Think you're tough? Probably not as tough as these Chinese soldiers, who played a lethal game of Hot Potato ... with live bombs!

During an exhibition drill in Hong Kong, last month, an elite garrison of 6,000 PLA troops staged a series of impressive exercises for the visit of the island’s chief executive, Sir Donald Tsang. Snipers shot tiny glasses, soldiers carried heavy logs and jumped through rings of fire, but nothing as incredible as a group of men playing a game of pass-the-bomb.

The lethal game is played by six soldiers standing in a circle with a dug whole in the middle. They pass an explosive satchel from one two another, counting down until it detonates. Just before it explodes, one of the soldiers throws it in the hole and they all leap away as the ground trembles and dirt starts flying from the pit. Any miscalculation could mean the end for all six players, but they don’t seem very intimidated by that. They just calmly pass the live satchel as if it were a simple bag.

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A lot of people have compared the Internet censorship bills SOPA and PIPA with the Great Firewall of China, but how are the recent anti-SOPA protests viewed by those most affected by Internet censorship?

Beijing-based Evan Osnos wrote about how the Chinese people view SOPA:

In China, the reaction to American protests has ranged from sympathy to gentle Schadenfreude, as Chinese Web users try to sort out whether they are being held up as victims or patsies or pirates.

After several years in which American diplomats have inveighed against Internet censorship in China, the proposals have inspired a bit of snickering. “The Great Firewall turns out to be a visionary product; the American government is trying to copy us,” one commentator wrote.

A Chinese message making the rounds on Thursday said: “At last, the planet is becoming unified: We are ahead of the whole world, and the ‘American imperialists’ are racing to catch up.”

Link

Ah, and in case you were wondering, yes, SOPA was animated by the Taiwanese a while ago.

Cloudy skies over Beijing? Actually, no - the gray haze you see above is pollution.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured the patch of winter haze over the mega cities of Beijing and Tianjin on January 10, 2012:

One major constituent of haze is particle pollution, such as dust, liquid drops, and soot from burning fuel or coal. Particles smaller than 10 micrometers (called PM 10) are small enough to enter the lungs, where they can cause respiratory problems. The density of PM10 reached 560 micrograms per cubic meter of air on January 10, said the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau. By contrast, U.S. cities exceed air quality standards when PM10 concentrations reach 150 micrograms per cubic meter.

But most of the pollution that makes up haze isn’t PM10; it’s finer particles, smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5). These particles can embed themselves deep in the lungs and occasionally enter the blood stream. The fine particles are highly reflective, sending sunlight back into space. The Chinese government does not currently measure PM2.5, but the U.S. Embassy in Beijing reports their measurements hourly in a Twitter feed. On the morning of January 10, PM2.5 measurements were off the scale, though by afternoon they had dropped to moderate levels. The Beijing Environmental Bureau will start releasing PM2.5 measurements sometime before January 23, the Chinese New Year.

You lungs thank you for not living there: Link

The Chinese construction company Broad Group built a 30-story hotel in just 15 days (360 hours) in December. This time-lapse video shows the process. See another, longer video showing more details at Geekosystem. Link

You probably already know that China has a one child per couple policy, but you might not know how it is enforced or who is granted exceptions to the rule. The answers to these questions can be found over at Mental Floss and they are simply fascinating.

Provincial governments are responsible for enforcing the policy and do so through a mix of rewards and punishments doled out by local officials. In most provinces, having a an extra child gets you a fine, the amount of which varies across provinces. In some places, the fine is a set amount (usually in the thousands of dollars), and in others it’s based on a percentage of the violator’s annual income. In some provinces, policy violators can also have their property and/or belongings confiscated and lose their jobs.

Who knew they even can fire you from your job for having an extra baby?

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For the ultimate experience in romantic getaways, try China’s Dinosaurs Fairyland. The city of Erlian is home to rich fossil beds, so you can find an appropriate theme park there. Among its attractions are enormous, concrete models of dinosaurs. This one should really be worked into a dystopian movie someday.

