old fling.

It’s fair to say that Xiao Xu, a young man from Hetou Village, in China’s Guangdong province, went above an beyond to win back the heart of his ex-girlfriend. Over the course of a month, he spent around 100,000 yuan ($15,500) turning a small patch of wasteland rising up from a lake near his village into a fairytale Love Island complete with fake cherry blossom trees, swings, river rock arrangements, and more. He even convinced some locals to give him a hand and turn this place into the ultimate love letter to his former partner. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way he had hoped…

Read More »

A Chinese man has been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media, because of his unique training regimen – walking with 150 kg of steel plates attached to his feet.

Zhang Enshun, a 42-year-old man from Yulin City, in China’s Guangxi province, has been training in the art of “iron shoes” for the last five months, and has already made significant progress. After seeing news reports of people working out by walking with heavy weights attached to their feet, and hearing them talk about the benefits of this training, Zhang decided to try it for himself. He began by attaching one steel plate, weighing around 18.75 kilograms, to each of his feet and trying to take a few steps with it. Today, he can walk around with four of these heavy plates attached to each foot, for a total weight of 150 kilograms.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

A 16-year-old girl known as “China’s youngest plastic surgery addict” claims to have undergone no less than 100 invasive cosmetic procedures over 3 years, in a bid to improve her looks.

Zhou Chuna, a young Chinese influencer with over 300,000 followers on microblogging platform Sina Weibo, has built her online career on plastic surgery, documenting her extreme transformation from a normal-looking girl to a doll-like idol over a period of three years. She’s not the only girl to have turned to cosmetic enhancements at a very young age, but Zhou Chuna’s case is considered unique because of the sheer number of procedures she has had done (around 100) in a relatively short period of time (3 years). Despite claiming to have experienced severe side-effects due to her addiction to plastic surgery, like memory loss and permanent scarring, the 16-year-old says it’s all worth it.

Read More »

Sick of the skinny bodies and perfect faces of K-pop boybands like BTS? Looking for something more ordinary? Check out Produce Pandas, China’s first chubby boyband.

As their band name suggest, the five members of Produce Pandas all resemble cute pandas – “huggable, chubby shape, relaxed and happy attitude. At least that’s lead dancer Mr 17 claims. Although their mission is very similar to that of the hundreds of cookie cutter boybands in China – to promote positivity and act as good role models – they have adopted a very different look. Instead of the anime-inspired looks and eyeliner usually associated with Asian boybands, Panda Produce members just look like average joes, and that’s apparently by design.

Read More »

Chinese social media has been in uproar over reports of a technology company that allegedly used smart cushions to secretly monitor the activity of its office staff.

An employee of Hebo Technology, a high-tech company based in Zhejiang Province, recently took to social media to expose a practice that he considered illegal and immoral. The woman man, known only as Wang, said that she and at least nine other employees in her office had been monitored via seat cushions for the last several months. The smart cushions were a gift from company management and were supposed to help them them stay healthy, by monitoring their vitals and offering healthy advice, but it turns out they had a more sinister purpose.

Wang said that she and her colleagues initially welcomed the company’s gift, as the smart cushions offered a wealth of data, including breathing rate, heart rate, and sitting posture, and even reminded them to stretch or get up, if they sat down for two long. The 10 employees genuinely believed that the company cared about their health and wellbeing.

Read More »