36 Crazy Things That Only Happen In China
Dec. 26, 2013,
REUTERS/China Daily
A
half-naked participant wears a gas mask as he takes part in the second
"Guangzhu (naked) Run" on a winter morning at the Olympic Forest Park in
Beijing, February 24, 2013.
Over the past decade
China saw rapid economic expansion. But its growth model and
controversial politics have not come without their fair share of
problems.
Rising property prices, rising food prices, restrictions on
investment, an emphasis on speed over safety, and lax environmental
standards have led to some truly unique and sometimes crazy situations
in China.
Rich people build mountain villas on top of apartment buildings, local governments incentivize burials at sea, and people are pour their money into everything from walnuts to cockroach farms.
We identified 35 strange things that have happened in China.
Rich people build mountain villas on top of apartment buildings, local governments incentivize burials at sea, and people are pour their money into everything from walnuts to cockroach farms.
We identified 35 strange things that have happened in China.
Businesses hang nets to prevent employees from committing suicide.
Foxconn installed nets outside its worker dormitories and hired mental health professionals to prevent suicides.
Firefighters are on hand to prevent self-immolations.
AP
A national pork reserve exists to combat inflation.
China has replaced the U.S. to become the world's largest consumer of pork. The country has a national pork reserve that it releases when prices soar.
A tourism law is created that tells Chinese tourists to "behave."
REUTERS/Daniel Munoz
Grave robbers steal and sell corpses for "ghost marriages."
AP
Cute kids get replaced by cuter kids.
China
lied about the little girl who sang "Ode to the motherland" at the
Beijing Olympics. Yang Peiyi, the real singer, wasn't considered cute
enough and Lin Miaoke was brought in to lip sync the song. The music
director Chen Qigang told the AP: “The audience will understand that it’s in the national interest.”
Local governments sponsor burials at sea.
REUTERS/Chris Meyers
Entire Apple stores get counterfeited.
As
Chinese cities develop across the country fake stores have become
increasingly prevalent. Arguably the most famous fake store was the fake Apple store in Kunming, southern China.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/crazy-things-happening-in-china-2013-12?op=1#ixzz2ob98F81N
Nail houses and graves pop up to protest land grabs.
Land
grabs are all too common in China, where local governments often seize
land without adequately compensating the owner. While most families cave
to government pressure, some refuse and developers continue to build
around a stand alone home or grave, leading to "nail houses" and "nail graves."
People build houses on top of apartment buildings.
Reuters
Couples divorce to avoid property taxes.
The Chinese government announced a 20 percent tax on profits from home sales. But couples with more than one home have been getting divorced, taking one property each, and then selling one of the homes tax free, to take advantage of loopholes.
Wealthy people have stand-ins at their trials
Buildings fall over sideways and are sometimes intact.
The government signs a deal to buy pig semen from the UK.
China
is the world's largest pork consumer and rising pork prices contributed
to Chinese inflation this year. In a bid to combat that, China signed a deal with the UK to buy pig semen. British farmers are expected to get £45 million ($73 million) a year thanks to the deal.
People spend thousands of dollars on walnuts.
Wealthy Chinese with limited investment options have taken to investing in walnuts, jade and gold mooncakes. Recently, con artists have been selling fake walnuts filled with cement.
They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on jade.
Jade prices first started to rise in 2005 but the jade bubble is said to be popping.
And they earn high returns on cockroaches.
China has witnessed a cockroach bubble, as cockroach farms are multiplying.
These roaches are used in Chinese medicine, and a pound of dried
cockroaches that used to cost $2, now costs $20. One farmer said you can
invest 20 yuan ($3.25) and get back as much as 150 yuan ($24).
Fathers hire assassins to kill their sons' World of Warcraft avatars.
A Chinese father, Mr. Feng, reportedly hired multiple assassins to kill his son's online World of Warcraft avatar.
Xiao Feng, the son, had quit a software development job and spent all
this time playing video games instead of looking for a new job.
People get arrested for spreading rumors about the Mayan Apocalypse.
AP
'Love Hunters' look for women in shopping malls.
Yang Jing, a matchmaker at Diamond Love and Marriage
looks for women and sometimes men at shopping malls. Wealthy Chinese
pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to "love hunters" like Jing
to find their "ideal spouse," according to The New York Times.
The government announces a ban on gift giving, and it immediately hurts the economy.
In an attempt to crack down on "gift giving," Beijing banned commercials for luxury products. This immediately impacted retail sales.
They have cricket fighting competitions.
REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
Thousands of dead pigs float in a Chinese river.
REUTERS/Stringer
The smog is so bad it can be seen from space.
Rapid industrialization has caused pollution problems across China. Recently the smog got so bad NASA said it obscured the view from space.
Milk gets infused with melamine.
China's
dairy industry has been hit with milk contamination scandals since
2008. Milk products have been found containing everything from mercury to melamine and detergent.
Rivers turn red.
Environmental pollution and chemical spills have caused rivers in China to turn red.
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