Surrounded by lush vegetation and dotted with ponds and pools of water, the Chinese village of Ding Wuling should be teeming with mosquitoes, especially during the summertime. However, the tiny bloodsuckers allegedly haven’t been seen here in almost a century.

Located in the hills of China’s Fujian province, 700 meters above sea level, the village of Ding Wuling is home to the hakka minority, a people with a very rich history and culture evidenced by the unique architecture of their stone houses. But in recent years, the culture and architecture of this picturesque village have been overshadowed by a mystery enhanced by national media – the absence of mosquitoes. Despite being virtually covered by a lush canopy and surrounded by vegetation, the village has reportedly been mosquito-free for several decades.

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We all know many of the stars and online influencers we follow on social media use all kinds of tricks to enhance their image, but a recent Chinese duo revealed just how far digital editing can go, by comparing their altered social media photos to the original versions.

Exposing online idols has been a very popular pastime on Chinese social media lately, with dozens of reported cases of internet celebrities with thousands, sometimes millions of followers exposed as frauds after accidentally turning off their filters and revealing themselves as looking totally different than what their fans thought. But this story is about a peculiar case involving a pair of social media idols who recently exposed themselves, by comparing the original photos of themselves to the altered ones that they usually posted on their profiles.

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Yunyang Longgang Scenic Spot in Chongqing, China, has become home to what is being referred to as the world’s scariest swing, which can catapult thrill-seekers over the edge of a nearly 700m-tall cliff, at speeds of up to 130km per hour.

The newly-unveiled super swing consists of a 100-meter-tall arch tower from which the swing’s metal cables are attached, and a 108-meter-tall launch tower which allows the swing to achieve mind-numbing speeds. With a swing diameter of up to 91.5 meters, the Yunyang Longgang Cliff Swing is said to offer a more thrilling experience than the famous Nevis Swing in Queenstown, New Zealand, or the Glenwood Canyon Cliff Swing in the United States. The new super-swing is currently undergoing additional safety inspections and is expected to open at the end of next month.

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Yartsa Gunbu, a fungus that infects ghost moth caterpillars on the Tibetan Plateau, is considered by far the most expensive parasite in the world, fetching up to $50,000 a pound.

A close relative of the tropical parasite that infects ants and turns them into zombies, Ophiocordyceps sinensis is only found on the Tibetan Plateau, where it infects the larvae of ghost moths while they are buried deep underground and feeding on plant roots. The larvae are most vulnerable in the summer, when they shed their skins, becoming more easily infected. The parasite slowly grows in its hose by consuming it during the fall and winter, and just when the snow starts to melt, it pushes its dying larvae host upward and grows a plant-like, spore-filled stalk that pierces the ground, becoming the way to spot the valuable Yartsa Gunbu. It is then harvested by local villagers and sold modest prices that turn into a fortune as the fungus passes through several middleman, costing the final client more that three times its weight in gold.

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A 34-year-old man abducted and sold to a childless family more than 1,000 kilometers from his home was recently reunited with his parents, who had never stopped looking for him, after 32 years.

Mao Yin was just 2-years-old when he was snatched by a stranger on October 17, 1988. He and his father, Mao Zhenjing, were walking home from nursery in the city of Xian in Shaanxi province when the boy asked for a drink of water. The pair stopped in the entrance of a hotel, and when the father turned his back on the boy for only a few moments while trying to cool some hot water, Mao Yin was gone. His family started looking for him right away, putting up posters and contacting police, but it was like he had vanished into thin air. Now, 32 years later, he was miraculously reunited with his birth parents.

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Chinese media recently reported the bizarre case of a heartbroken young woman who took revenge on her cheating boyfriend by sending a tonne of onions to his doorstep so he could cry as much as she did over his treason.

For most young Chinese couples, May 20 is a very special day, the equivalent of the western Valentine’s Day, but for one heartbroken woman who recently caught her boyfriend cheating, the day will only make her suffering worse. Known only as Miss Zhao from Zibo, in Shandong province, the young woman reportedly went through her boyfriend’s phone a few days ago and was shocked to see that he had been texting other girls and had already cheated on her. Unable to cope with the pain, she ended the relationship and cried her heart out for three days after that. Meanwhile, her ex was out having the time of his life, which only made her more angry…

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A Chinese family recently sued Chinese gaming giant Tencent after their two children were left fighting for their lives a after jumping off of a building to see if they would come back to life like their favorite video game characters.

The two siblings, aged 11 and 9, reportedly became addicted to popular video games Mini World and Game of Peace during the lockdown caused by the spread of the SarsCov-2 virus. Their parents had bought them a smartphone, and they would spend up to eight hours a day playing the two mobile games at the family home in Handan, China. On March 22, the two children jumped off of the family’s 50-foot-tall residential building to see if they would come back to life, just like their video game avatars. The pair were critically injured, breaking numerous bones, and required several surgical procedures.

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At just 27 years old, Li Jiaqi is already one of the most successful online personalities in China. He specializes in selling makeup, particularly luxury brand lipsticks, which has earned him crazy nicknames “King of Lipstick” or “Iron Lips”.

