In the Western world, most people undergo cosmetic procedures like rhinoplasty, eye lifts and chin implants in their quest for a youthful and attractive appearance, but in China they are considered sure ways of improving one’s fortune and changing fate.

According to Mian Xiang, the ancient Chinese Art of Face Reading, a person’s facial features compared to their date of birth say a lot about their future. For example, small and sparse eyebrows show a lack of vitality and strength, whereas a hidden mole within the eyebrows indicates a successful break and monetary gain. A “double forehead” or a full prominent forehead means that person is very intelligent and has the capacity to retain a lot of information, while the bulbous end of the nose is called a “wealth palace” and its size and shape reveal a man’s ability to store wealth, and a woman’s chances of finding a rich and supportive husband. Basically the shape, size, placement and color of each facial feature is believed to reflect an individual’s health, personality traits, luck and future career prospects. In order to improve their chances of hitting it big in business, finding true love or improving their luck, many Chinese have their features altered according to the instructions of face reading masters.

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Aptly named the River Cafe, one restaurant in Chongqing, southern China, has come up with an ingenious way of attracting clients. Taking advantage of a nearby stream, the owners have set up dozens of tables straight on the water, offering patrons a cool escape from the unbearable heat.

With summer temperatures reaching over 40 degrees Celsius, the Chinese are always looking for new and enjoyable ways to cool off. The River Cafe, in Chongqing, is inviting locals and tourists to take off their shoes and grab a seat in the waters of a cooling stream. Since it’s too hot to serve their delicious food inside or in the sun, the managers of this popular venue have decided to set up most of the tables straight on the water, under the shade of trees. The pop-up restaurant now has more tables in the stream than it has on land, which can seat up to 300 people at a time. The water doesn’t look very clean, and you can see plastic bottles floating through the plastic tables, but it beats facing the scorching sun or going to overcrowded swimming pools like the famous Dead Sea of China.

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If you think your local swimming pool becomes unbearably crowded on hot summer days, just check out these photos of the so-called Dead Sea, a salt-water swimming pool in China’s Daying County where thousands of people gather every weekend to escape the heat.

Inspired by the real Dead Sea in the Middle East, the Chinese resort build around an underground salt-water lake in Daying County covers an area of 30,000 square meters and is able to accommodate up to 10,000 swimmers at one time. It’s pretty big even for Chinese standards, but apparently not big enough. According to the Chinese press, over 15,000 people, most of them equipped with large swim rings, descended upon this popular summer retreat last Sunday making it look like a giant bowl of human cereal. I’m not even sure the term “swimming pool” even applies to this place on such occasions, considering it’s nearly impossible to move without hitting somebody, let alone flap your hands and feet to swim. The good thing about this place is the high salinity of the water which makes “swimmers” float freely, so there’s no real risk of going under. If that were to happen I can’t see how a person could rise up again…

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According to Chinese media reports, in a village on the outskirts of Changchun lives a nicotine-addicted alligator snapper turtle who smokes around 10 cigarettes a day. The turtle’s keeper says that whenever it feels the need for a smoke, the reptile becomes agitated and starts to hiss.

So how does a turtle become addicted to cigarettes? A local chef, surnamed Tang, who is helping his boss take care of it, says it all started about two months ago when he noticed the pet had lost interest in its daily fish diet. After inspecting the reptile, he noticed there was a sharp chicken bone lodged in its soft belly, but when he tried to pull it out, it snapped at his hand from the pain, nearly biting off his fingers. Tang realized the only way he could take out the bone was to distract the turtle, so he took the lit cigarette that was resting in his mouth and gave it to the pet to bite on. Its jaws snapped on the filter and didn’t let go for hours. His idea proved effective, as he managed to remove the sharp chicken bone, but little did the cook know it would lead to an even bigger problem.

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According to multiple Chinese media reports, wealthy and busy adults have found a new way to combat health issues caused by stress and strain – drinking human breast milk. They hire wet nurses who regularly provide the nutritious drink.

While many parents in China are struggling to find safe powdered milk for their babies, following a scandal over poisoned formula, rich and powerful adults from cities like Shenzen and Guangdong  are paying big bucks for fresh breast milk to keep in shape. The demand is apparently so great that companies are promoting and expanding their breast milk supply business from babies to adults. “Clients can choose to consume breast milk directly through breastfeeding … but they can always drink it from a breast pump if they feel uncomfortable,” Lin Jun, a manager of Xinxinyu Household Service Company told Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily. “Quite a few of our clients hire in-house wet nurses to ensure a supply of fresh breast milk on a daily base,” Lin said, adding that “wet nurses rarely raise objections as long as the price is right.” Apparently, most of those who indulge in drinking fresh breast milk are successful adults with high incomes and high-pressure jobs looking for a highly nutritious miracle cure to their health problems.

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If you’re ever passing through China’s Fujian province, make sure to stop by Dacuo Village and catch a performance by local band Lightningfan. The group specializes in producing electric arcs from Tesla coils that are charged with 1 million volts of electricity, and are in sync with the music they play.