Link -via io9 | Photo: Asia Wheeling

Still think that pandas are cute and cuddly animals that eat only bamboo? Surely it poses no threat to other wildlife, right? Well think again: this wild panda in China was videotaped eating a dead animal:

Captured on an infrared camera in the Laohegou forest area, the panda appears to find a dead wildebeest in a gulley and gnaws on its bones for two hours.
Pandas are typically known to eat only bamboo shoots, but according to Chen Youping, deputy director of Forestry Department of Pingwu County, it is not unknown for the beasts to eat meat.

"The reason why pandas eat meat is because it used to eat meat millions of years ago," he said.

"Now they mainly eat bamboos, but we occasionally see bones of dead animals in pandas' excrement during our years of field work," he added.

Link | Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

What happened when you toss a hopelessly tangled string of Christmas tree lights to the recycling bin?

Chances are, if it escapes being put in a landfill, it will end up in Shijao, China, where 20 million pounds of Christmas lights go to die every year:

Shijiao, like most of China's recycling zones, began to thrive 20 years ago in part because of its cheap labor and low environmental standards. Even two years ago, visitors to the fields around town would see clouds of black smoke churning off giant piles of burning wire (not just Christmas tree wire), the fastest -- though by no means the cleanest -- way to extract copper from plastic and rubber. But something interesting happened on the road to globalization: China's manufacturers, hungry for cheap raw materials, developed an appetite for the recovered insulation that wraps around insulated copper wire, and devised a way to make into a range of products including, Li tells me, slipper soles.

A red panda decided to move in with a family in the suburbs of Leshan, Sichuan Province, China, last week. The homeowners were watching the wild panda as they ate a meal outside, and slowly approached to get a better look. The panda ran into the house through an open door, and made himself at home. The word spread, and neighbors came to have their pictures made with the panda. Local authorities took the panda and released him into the wild within a few days. Link -via Arbroath

(Video Link)

Hua’ao and Qingfeng’s from the Nanshan Park in Shandong, China are big fans of snow, as you can see from the way they roll around in the powdery covering.

Via BuzzFeed

Artificial replicas of pregnant women’s abdomens, made of silica gel, have become hot sellers on the online shopping market, the China News.com reported on Monday.

Looking like the belly of a genuine pregnant woman, the imitations have variously been described as having “flesh color” and “human skin texture,” and as “highly comfortable,” by online shop owners.

There are currently three types of fake bellies being sold, each of which approximates a different period of pregnancy, corresponding to the second and latter trimesters and the final month.

Remember: don’t dress for the job that you have. Dress for the job that you want to have.

Link -via Oddity Central | Photo: China News

Stop playing with that brick! It’s not a toy, but a tool. Buses in Xian and Harbin, China come equipped with brightly painted bricks that can be used by passengers to smash open windows in the event of an emergency. But if you think about it, there are so many possible uses for emergency bricks elsewhere in everyday life.

Link -via OhGizmo! | Photo: Wagnerweb

Got a college degree but couldn't find a job? Not going to be a problem in China!

The ever practical China's Ministry of Education has the perfect solution to college graduates that can't find jobs: eliminate the college majors producing unemployable people. Problem solved!

Much like the U.S., China is aiming to address a problematic demographic that has recently emerged: a generation of jobless graduates. China’s solution to that problem, however, has some in the country scratching their heads.

China’s Ministry of Education announced this week plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates, according to state-run media Xinhua. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which the employment rate for graduates falls below 60% for two consecutive years.

Link (Photo: Zhu Difeng/Shutterstock)

To begin the foot binding process, the foot binder would gently soak the child’s feet in a solution of animal blood and herbs. Her toenails were trimmed and groomed, and her feet were thoroughly massaged. Once the skin was softened and the muscles were relaxed, the foot binder would curl the child’s toes down towards the sole of the foot as far as the bones would allow. The binder would then curl the toes farther than the bones would allow, snapping the toddler’s phalanges and forming a kind of twisted foot-fist. No manner of pain relief was employed during this process, so the binder was required to disregard any agonized screams. Next, the arch was broken.