With over 40 million fans on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and millions others on various other social networks, Li Jiaqi is perhaps the most sought after beauty vlogger in all of China. Whatever product he chooses to promote turns into an instant hit, and companies are desperate to work with him, but he remains mostly focused on makeup, lipstick in particular. It’s not really the kind of career you would expect a young man to venture into, especially in a traditionalist country like China, but his success is proof that unconventionality can be an advantage. That’s how Li Jiaqi looks at it, anyway. He says that most people doubted him at first, saying that he could never sell to a female audience, but he had always been confident that he had an advantage over female beauty vloggers – stamina.

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Looking at photos of Chinese cosplayer CROME拉面猫就是星空萌 dressed up as some of the most famous anime heroines, you would never guess that the person under all that makeup and female clothes is a man.

A former art teacher, CROME拉面猫就是星空萌 now works as a full-time cosplayer, regularly posting new photos and updates for his legion of online fans, attending events and working on new costumes. He reportedly started trying on women’s clothes in secret, in 2007; it was nothing fancy, he didn’t experiment with makeup at the time, and he didn’t tell anyone about it, but he considers those days the true beginning of his female cosplaying career. It wasn’t until 2012 that he was comfortable enough to go out in public dressed as one of his favorite anime characters.

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Chinese media recently reported the bizarre case of a 10-yer-old boy who allegedly developed black mold in his ear canal because of wearing earbuds for long periods of time.

You would think that the human body had some way of preventing mould from developing, even in dark and secluded orifices like the ear canals, but it turns out that with the right conditions fungal infections can occur in our ears. Doctors at the Shunyi Women and Children’s Hospital in Beijing recently reported the case of a young boy who came in with his mother complaining of ear pain and stuffiness-like sensation. Upon examination, he was diagnosed with ear canal mycosis, or in simple terms – mold in the ear canal.

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A Chinese woman claims she has had to use a strip of tape to sleep at night after botched double eyelid surgery left her unable to completely close her eyes.

The woman, referred to by Chinese media only as Ms. Ma, reportedly paid 20,000 yuan ($2,800) for a double eyelid surgery at the Jimei Plastic Hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan province, in September of 2018. The cosmetic procedure artificially creates the Western style creases on the upper eyelids, and is very popular among Asian women who don’t naturally have them. Unfortunately, in Ms. Ma’s case, the procedure didn’t turn out as well as she expected it to, so she went under the knife for second time, only to have this procedure turn out even worse than before. The woman was shocked to realize that she was no longer unable to close her eyes completely.

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A Chinese man who spent seven months away from his apartment in Langfang, Hebei Province, recently returned to find his home had transformed into a small botanical garden.

The unnamed man took to social media to share videos and photos of what he found when he entered his home, after being away for almost seven months, since before the Covid-19 crisis. You can see vines lining the walls of the apartment, using hanging photos, the TV set and furniture as supports to advance further into the home, and even some stems hanging from the roof. The video of this small botanical garden quickly went viral, leaving many social media users wondering how the plants grew so much without him to look after them. It seems the man’s brother had a part to play as well.

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An elderly couple from China’s Henan province took legal action against their own son for neglecting his duty of financially supporting them.

Filial piety isn’t that important of a notion in the Western world, but in China it’s a big deal. Failing to take care of your elderly parents is actually considered a legal offense both in China and in other countries with large Chinese communities, like Singapore or Taiwan. It’s actually not uncommon for parents to sue their offspring for neglecting them in their old age, and while most reconcile their differences before having punitive measures enforced, some don’t and police, revenue service and banks have to get involved. Such was the case of an elderly couple whose son flat out refused to support them even after being ordered to by a judge.

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In a bid to make its exotic fish tank more appealing to visitors, an aquarium in the Chinese city of Guizhou wrote popular Chinese surnames on the live fish, attracting the wrong kind of attention in the process.

Staff at the Guizhou Polar Ocean World thought they had struck gold when they came up with the idea of writing common surnames like “Zhao,” “Hu” or “Wu” on dozens of live fish in an exotic fish tank, but the response wasn’t as positive as they had hoped. Photos and videos of the yellow fish with bright red Chinese characters painted on their bodies quickly went viral on social media and inspiring thousands of critical comments from the general public.

Overwhelmed by the negative feedback, the Guizhou Polar Ocean World recently put out a statement saying that their exotic fish tank was generally overlooked by most visitors, and that the painted surnames were supposed to make the fish more appealing to the public.

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China’s cosmetic surgery market was estimated to be worth around $31 billion in 2018, with double digit growth per year, and at the forefront of it is a 30-year-old self-confessed cosmetic procedure addict who had her first work done when she was only 14.

Wu Xiaochen, or Abby, as she is known on social media, is perhaps China’s most popular plastic surgery crusader. Her perfect features fascinate and inspire millions of young women who either dream of making it in the competitive entertainment industry, or simply want to correct certain defects so they can regain their self-esteem. She has millions of followers on various social media platforms, owns two cosmetic surgery clinics in Beijing and has worked with some of the biggest brands in China. But Abby’s success didn’t happen overnight. She has been obsessed with plastic surgery for the past 16 years, and has gone under the knife or the needle hundreds of times during that time to make sure that her appearance is impeccable.

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