31-year-old Wang Zengxiang, founder and leader of the 10-strong band Lightningfan, is a huge fan of the Tesla coil invented by geek hero extraordinaire Nikola Tesla. “When I was young, my family opened an electrical appliance repair shop. I have loved to study semiconductors and electrical equipment since I was a child,” Wang told the local press. But it was in 2001, when he enrolled in the school of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University that he discovered his first Tesla coil. He was so fascinated by the electrical device that he spent nearly all of his free time studying it. In 2007, he managed to build his very own 1.2-meter coil above his house, quit his comfortable job with an electrical company and dedicated himself to combining his passion for music with electricity. Together with a few like-minded friends, Wang founded Lightningfan, which started entertaining fellow villagers with its electrifying performances.

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What do you get if you combine an egg, a carving knife and a pair of able hands? In Pu Derong’s case the answer is a breathtaking work of art. The 40-year-old self-taught artist from China’s Hebei Province can guide a knife across an egg’s thin shell to create amazing three-dimensional designs.

“I had always been fascinated by eggs as a child,” Pu says. “They are so fragile. Artists use canvases; eggs are mine.” The talented artist from Dongzhuangtou village showed a great interest in painting and calligraphy from a very young age, but he didn’t have the financial resources to attend a specialized art school, so he taught himself. In his adult years he did all kinds of manual labor, worked as a repairman and as a chef, but never gave up on his passion for art. One day, he discovered eggshell carving completely by accident, and he’s been hooked ever since. He made his own carving knife, and after hundreds of failed attempts, he started to master the art of carving on a fragile 0.3 mm eggshell canvas, creating all kinds of beautiful designs, from nature-inspired patterns, to Chinese traditional motifs and architectural pieces. Today, he is recognized as one of China’s most skilled artists, and his masterpieces have won several awards in various contests and exhibitions.

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The Xu Xiangyang Education and Training Workroom, or the Walking School is an atypical educational facility which enrolls Chinese problem children and forces them to walk up to 1,000 kilometers through across the country in order to teach them discipline and make them take responsibility for their actions.

In a Chinese society which leaves no room for failure, spoiled kids, school dropouts and troublemakers risk getting left behind in a competitive race for success. To make sure that doesn’t happen, parents who have exhausted all other options enroll their children in the Walking School, a special boarding school based in Chengdu which forces them to march cross-country all day long and teaches them military discipline. Founded by ex-army veteran Xu Xiangyang, this correctional facility is inspired by the Red Army’s long march in the 1930s, and has a reputation of turning ineducable delinquents into outstanding members of society. Children between between 8 and 18 are brought here, often by force, and left to deal with the hardships of military life to hopefully change their ways.

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Petrified pasta, juicy braised pork, rocky dried fruits and many other delicious-looking dishes are all part of China’s rare stone food banquets. The spread is nice to look at, but trying to sneak a bite will cost you a few teeth.

People in the mountainous regions of China know how to appreciate beautiful rocks, and some spend their whole lives gathering different kinds of rocks, scouring specialized stone shops and trekking through rugged mountain passes and desserts in search of unique additions to their collections. Strangely shaped or colored rocks are considered a feast for the eyes, and stones that resemble food are considered even more wonderful. It takes a lot of time and luck to find naturally shaped pieces of carnelian or jade that look good enough to eat, but dedicated stone collectors have proven it’s possible, on a number of occasions. Organizing stone food banquets is a long-standing Chinese tradition, and even in modern times it manages to draw media attention and keep stone collecting popular.

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38-year-old Liu Lingchao is a real-life human snail who carries his 60-kg-heavy house on his back wherever he goes. Made of bamboo poles and plastic sheets, the portable home provides shelter on Liu’s long travels through China.

Liu Lingchao makes a living selling plastic bottle and metal cans he picks up from the streets of various Chinese cities. The man from Rong’an, Guangdong Province, built his first mobile home five years ago, as a way to save money on his long journeys, and for protection against rain and cold weather. Liu found life as a snail to his liking, and has since then worn out three bamboo huts. His newest one is 1.5 meters wide and and 2.2 meters tall, offering him just enough room for a modest bedding and his travel necessities. Its 60 kg weight is not exactly easy for one man to carry, so Liu really is moving at the pace of a snail along China’s roads, but it beats having to look for shelter wherever he goes, and says the fact that he can settle down virtually anywhere he wants is worth the effort. The human snail left Wuzhou City several months ago, and is now just 20 miles away from completing an epic 270-mile walk and returning to his home town.

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Tao Xiangli, a 37-year-old inventor from Beijing, China, has spent over 150,000 yuan ($25,000) and more than 11 months building a functional robot made of scrap parts and wires bought from second-hand markets.