But that’s just the beginning of the process. Read the rest of it, and how foot binding finally fell out of style, at Damn Interesting. Link

Photo: Michael Christopher Brown/Newsweek

Ah, the irony. Guess who's profitting from doing something that would've gotten them "re-educated" in a farm back in the days of the Cultural Revolution?

Here's how some clever bourgeious restaurateurs are capitalizing on the boom of nostalgia in China:

To many, the idea of a Cultural Revolution–themed dining establishment is paradoxical, since tasty cuisine was certainly not that era’s strong suit. The first “Red restaurants” sprouted in Beijing in the ’90s, offering little more than a few socialist-realist posters and food that was minimalist in the literal sense of the word. One served dandelion-leaf salad and raw cucumbers to symbolize the grass and bark that some poor Chinese ate during the hardscrabble ’60s and ’70s. Now Red-restaurant cuisine is more in line with middle-class tastes. In Mao’s hometown, “the Chairman’s Favorite”—roast fatty pork—is a must, while Red Scene offers a pricey shrimp dish for $27 alongside less-expensive cornmeal cakes and country-style bean curd.

Melinda Liu of The Daily Beast reports: Link

When the New South China Mall opened in 2006, it was marked as another wonder of the world for China and the world’s largest mall. Today, it has an occupancy rate of only 2%.

“Sometimes tour groups come here from [nearby cities] Guangzhou or Shenzhen,” said Hu Xiaocui, a bored ticket taker at the Teletubbies playroom that is the only functioning business on the mall’s third floor. “But they don’t show them the empty parts.”

Only 47 of an astonishing 2,350 retail spaces are filled, the most successful businesses being McDonalds and KFC restaurants near the mall’s front entrance. Fast-food wrappers and empty paper cups litter ghostly hallways in other parts of the complex. The elevators and lights are switched off, and voices echo off atrium ceilings four storeys high.

“We only sweep near the Teletubbies playroom. The other floors – what’s the point?” laughed a member of the cleaning staff. “No one ever did any shopping here, even when there were stores. It was too expensive.”

Two things I would do here: run up the down escalator and create a secret living space.

Link -via Discover

Photo: Zhang Xiaoli/Xinhua

Archaeologists in Luoyang, China, dug up 5 chariots and 12 horse skeletons from a 2,500-year-old tomb. The photos over at National Geographic are fantastic, but can someone explain to me why the skeletons of the horses are flat? Link

Farmer Shu Mansheng made his own hovercraft using eight motorcycle engines. Anyone know what the writing on the sides say?

Link -via Laughing Squid

American daredevil Jeb Corliss became the first man in a wingsuit to fly in China, and flew right through a natural arch at Tianenman mountain in Hunan Province. The action starts about one minute into the video. Link -via Arbroath

No, these aren’t scenes from Avatar’s Pandora, they are the China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, which may have been the inspiration for the film’s stunning location. The drastic pillars are a result of thousands of years of erosion thanks to expanding ice in the winter. For more info on the park and more stunning pictures, be sure to visit the link.

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It's probably just a matter of time before China becomes the largest economy in the world. When it does claim the top spot, what sort of dragon will it be? Will China be a benign hegemon?

The Economist pontificates:

If China does usurp America, what kind of hegemon will it be? Some argue that it will be a “premature” superpower. Because it will be big before it is rich, it will dwell on its domestic needs to the neglect of its global duties. If so, the world may resemble the headless global economy of the inter-war years, when Britain was unable, and America unwilling, to lead. But Mr Subramanian prefers to describe China as a precocious superpower. It will not be among the richest economies, but it will not be poor either. Its standard of living will be about half America’s in 2030, and a little higher than the European Union’s today.

With luck China will combine its precocity in economic development with a plodding conservatism in economic diplomacy. It should remain committed to preserving an open world economy. Indeed, its commitment may run deeper than America’s, because its ratio of trade to GDP is far higher.

Fortunately, the birds and the pigs are not as real as the intellectual property case that the game’s owners have against the park, which CNNGo reports opened on September 1 in Hunan province as part of a month-long stress reduction festival.

