i challenge you to a personality contest
i generally avoid reading the chinese media … because, well, it’s the chinese media. but during lunch yesterday at rendezvous cafe — my new favorite shanghai slop house — i happened to glance at a china daily. and now, dare i say it, i think i might be addicted … because, well, it was hilarious. unlike most newspapers, state-run chinese newspapers aren’t bogged down with real news stories. they don’t confuse readers by offering two sides to every story. hell, sometimes they don’t report on stories at all — thus saving readers valuable time.
all this free space allows chinese newspapers to print some pretty weird shit. the onion ain’t got nothing on these guys.
take, for example, china daily’s hard-hitting look at the debate raging in nanjing: the city is trying to choose its “official color.” and, in a surprise move, light green appears to have taken the lead. although i’m pretty sure red will demand a recount. here are some of my favorite passages:
Light green grabs Nanjing’s colour crownNANJING: After surveys and debate among residents, the capital of East China’s Jiangsu Province is about to choose light green as the city’s official colour.
A survey carried out by local media recently showed that more than 60 per cent of Nanjing citizens prefer the shade as their city colour. …
Many respondents said they chose light green because it represents peace, serenity and environmental protection, which are all characteristics of the city.
Others say the colour represents the mountains and lakes in the city, while others feel that the colour reflects the city’s culture. …
Experts have also taken part in the discussion. They have chosen five colours for the citizens’ reference, namely milk white, graphite, light green, pink and yellow. …
Many researchers, including experts and scholars who still have different opinions, feel it is too early to decide what city colours Nanjing should have. …
There are only three or four cities which have decided their own colours in the country.
For example, Beijing has chosen grey as its main city colour, which symbolizes a dignified and elegant city atmosphere.
Harbin, capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, recommends cream yellow and white to be the colours of its architecture.
And Wuhan, capital of Central China’s Hubei Province, encourages the use of a number of colour systems, predominantly shades of grey and various other colours as the city colour.
perhaps most amusing, however, is china daily’s “china scene” page, a roundup of national “news” blurbs “from the most influential and widely-read chinese media.”
the following piece, from the page’s report from western china is one of the most utterly bizarre things i have read in quite some time (thanks to cecil for pointing it out):
Asia’s ‘biggest man’ seeks challengerA huge man who stands 2.4 metres tall and weighs about 130 kilograms arrived in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, on Wednesday to seek fame by challenging others to compete with him in appearance and eloquence, reports Chengdu Commercial News.
Huang Chengqiu, 36, a native of Central China’s Hunan Province, instantly attracted attention when he appeared in an exhibition centre that afternoon.
Dubbed the biggest man in Asia, Huang reportedly excels in many aspects and is ready to challenge anyone more than 2 metres tall to a personality contest.
from the heartwarming north, a long-awaited cure. know an alcoholic? lock yourself in a closet. works every time:
Boy hides in wardrobe 3 days for father’s loveAn ignored teenager in Changchun of Jilin Province “got lost” for three days by hiding himself in a wardrobe to draw his father’s attention, New Culture News reports.
Guo Xiaoming, 16, made the desperate move because his father Guo Baoxin was addicted to drinking alcohol all day long after his mother died in an accident three years ago, caring little about the boy longing for parental love.
When the drunk father returned home on Saturday, he found the door locked from the inside and no response to the knocking.
When police came on Monday to unlock the house after receiving a report, the boy emerged from the wardrobe in tears - and the father promised to stop drinking and take care of his son.
from the lovelorn east, a man who wishes asians had a little hair on their chests. (but do you really think the ladies left because of the tattoo? maybe, just maybe, it was because they discovered that their husband had a breast!)
Tiger tattoo on chest causes three divorcesA man was divorced three times only because the tattoo of tiger on his breast is too terrifying, report Modern Express.
Hu, who lives in Lishui County, Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, had the tiger tattooed when he was young.
His first wife left him after he tried to remove the tattoo but doctors couldn’t help.
And the third wife parted ways for the same reason on Monday - and one of Hu’s friends said that he would never keep a wife unless he erased the tattoo.
from the ever-expanding central region, a story i feel very bad about laughing at:
Swollen, long tongue needs surgeryAn 18-year-old girl at Nanyangnei Town, Henan Province is expecting to treat her more than 10-centimetre-long swollen tongue, which is still growing, reports Zhengzhou Evening News.
Wu Xiangcui had to quit school due to the abnormally long tongue, a result of nerve fibre tumour. She suffers while eating and driving away mosquitoes and insects that are fond of stinging her tongue.
Physicians at Henan Plastic Surgeon Centre said the condition is difficult to completely cure.
and finally, from the shrewd south, a romantic story for all you single marketing majors out there:
Undergrad seeks rich wife to support overseas studyA fourth-year college student in Beijing, in desperate need of money for his post graduate study in Russia, called a newspaper in his hometown Foshan, Guangdong Province, recently, saying he wanted to place an advertisement to find a rich wife, reports Southern Metropolis News.
The man said he needs up to 150,000 yuan (US$18,000) to finish the three-year course, which he and his family cannot afford, and prefers a woman between 25 and 35 who has a child.
The student, who has the full support of his parents, said he was inspired by marketing lectures at university.
5 Comments
Here’s my favorite:
Senior citizen survives only on rice wine
A 71-year-old man in Shaoxing, East China’s Zhejiang Province, has survived 35 years without eating any food— he drinks only wine, reports Du Shi Kuai Bao (the name of a newspaper).
He has had a stomach disease for 36 years, which causes acute discomfort whenever he eats. So he takes rice wine as lunch and supper every day and has never felt hungry.
I’ve been checking out your website regularly for hilarious accounts of your daily life in Shanghai. I’m especially pleased today to find out I’m not the only one who is addicted to China Daily’s “China Scene” page. My chinese colleagues are bewildered when they see me snorting rice out of my nose each time I read this column at lunch time. I seem unable to explain to them why I think this is all so hilarious; they seem to this is all pretty serious, heart-wrenching stuff most of the time. Anyway, I’d like to thank China Daily and Dan for brightening up my dreary rice and fried pork lunches. Thanks Dan!
I spent way too long looking at your blog/pictures to not leave a comment. I just returned from a one week stay in Shanghai for Spring break, and reading your blogs made my heart ache to go back. Your blogs basically say what I felt when I was there - except you sounded so much better than I would’ve. Well, I did alot more shopping than you tho. But then I’m a sucker for fake LV and Gucci bags. I hope you keep these updates coming! :)
goddammit, Dan! Update! U-P-D-A-T-E!
deedee: i may look at you with bewilderment too if i saw you snorting rice out your nose. hope that doesn’t happen when you are reading my site. could mess up the keyboard.
kelly: thanks for the message … and at least you buy the fakes.
umm: enough updates for ya?