In China, Tao Xiangli is known as a DIY genius, with a collection of amazing home-made creations under his belt. Three years ago, he made headlines in international media after building a submarine all by himself, and today he’s back to with another impressive achievement – a 496lb (225kg) robot he pieced together in his small Beijing apartment. “He’s ugly, but he’s kind of awesome,” Tao said about the  2.1-meter-tall metal behemoth  that can apparently perform simple movements and even mimic human actions by using infrared rays. It can turn its neck, raise its legs and even shake hands at the flick of a switch on the board located on its back. Instead of crating a humanoid casing for his robot, Tao Xiangli decided to leave it “naked”so viewers could see every one of the over 110 scrap parts and 3,000 lengths of wiring required to make it work. To make it easier on the eyes, the young Chinese inventor fitted his robots with strips of bright neon cabling.

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The Chinese owner of a Maserati Quattroporte worth $423,000 paid three men two smash it with sledgehammers at the 2013 Qingdao Auto Show, because he was disappointed with the way the car dealer had fixed it.

The man known only as Wang told Chinese media he had bought the car in 2011 and was forced to bring it back for repairs only two months later. He said the dealer charged him for new parts, but they really replaced the faulty components with second-hand ones. Later, the staff failed to fix a problem with the car door and even managed to scratch it. That was apparently more than Wang was willing to take, so he decided to deliver a loud and clear message to Maserati. He waited for the Qingdao Auto Show and tipped off the media to show up for an unforgettable spectacle. On the day of the show, he brought in his luxury car draped in a banner accusing Maserati of poor service, and paid three men to smash it with sledgehammers, in front of hundreds of onlookers. They shattered the car’s windscreen, headlights, grill and mirrors, and left some serious dents in its metal body. “I hope foreign luxury car producers acknowledge clearly that Chinese consumers are entitled to get the service that is commensurate with the brand,” Wang said.

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You thought your boss was bad? He’s probably a nice guy compared to the boss of this cosmetics company in Chongqing, China, who recently forced his employees to crawl on their hands and feet in the city’s busy commercial district, in front of hundreds of onlookers.

The controversial event took place on May 2nd, and broadcast live on many Chinese users’ microblog accounts. Later, photos taken by bystanders showing the humiliated employees crawling on their knees with their heads facing the pavement were posted online, causing even more outrage. Some people even notified the police, who showed up on scene and cleared the area. It turns out it was all just a drill ordered by the company boss, who wanted to test his workers’ resistance to pressure. And what better way to do that than have them crawl like dogs in front of strangers taking photos and laughing at them, right? Most likely, he wanted to see how much humiliation his employees were able to bear, so he could exploit them to the maximum without them quitting. If something like this happened in a Western country, the boss would probably be taken to jail or at least sued for damages, but according to Chinese media reports, all the police did in this case was “criticize” and “educate” the cosmetic company’s leadership. Inhumane working conditions all over China have been reported in the past, but this is just borderline slavery.

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This amazing waterfall seen frozen on the side of a building in Jilin City, Eastern China, is the work of 58-year-old Wen Hsu, the only remaining resident, who left the tap on all winter to make sure his uninsulated pipes didn’t freeze.

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you left the water on for an entire winter, here’s the answer you’ve been waiting for – a giant frozen waterfall. The bizarre sight looks like an original work of art, but it was actually born from one man’s fear of being left without running water. 58-year-old Wen Hsu has been living in the same apartment building for the last 35 years. As was the case in many other cities around China, the property was recently scheduled for demolition, to make room for a new shopping center. Developers tried to settle the matter by offering apartment owners a sum of money so they could buy another home some place else, but Hsu says he refused their offer because it wasn’t enough to get a decent place, so even after all the neighbors moved out, he remained in his old apartment. The loneliness was hard enough to deal with, but this past winter he had a bigger problem to deal with. The cold temperatures threatened to freeze the water in the building unisulated pipes, leaving him without running water, and with no other choice than to leave. But he’s not one to give up easily, so he came up with a weird plan…

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Barbers in China’s Sichuan Province have practiced the art of eye-cleaning with a sharp blade for centuries. Like many other ancient traditions, this dangerous trade is slowly vanishing, but you can still find a few barbers willing to scrape your eyeballs with a knife for as little as RMB5 ($0.80).

According to an old Sichuan saying, cleaning the eyes makes the beauty of life more visible, and some people are prepared to go under the knife to make sure they don’t miss a thing. Nicknamed “knife-blade eye cleaning”, the practice of scraping a person’s eyeballs and eyelids with sharp utensils has been a part of Chinese culture ever since ancient times. The craft was supposedly popularized by brothers Zhou Chengfu and Zhou Chengyin, who followed their father’s footsteps and excelled in the technique of servicing the eyeballs, ears and necks of clients, but in recent years it has almost died out. Still, if you look hard enough, you can still find eye-cleaning stands even in modern cities like Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu. 53-year-old Liu Deyuan has been successfully running his small eye-cleaning business for 7 years, offering a head shave and an eye scrape for just RMB5. With many long-term clients lining up to get their eyes cleaned every month, the skilled barber says business is still pretty good. Read More »