“This [Angry Birds park] serves as a method for people to purge themselves and to gain happiness,” a park official told Chinese gaming website Gamersky.com.

Rovio, the company that produces the game, may license the rights to an Angry Birds themed park in the future, but no deal was made with the people who opened the Chinese attraction. Link

With forepaws adapted to climbing trees, the newfound eutherian scurried about temperate Jurassic forests feasting on insects under the cover of darkness. This diet allowed J. sinensis to tip the scales at around half an ounce (15 grams), making the creature lighter than a chipmunk.

“The great evolutionary lineage that includes us had a very humble beginning, in terms of body mass,” said Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, who led the team that discovered the fossil.

Although this discovery helps us fill in the blanks of mammals’ evolutionary timeline, the reason for the split between placental mammals and marsupials is still a mystery. Link -via The Caudal Lure

(Image credit: Mark A. Klinger, Carnegie Museum of Natural History)

Quick, guess which one is the real panda! Tao Tao is a giant panda born at the Wolong Panda wild training base in China, but he has never seen a human face. His caretakers have always dressed in panda costumes any time they were around him! They are training Tao Tao for a life in the wild bamboo forest. See more pictures at Shortlist, where you can also see a video of Tao Tao’s birth and first year. Link -via Buzzfeed

The media’s power to “create” news has become a hot topic in recent years. But it’s nothing new. This true story, from a book called The Fabulous Rogues, by Alexander Klein, is an example of what’s been going on for at least a century. It was sent to us by BRI reader Jim Morton.

Most journalistic hoaxes, no matter how ingenious, create only temporary excitement. But in 1899 four reporters in Denver, Colorado, concocted a fake story that, within a relatively short time, made news history -violent history at that. Here’s how it happened.

THE DENVER FOUR

One Saturday night the four reporters -from Denver’s four newspaper, the Times, Post, Republican, and Rocky Mountain News- met by chance in the railroad station where they had each come hoping to spot an arriving celebrity around whom they could write a feature. Disgustedly, they confessed to one another that they hadn’t picked up a newsworthy item all evening.

“I hate to go back to the city desk without something,” one of the reporters, Jack Toumay, said.

“Me, too,” agreed Al Stevens. “I don’t know what you guys are going to do, but I’m going to fake. It won’t hurt anybody, so what the devil.”

They other three fell in with the idea and they all walked up Seventeenth Street to the Oxford Hotel, where, over beers, they began to cast about for four possible fabrications. John Lewis, who was known as “King” because of his tall, dignified bearing, interrupted one of the preliminary gambits for a point of strategy. Why dream up four lukewarm fakes, he asked. Why not concoct a sizzler which they would all use, and make it stick better by their solidarity.

The strategy was adopted by unanimous vote, and a reporter named Hal Wiltshire acme up with the first suggestion: Maybe they could invent some stiff competition for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company by reporting the arrival of several steel men, backed by an independent Wall Street combine, come to buy a large site on which they planned to erect a new steel mill. The steel mill died a quick death; it could be checked too easily and it would be difficult to dispose of later.

Stevens suggested something more dramatic: Several detectives just in from New York on the trail of two desperados who had kidnapped a rich heiress. But this story was too hot; the editors might check the wire services or even the New York City police directly.

Thereupon Toumay and Lewis both came up with the obvious answer. What they needed was a story with a foreign angle that would be difficult to verify. Russia? No, none of them knew enough about Russia to make up an acceptable story. Germany was a possibility or perhaps, a bull-ring story from Madrid? Toumay didn’t think bull-fighting was of sufficient interest to Denverites. How about Holland, one of the reporters offered, something with dikes or windmills in it, maybe a romance of some sort.

THE PLOT THICKENS

By this time the reporters had had several beers. The romance angle seemed attractive. But one of the men thought Japan would be a more intriguing locale for it. Anther preferred China; why, the country was so antiquated and unprogressive, hiding behind its Great Wall, they’d be doing the Chinese a favor by bringing some news about their country to the outside world.

At this point, Lewis broke in excitedly. “That’s it!” he cried, “The Great Wall of China! Must be fifty years since that old pile’s been in the news. Let’s build out story around it. Let’s do the Chinese a real favor, let’s tear the old pile down!”

