Looking back, 2009 has had its fair share of big news stories, but it’s always the slightly odd ones that stick in our minds. Earlier in the year we featured the Strangest China Stories of 2009…So Far, anticipating that there’d be plenty more weird, wacky, funny and sometimes disturbing China stories before the year was over. And we were right. We’ve continued to trawl through the news and are now bringing you the second and final 2009 installment of the weirdest, wildest, and wackiest China news. Enjoy.

Photo: maveric2003

The knives are out
In the run up to the 60th anniversary celebrations in October, security was stepped up after two stabbings in Beijing. Fearing that the festivities would turn violent, the government placed a temporary ban on sales of kitchen and fruit knives.

All retailers, including foreign stores Carrefour and Wal-Mart, were ordered to rid their shelves of all knives after a man stabbed two people to death and injured 14 others the previous week at the Dashilan shopping area near Tiananmen Square. This was frighteningly close to the site of the planned military parade and little more than a week before the celebration. Two days later, a French woman was knifed by a local man south of Tiananmen. To the relief of fruit lovers all over China, the ban was lifted on October 2nd.
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On the pull
China is turning into the world capital for pulling cars with various body parts. Back in 2007, 73-year-old Wang Xiaoya towed two huge vehicles using her mouth in Shangdong Province. In the same year, kung fu master Dong Changsheng impressed Jilin Province with his car-pulling skills – he managed to shift a car 30 feet with his eyelids. However, in 2009, stuntman Xie Zhongcai went one better, and dragged a minivan across Heping Square in Hefei with his ear. And that wasn’t all. Afterwards, he outdid himself by pulling the vehicle even further using his eye socket. Impressive.

Sparkling eyes
Asian women who want bigger eyes now have an alternative to expensive and painful plastic surgery. The trend for wider Western peepers inspired designer Soomi Park to invent the snappily-named LED Eyelashes device. (Park is also responsible for such design feats as the Swing Skirt – literally a skirt which turns into a swing.)

The LED Eyelashes work by simply flashing under the lower eyelid, giving the illusion of larger eyes. The wearer first puts on a set of headphones containing batteries to light up the LED. Next, the false eyelashes are glued along the lower eyelid and connected to the headset. Then, a flick of a switch, and hey presto: big, flashing eyes. Win.

Lady in red
Tired of getting married in traditional nuptial gear of cheongsams or white gowns, Chinese women are taking inspiration from the past, and rugging up in Red Guard gear. Crazy wedding outfits are nothing new – couples get photographed in everything from full Napoleonic dress to garish diva gowns these days – but the 9th Channel Photo Studio in Hangzhou started a revolution, literally. Manager Zou Sigen thought it would be a good idea to pose his newlyweds in Red Guard outfits. Thinking little of the decidedly unjolly activities of the guards, who ran rampage during the Cultural Revolution, Zou started a trend that has really taken off.

“It’s just different from other wedding pictures,” said 24-year-old Sun Fengqing, who works in advertising. Different is one word for it...
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Pop god
All over the world, people treat pop stars as gods. Who can forget the all-out hero worship that ensued when Michael Jackson shuffled off his mortal coil in June last year? But a group of university students in Sichuan has taken celebrity adulation to a whole new level by actually worshiping one. Pop star Li Yuchun has become a deity for the students, who pray to her for good exam results.

Physics major Xiao Ma is the genius behind this new sect. When the idea of worshiping Li popped into his head, he rallied his classmates into action, buying incense and fruit, and setting up a shrine to their hero. Above it they hung a sign saying: "Believe in God Chun, bring me good luck in my studies." Wonder if it worked…

Drink like a hero
A Shenzhen police officer has been lauded as a revolutionary hero after drinking himself to death at an official dinner. Traffic policeman Chen Lusheng, age 38, was at an official dinner in October when he decided to hit the sauce, hoping to impress his superiors with his ability to gan bei.
Unhappy with the meagre compensation they were awarded after his death, Chen’s family complained so vociferously that the man was declared a martyr. This means that his nearest and dearest could get more than the 360,000 RMB usually paid to the families of officers killed in the line of duty.

Official banquets are notorious for the practise of competitive drinking, where guests try to outdo each other by sinking more and more bai jiu. But the tradition has a dark side. Chen’s death isn’t the first of its kind. A water resource official in central China died in July after over-doing it at a formal dinner, while a village party secretary was found dead in November after a night of boozing with colleagues in eastern China.

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Related Links

Year in Review: Top China News 2009
Strangest China Stories of 2009…So Far
Weird Chinese World Records

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