A pretty young woman from Shanghai is on a mission to get a new boyfriend in every city she visits in China. The 19-year-old created a stir online after she posted recruitment notices on social media, asking for temporary boyfriends. She said that she’s looking for male friends to be her travel partners, and to fund her travel expenses.

“Travel with me: Post-’95, adorable girl recruiting temporary boyfriends from all parts of China to be my travel partners,” her post read. She explained that she wanted to “recruit one temporary boyfriend from the local area when/before visiting the city” so that she could “travel all over China on ZERO yuan.”

Read More »

Comfort eating is said to help in coping with emotional distress, but this Chinese woman might have taken it a bit too far. Recently dumped by her boyfriend, 26-year-old Tan Shen actually stayed inside a KFC for an entire week, gorging on chicken wings the whole time. When she finally came out, she said she did it because she just ‘needed time to think’.

Clearly hit hard by the breakup, Shen stepped into a KFC last week, near a train station in the area where she lives. “I was walking around feeling miserable and decided to stop off at the KFC at the train station,” she said. “I hadn’t planned on staying there long, I just wanted some chicken wings. But once I got in there and started eating I decided I needed time to think. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment because it was full of memories of him. So I stayed.”

Read More »

Beggars in China are stooping to new lows in order to gain sympathy (and money) from impressionable passers-by. Horrific pictures show deliberately mutilated camels that are being used to beg for donations. Apparently, the trick has worked wonders so far – the beggars’ collections have increased because people are quite sympathetic and end up donating generously to help the poor animals.

The latest case was discovered in Fuzhou city, China’s Fujian Province, where two men in ragged clothes were spotted kneeling down and begging, while holding the reins of a camel. When the police approached them, they found that the camel had no hooves, and the wounds indicated that they had been deliberately cut off.

In another incident, Fuzhou Evening News reported the case of a camel found by the roadside. It had been led through the streets by a beggar, and then abandoned. News reports suggest that beggars have been spotted with injured camels in several other cities such as Shenzhen, Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Xiamen, Guangzhou, and Hefei. Read More »

A young tuhao (Chinese nouveau riche) from Shaoxing city, China, is making the news for his uncharacteristic behavior. A few nights ago, he was spotted getting out of his swanky new Porsche, only to set up a makeshift roadside stall on the pavement to sell scarves to passers-by. He was accompanied by a lady friend, who assisted him with sales.

Onlookers were so bewildered by this that they couldn’t help asking him what on earth he was doing. That’s when he explained: “I sell scarves here just to earn money to buy gas for my car.” He told reporters that while his parents had gifted him an expensive car, he didn’t think it was right to ask for gas money as well. The girl added that they were also interested in gaining experience in entrepreneurship and business, along with making some pocket money.

Read More »

When 57-year-old Shen Ailan got drunk on two whole bottles of baijiu – a type of Chinese vodka – she decided that a dip in the river was just what she needed to ‘clear her head’. So she dived into the waters of the Yangtze River at Huangshi city, Hubei Province, and passed out soon after. When she finally opened her eyes, she found herself in Ruichang City, Jiangxi province – roughly 75 kilometers away from where she had went into water!

“I decided a dip in the water would clear my head and I remember wading into the water,” she said. “It was the middle of the day and the next thing I knew was everything had gone black.”

Having blacked out in the water, it’s a real miracle that she survived. She was found suffering from acute hypothermia, and the medics who treated her speculated that she might have become semi-conscious after going into the cold water. They added that her body must have acted automatically to keep her head above water as the river’s current swept her downstream.

Read More »

A team of engineers in China is currently involved in developing something called the ‘Air Umbrella’ – a revolutionary new device that uses blasts of air to shield people from the rain. The high-tech umbrella, shaped like a plastic microphone, is capable of producing horizontal gusts of air that repel raindrops, creating a dry, one meter wide circle around the user’s head.

There is a small catch, of course – the device works only for a short while. In true Cinderella style, the ‘magic’ wears off at the stroke of the 30th minute – the umbrella stops producing air and you’ll be drenched in no time at all. So you’d probably want to use it only if you’re confident you can get out of the rain in 30 minutes or less.

Read More »

While the rest of us roll around in bed all night trying to find that elusive ‘sweet spot’, 51-year-old Liang Yanguo can make himself quite comfortable on a single-rope hammock. That’s right, his favorite resting spot is actually a sling made of a single nylon rope tied between two trees.

Nicknamed the ‘Kungfu Man’, Liang has been spotted lying on a rope at a park in Huangyan, China’s Zhejiang Province. Sometimes he hangs on with one hand while the other rests on his chest. He is also able to kick up his legs and open his arms, or even bring his palms together to salute passersby. Irrespective of the position he assumes, he always appears calm and Zen-like.

Read More »

This heartwarming rags-to-riches story is guaranteed to restore your faith in humanity. A Chinese businessman who was once helped off the streets by a passerby, is now repaying the kindness by offering his benefactor a whopping one million yuan (over $160,000).