Tear down the Great Wall of China! The notion fascinated the four reporters. It would certainly make the front page. One of them objected that there might be repercussions, but the others voted him down. They did, however, decide to temper the story somewhat.

A group of American engineers had stopped over in Denver en route to China, where they were being sent at the request of the ruling powers of China, to make plans for demolishing the Great Wall at minimum cost. The Chinese had decided to raze the ancient boundary as a gesture of international goodwill. From now on China would welcome foreign trade.

By the time they had agreed on the details it was after eleven. They rushed over to the best hotel in town, and talked the night clerk into cooperating. Then they signed four fictitious names to the hotel register. The clerk agreed to tell anyone who checked that the hotel had played host to four New Yorkers, that they had been interviewed by the reporters, and then had left early the next morning for California. Before heading for their respective city desks, the four reporters had a last beer over which they swore to stick to their story and not to reveal the true facts so long as any of the others were alive. (Only years later did the last survivor, Hal Wiltshire, let out the secret.)

The reporters told their stories with straight faces to their various city editors. Next day all four Denver newspapers featured the story on the front page. Typical of the headlines was this one from the Times:

GREAT CHINESE WALL DOOMED!

PEKING SEEKS WORLD TRADE!

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT

Within a few day Denver had forgotten all about the Great Wall. So far, so good. But other places soon began to hear about it. Two weeks later Lewis was startled to find the coming destruction of the Great Wall spread across the Sunday supplement of a large eastern newspaper, complete with illustrations, an analysis of the Chinese government’s historic decision -and quotes from a Chinese mandarin visiting in New York, who confirmed the report.

The story was carried by many other newspapers, both in America and in Europe. By the time it reached China it had gone through many transformations. The version published there- and the only one that probably made sense in view of the absence of any information on the subject from the Chinese government -was that the Americans were planning to send an expedition to tear down the Chinese national monument, the Great Wall.

Such a report would have infuriated any nation. It led to particularly violent repercussions in China at that time. The Chinese were already stirred up about the issue of foreign intervention -Europeans powers were parceling out and occupying the whole country. Russia had recently gotten permission to run the Siberian Railway through Manchuria. A year previously, German marines had seized the port town of Kiachow, and set up a military and naval base there. France followed by taking Kwangchowan. England had sent a fleet to the gulf of Chihli and bullied China into leasing Weihaiwei, midway between the recent acquisitions of France and Germany.

Faced with this danger of occidental exploitation, possibly even partition, the Chinese government under Emperor Kwang-Hsu began to institute radical reforms, to remodel the army along more modern lines, and to send students to foreign universities to obtain vital technical training.

An important segment of Chinese society bitterly resented not only foreign intervention, but all foreign cultural influences, as well as the new governmental reforms. In 1889 Empress Tsu Hsi made herself regent and officially encouraged all possible opposition to Western ideas. A secret society known as the Boxers, but whose full name was “The Order of Literary Patriotic Harmonious Fists,” took the lead in verbal attacks on missionaries and Western businessmen in China by openly displaying banners that read “Exterminate the foreigners and save the dynasty.”

THE SPARK THAT LIT THE FIRE

Into this charged atmosphere came the news of America’s plan to force the demolition of the Great Wall. It proved the spark that is credited with setting off the Boxer Rebellion. A missionary later reported: “The story was published with shouting headlines and violent editorial comment. Denials did no good. The Boxers, already incensed, believed the yarn and now there was no stopping them.”

By June 1900, the whole country was overrun with bands of Boxers. Christian villages were destroyed and hundreds of native converts massacred near Peking. The city itself was in turmoil, with murder and pillage daily occurrences and the foreign embassies under siege.

Finally, in August, an international army of 12,000 French, British, American, Russian, German, and Japanese troops invaded China and fought its way to Peking. There, the troops not only brought relief to their imperiled countrymen, but also looted the Emperor’s palace and slaughtered innumerable Chinese without inquiring too closely whether they belonged to the “Harmonious Fists” or just happened to be passing by. The invading nations also forced China to pay an indemnity of $320 million and to grant further economic concessions. All this actually spurred the reform movement, which culminated with the Sun Yat-Sen revolution in 1911.

Thus did a journalistic hoax make history. Of course, the Boxers might have been sparked into violence in some other fashion, or built up to it of their own accord. But can we be sure? The fake story may have well been the final necessary ingredient. A case could even be made that the subsequent history of China, right up to the present, might have been entirely different if those four reporters had been less inventive that Saturday night in the Hotel Oxford bar.

See also: The Great Moon Hoax, Human Oil (and Other Hoaxes), and Joey Skaggs, The Ultimate Hoax Meister.

_____________________________

Reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader, which comes packed with 504 pages of great stories.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – check ‘em out!

Do you or someone you know have an addiction to Warcrack? Are you spending so much time farming and battling monsters that your life is passing you by? Well, at least you haven’t sold your kids to pay for your MMO habits! One couple in China, however, have sold three of their children just to pay for their online gaming obsession, and they see nothing wrong with what they have done. They are so honest, in fact, that they admit to not wanting to raise the children, and that their intention from day one was to have children in order to sell them for cold hard cash. Thankfully the two are now in custody, and here’s hoping that the kids don’t follow in their parents footsteps and end up in a gold farming camp!

Link Image via Image*After

If you love MMORPGs, particularly WOW and Starcraft, then you’d most certainly have a great time at China’s counterfeit theme park based around the epic Blizzard videogames. You can see all kinds of pictures of the park over at Shanghaist.

Link Via Consumerist

China is currently being invaded ... by an insidious attack of green algae. It's not the first time green algae infestation occurred - back in 2008, the same stuff threatened the Olympic sailing event.

Though non-poisonous and not detrimental to water quality, would you let your kids swim in it? Link (Image: China Foto Press)

You’ve read that right: the Chinese government is stockpiling frozen hogs in warehouses to stabilize the price of pork against market fluctuations and ensure supply.

China is a porcine superpower as well as a human one. The Middle Kingdom boasts more than 446 million pigs — one for every three Chinese people and more than the next 43 countries combined. So when there’s a major disruption in the pork supply it hits the economy hard; the "blue-ear pig" disease that forced Chinese farmers to slaughter millions of pigs in 2008, for example, drove the country’s inflation rate to its highest level in a decade.

To prevent further disruptions, the Chinese government established a strategic pork reserve shortly afterward, keeping icy warehouses around the country stocked with frozen pork that can be released during times of shortage. The government was forced to add to the reserve — taking pigs off the market — in the spring of 2010 when a glut led to prices collapsing.

From a very interesting Foreign Policy article about the politics of food: Link – via Fast Company

See also: NeatoShop’s Bacon Store

The streets of Nanjing, China, may not be paved with gold, but here’s the next best thing: a bus covered with 24-karat gold leaf.

The distinctive "Golden Bus", which began rolling on April 25th of 2011, is the centerpiece of a rather expensive promotion by a Nanjing jewelry store… expensive meaning 200,000 yuan (about $30,800). Usually bus promotional ads involving an entire bus cost 1/10th as much.

Inventor Spot has the story: Link

This little guy is the offspring of a female zebra and a male donkey, born in Haicang Zoo in China. His unusual genetic make-up has graced him with a donkey-shaped body and zebra-like head, with just a smattering of black and white stripes in his mostly brown hide. There were difficulties during birth, but zoo officials say the donkra is thriving and already weighs in at over 30kg. To watch a video of the cutest little crossbreed in China, check out the report on BBC News. Link

A new fad is taking over China and it may be either cute or creepy depending on your take. People are dyeing their dogs and domesticated animals to look like pandas, tigers and other wild animals. What do you think, could this catch on in the States?

With more money to spend, newly wealthy Chinese have embraced dog-owning culture with a vengeance. Dogs are brought into restaurants, fussed over in public, dressed up in ridiculous outfits and dyed to look like ferocious tigers. Panda or chow chow? Tiger or retriever? You be the judge.