This story began in 1993, when 17-year-old He Rongfeng was forced to beg on the streets of Taizhou city in China’s Zhejiang province, to support his poor family. “Two friends and I had gone to Taizhou looking for work, but we were unsuccessful and ended up roaming the streets, penniless, starving, and without even shoes,” Rongfeng recalled. “We were in the pits and couldn’t see a way out, and then this young woman turned up.”

The woman was Dai Xingfen, who ran a local noodle shop with her husband. She took Rongfeng and his friends back to her modest one-room apartment and offered them food and a place to sleep. She gave them hot water to soothe their blistered feet, and then called a few acquaintances to find work for the boys in another city. Before they parted, she even gave them money for the train fare.

Read More »

Chinese businessman Qian Fenglei is the kind of friend everyone would want. This real-life Richie Rich has recently gifted specially embossed gold iPhone 6 smartphones to all his former high school classmates, at a reunion dinner. The inscription on the phones reads: ‘Class of 1992, Maoshan Middle School’.

Qian is the chairman of Universal International Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, and is quite well known for his generosity. He was previously in the news for donating two million yuan towards relief work after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. And he also gave all his former classmates an iPhone 5 during a previous reunion. Guess they know what they’ll be getting when Apple launches their new generation of phones.

Read More »

Xiao Yongsheng is the owner of a small beach and a traditional Chinese house on Lingshan Island, off the coast of Qingdao city in eastern China’s Shandong province. When he decided to renovate his large home, he wondered if it was worth spending money on expensive designers and architects. Ultimately, he decided to save up and do it for free – he spent two whole years covering every inch of his 1,500-square meter house with seashells that he collected from his own beach.

“I’d always liked shells but it never struck me to use them until I was walking on a beach one morning and came across a very unusually colored clam shell and then it hit me,” said the 58-year-old. “I realised I was sitting next to a huge, free supply of beautiful building material – so why not use it?” So he began collecting every kind of shell he could find – right from tiny 3-millimeter ones to giant conches that weighed over four kilograms.

Read More »

Li Guojun is a farmer by profession, but his passion for military toys has pushed him to build a couple of life-size, fully functional tanks. Although he doesn’t know much about military engineering and he doesn’t even have access to the internet, he managed to build his own tanks by observing models that he purchased at a local toy shop. The two vehicles are 6 meters long, capable of a top speed of 12 miles per hour, and can tackle almost any kind of terrain.

“To be honest, it wasn’t that difficult to do,” said the humble farmer. “I simply needed to make the same parts that the model had, but much larger.” Li did have a little help from a friend and fellow military tank enthusiast – they built the tanks together and they now spend their spare time driving the massive vehicles outside their village in Kangping County, in northeast China’s Liaoning Province.

Read More »

In a bid to get customers addicted to his food, a scheming restaurant owner in China resorted to unethical means – he laced his noodles with parts of a poppy plant from which opium is made. When questioned by the local police, he admitted to spending 600 yuan (about $100) on two kilograms of poppy shells to secretly add to the food.

The diabolical deception came to light when Liu Juyou, a 26-year-old customer, tested positive for opiates during a routine urine test at an anti-drunk-driving program. Liu was stupefied by the result and swore that he never touched any illegal substances. But the police didn’t pay attention to his pleas and detained him for 15 days.

Read More »

Xu Shuquan, a retired primary school teacher from Chengdu city in Sichuan Province, has dedicated the past 60 years to folding paper planes. The 70-year-old now has a collection of 10,000 planes of different sizes, colors and shapes, in addition to various paper dolls and models of the 12 zodiac signs.

What’s so great about a grown man making paper planes, you ask? Well, Xu’s planes aren’t like those simple ones that kids make. He uses a complicated ancient origami-like folding technique called ‘Zhezhi’ to make a variety of aircraft models – from jumbo jets to fighter planes.

Read More »

Currently trending on Chinese social media is this uber-cool history teacher who obviously doesn’t need a map or a textbook to teach his students. The man is so good at his job that he can draw the map of the world freehand on a blackboard, without referring to a real map even once.

The teacher, whose last name is Zhao, became an internet sensation after one of his students uploaded a series of photographs on the Chinese website Sina Weibo. According to the student, who goes by the handle @xuxuxuermao, it barely took Zhao a few minutes to finish drawing the map. The student also revealed that Zhao does this on a regular basis.

Read More »

It’s that time of the year again when people do the stupidest things to get their hands on Apple’s latest iPhone. It’s been pretty crazy so far, but this story is a clear winner – a Chinese student is offering to share his girlfriend with anyone who will pay up in cash. He plans to use all the money his girlfriend earns him to pay for the highly coveted iPhone 6.

The kid recently stood outside Shanghai’s Songjiang University, holding up a sign that read: ‘Girlfriend Sharing’. To avoid being misunderstood, he also stated the ‘rules’ quite clearly. The deal, he wrote, included eating together, studying together, playing games, saving seats (in libraries/classrooms) or going on dates. The sign was pretty clear on one thing – ‘no funny business’.

“Sharing girlfriend for pocket money,” the sign read. “If you are interested, connect to personal hotspot ‘wifi sharing master’  to check out the girlfriend.”

Read More »