Link

The former premier’s answer has become a frequently deployed cliché, used as evidence of the sage Chinese ability to think long-term – in contrast to impatient westerners.

The trouble is that Zhou was not referring to the 1789 storming of the Bastille in a discussion with Richard Nixon during the late US president’s pioneering China visit. Zhou’s answer related to events only three years earlier – the 1968 students’ riots in Paris, according to Nixon’s interpreter at the time.[...]

At a seminar in Washington to mark the publication of Henry Kissinger’s book, On China, Chas Freeman, a retired foreign service officer, sought to correct the long-standing error.

“I distinctly remember the exchange. There was a mis­understanding that was too delicious to invite correction,” said Mr Freeman.

He said Zhou had been confused when asked about the French Revolution and the Paris Commune. “But these were exactly the kinds of terms used by the students to describe what they were up to in 1968 and that is how Zhou understood them.”

Link (registration required) via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Indiana University

If you’ve always wanted to step inside a painting–or better yet, have on leap out at you–then you’ll enjoy the highlighted pieces in a recent 4D art show held in China. Visitors to the exhibit had lots of fun taking pictures of themselves interacting with the artwork.

The collection of paintings, on display at a contemporary art exhibition in the Jilin province, uses techniques similar to the ‘stand-up’ advertising hoardings that are sometimes painted on the edges of sports pitches.

With cunning use of shadow they trick the eye into believing that the images are leaping off the canvas, that arrows are firing towards the viewers gaze from the bows of cherubs, or that Pinocchio’s nose is protruding wildly from the frame.

The pieces are a huge hit with spectators who have already shown a talent for interacting with the works to become part of the art themselves.

See more of the cool 4D artwork in the Daily Mail gallery. Link

Image credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images

The hospital has now called police to try to evict Sheng – but he has welcomed the police involvement and asked them to investigate.

“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m worried that if I go out for even half an hour, the hospital will claim I had the tattoo done outside.

“But even if I wanted a tattoo, I wouldn’t want those characters and I wouldn’t want it on that part of my body.”

The hospital staff blames the marks on a possible allergic reaction. Link -via Dave Barry

According to the IMF, the Age of America will end in 2016:

In addition to comparing the two countries based on exchange rates, the IMF analysis also looked to the true, real-terms picture of the economies using "purchasing power parities." That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and rising.

Link

A little ingenuity and a lot of brooms will get you this Chinese street sweeper: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Arbroath

Oh, nothing special, just a duck walking through Beijing showing off its shoes. Link -via Buzzfeed

(Image credit: China Foto Press/Barcroft Media)

Guangdong Enterprises is selling a coffee cup to commemorate “The Fairytale Romantic Union Of All The Centuries,” the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. There’s just one little problem….  Link -via Arbroath

Tibetan Mastiffs are huge and fierce guard dogs that have stood watch over nomad camps and monasteries on the Tibetan plateau for centuries.

They are thought to be one of the world’s oldest breeds, and legend has it that both Genghis Khan and Lord Buddha kept them.

More recently, however, they have become highly-prized status symbols for China’s new rich. The dogs are thought to be a pure “Chinese” breed and they are rarely found outside Tibet, giving them an exclusivity that other breeds cannot match.

Accordingly, prices have risen from around 5,000 yuan a puppy five years ago to the hundreds of thousands and even millions.

Hong Dong’s new owner will command high stud fees, as much as 100,000 RMB and may earn his money back soon. Link -via The Daily What

The Presurfer has the video clip (turn down your sound, though): Link

China plans to merge nine cities along the Pearl River into one huge mega-city that will cover an area twice the size of Wales and initially have a population of 42 million people.

The new mega-city will cover a large part of China’s manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.

Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong.

“The idea is that when the cities are integrated, the residents can travel around freely and use the health care and other facilities in the different areas,” said Ma Xiangming, the chief planner at the Guangdong Rural and Urban Planning Institute and a senior consultant on the project.

The new mega-city does not yet have a name. Nearby Hong Kong, with another seven million people, will not be included in the new mega-city. Link -via Metafilter

The firefighters in Luoyang, Henan Province, China, have an awesome new tool to use against fires. It’s a water cannon that can shoot 3 tons of water 120 meters away. One source says that it’s powered by a fighter jet engine. The total cost was about $456,000. You can watch a video of the machine at the link.

Link | Photo: GizChina

Well, read this and weep (or write angry comments, up to you): China has beaten us in our own game.

One of the great ironies revealed by the global recession that began in 2008 is that Communist Party–ruled China may be doing a better job managing capitalism’s crisis than the democratically elected U.S. government. Beijing’s stimulus spending was larger, infinitely more effective at overcoming the slowdown and directed at laying the infrastructural tracks for further economic expansion.

As Western democracies shuffle wheezily forward, China’s economy roars along at a steady clip, having lifted some half a billion people out of poverty over the past three decades and rapidly created the world’s largest middle class to provide an engine for long-term domestic consumer demand. Sure, there’s massive social inequality, but there always is in a capitalist system. (Income inequality rates in the U.S. are some of the worst in the industrialized world, and more Americans are falling into poverty than are being raised out of it. The number of Americans officially designated as living in poverty in 2009 — 43 million — was the highest in the 51 years that records have been kept.)

Link

These two picture of the Bund in Shanghai show the growth of that part of the city in just  the last twenty years. Yes, although it may remind you of an early 20th-century photograph, the top picture was taken in 1990. The bottom picture was taken in 2010. According to a comment from a Shanghai redditor, this is an accurate depiction of the tremendous construction since then. Link

Mum Zhao Yanhong, 42, claims developers – who want to demolish the flats in Mianyang, south west China, to build a factory – hired thugs to force out other residents but she refused to budge.

“Then one day they turned up with machines and men and knocked out all the stairs to strand us here. They are just trying to bully us out of our home,” said Yanhong. “The only way we can get out now is through ladders and climbing but it is very dangerous,” she added.

Judges have ordered them to suspend all work for six months while they investigate and restore one staircase for Yanhong’s family.

Link

No longer dependent on western expertise for such sophisticated projects, the six-lane road bridge is supported by more than 5,200 columns and was designed by the Shandong Gausu Group. When it opens to traffic later this year, the bridge is expected to carry over 30,000 cars a day and will cut the commute between the city of Qingdao and the sprawling suburb of Huangdao by between 20 and 30 minutes.

The bridge is built to withstand an 8.0 Richter scale earthquake take punishment from the occasional typhoon.

Link via DVICE | Photo: WENN

"It’s an incredibly grand story," Landau said. "So who the Magi are in this text is, they are descendants of Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth. They live in this far eastern land. The text calls the land ‘Shir’ and from other ancient texts, it seems like the place it had in mind is the land of China."

And that’s not the only surprise in the ancient text:

Landau said the rediscovered text described the Magi as practicing religious rituals, waiting for the Star of Bethlehem to appear. When the star finally did, they embarked on their journey to the City of David.

But the version of the Wise Men’s story in this text is strikingly different than the traditional one in the Bible, told in 12 verses in the Gospel of Matthew.

In the "Revelation of the Magi," Landau said, the Star of Bethlehem not only led the Wise Men, but actually became the Christ child.

"The cave is filled with light," Landau said, describing the transcribed text. "They’re kind of hesitant about this, but eventually the star…its light concentrates and reveals the small luminous human being…a star child, if you will…it’s Christ."

Link (self-starting video)

If you build it, they will come – or so the famous saying goes … but what if you build it in the middle of nowhere, Inner Mongolia? Michael Christopher Brown visited the famous ghost city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia for TIME Magazine:

The Kangbashi district began as a public-works project in Ordos, a wealthy coal-mining town in Inner Mongolia. The area is filled with office towers, administrative centers, government buildings, museums, theaters and sports fields—not to mention acre on acre of subdivisions overflowing with middle-class duplexes and bungalows. The only problem: the district was originally designed to house, support and entertain 1 million people, yet hardly anyone lives there.

Link

Similarly, Business Insider has the satellite photos of Ordos and other ghost cities of China:

There are no cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the glamorous government center.