Here are 10 of the strangest facts about China!
10 - Counterfeit everything Nobody can do imitation like China.
Knockoff smartphones, designer clothing, and luxury handbags are only part of the counterfeit
business.
In recent years, mainland China's copycat profiteers moved into the business of counterfeiting
ENTIRE shops and brand identities!
In 2011, a fake Apple store popped up in the southwestern city of Kunming.
It looked so authentic, some employees even thought it was real!
In 2015, the police shut down a fake bank in the eastern city of Nanjing, where depositors
reportedly lost nearly $33 million dollars.
The fake bank looked exactly like a real one complete with security guards, computers,
ATMs.
In 2014, Hong Kong restaurateur Yenn Wong got a surprise one morning.
The co-founder of popular Hong Kong restaurant Chachawan Isaan Thai and Bar woke up and found
a second Chachawan restaurant in Shanghai that completely copied her restaurant!
Chachawan's Facebook page was filled with enthusiastic inquiries asking if the shop
had opened a new branch in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Chachawan had the same exterior look and feel as the Hong Kong shop, and even
the menu, focusing on northeastern Thai, or Isaan cuisine, looked the exact same.
As it turned out, the owners of the fake Chachawan expressed interest in taking the concept to
the mainland but their idea was refused.
But that didn’t discourage them in the slightest!
9 - Panda Panda Panda Panda Panda diplomacy is China's use of giant pandas
as diplomatic gifts to other countries.
The practice existed as far back as the Tang Dynasty when Empress Wu Zetian sent a pair
of pandas to the Japanese emperor.
BUT the panda diplomacy comes with a twist.
Actually, China is the owner of all the pandas in the world – even if they give it away
as a gift!
Well, almost.
But I’ll get to that in a minute.
In fact, if you happen to see a panda outside the country, that’s because it’s on loan!
China even owns all future offspring of all pandas!
Over the past 15 years, every time China has sent a panda to a foreign zoo, they’ve required
an agreement with the receiving country.
According to the contract, the pandas belong to China and so do any of their offspring.
If there are any offspring, they must be returned to China before they turn four years old.
The contract also expressly forbids panda cloning research!
However, there are two pandas which are owned by Mexico; Xin Xin and Shuan Shuan.
This was before China implemented the “I own all the pandas” policy.
But, Mexico has agreed that if these pandas have any offspring, they will belong to China.
You know what.
I’m adopting this policy for all the gifts I give!!!!
8 - Cave dwellers Did you know, there are currently 30 million
people in China who live in caves?!
That’s the equivalent to the entire populations of Australia and New Zealand combined!
The craziest part?
Most of those 30 million people LOVE their living arrangements – the majority of these
caves are bigger, nicer, and quieter than a lot of Beijing’s apartments!
The majority of China’s cave dwellers live in Shaanxi province, where the porous soil
and limestone cliffs make for easy excavation.
Most have electricity, many have plumbing, and some come with multiple rooms and a lawn
too!
More importantly, in a country where people still earn low wages, you can rent a big cave
for about $30 a month or in some cases, you can just make your own and live completely
for free.
The earth that surrounds the indoor space serves as an effective insulator keeping the
inside of the structure warm in cold seasons and cool in hot seasons.
Very little heating is required during the winter, and during the summer, these caves
are supposedly as cool as an air-conditioned room.
In the last decade, these cave dwellings have been brought to the attention of scientists
and researchers and have been regarded as an example of sustainable design.
Hey, I can’t say it’s a bad thing.
7 - Driving Considering the number of people living in
major China cities, it shouldn’t surprise you that traffic jams are pretty common in
China.
One mega traffic jam happened back in August 2010, on the Beijing-Tibet expressway, when
a traffic jam lasted for an incredible 12 days!
Imagine sitting trapped in a 62-mile long traffic jam for 12 days!
This traffic jam wasn’t caused by closure or natural disaster.
It was simply the result of too many cars clogging the road, particularly a bevy of
heavy trucks carrying construction supplies into Beijing, ironically for road work that
was intended to help ease congestion.
Since NO ONE likes being stuck for hours on end, Chinese companies have found a way to
help desperate passengers, and make money out of it of course!
Basically, two guys come on a motorbike to the point where you’re stuck.
One of them goes and sits in your car, while the other one takes you to wherever you have
to be.
That’s…...actually pretty smart!
6 - Ghost Cities Between 1984 and 2010, the number of built-up
areas in China increased nearly fivefold: from 3,413 square miles to 16,126 square miles.
To construct these new urban zones, China used more concrete from 2011 and 2013 than
all of the US used in the 20th Century!
Yet even in the world’s second-largest economy, the rate of development has overtaken demand,
and that’s caused some ghost cities to appear around the country!
Kangbashi, a new district in the city of Ordos, was built in 2006 to support the burgeoning
coal industry in the area.
Kangbashi could house 300,000 people, but only 10% of its residences are occupied.
Entire apartment blocks, shopping centers, plazas, and parking lots sit empty, waiting
for their residents to arrive.
Others include Suzhou City in Changshu, Erdos City in Dongsheng District and Tongliao City
in Horqin District.
No one can tell for sure whether cities like these will ever fill up with residents!
5 - Shared bikes Sharing bikes to move around in big cities
is pretty genius, especially in places with major traffic jams.
In China alone, there are now more than 16 million shared bicycles on the road in major
cities, and hundreds of companies that offer to rent them out.
These are fierce start-ups that have reshaped the urban landscape, putting bikes equipped
with GPS and digital locks on almost every street corner.
However, because these startups didn’t invest in fixed docking stations, riders just leave
their bicycles as they please along streets and public squares, slowing down traffic even
more and cluttering sidewalks.
I’m not sure why these startups would think that people wouldn’t just throw these bikes
anywhere they want if they didn’t have a docking station to return them to.
Thieves have taken them by the tens of thousands, essentially selling them for parts.
Vandals hang them in trees, bury them in construction sites and even throw them into lakes and rivers!
So it’s not surprising many people are mad by the clutter with the bikes!
Much of the discussion of the mess has revolved around the Chinese concept of suzhi, or inner
quality, which is essentially a person’s ethical behavior.
Chinese often blame “low suzhi” in criticizing the bad habits or manners of others and low
suzhi might be just be the main reason why the shared bike thing isn’t working.
4 - Three Gorges Dam The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity
dam that spans the Yangtze River and is the world’s largest power station in terms of
installed capacity.
As well as producing electricity, the dam is intended to increase the Yangtze River's
shipping capacity and reduce the potential for floods downstream by providing flood storage
space.
But the truly crazy part?!
The dam is so big that it slowed the rotation of the entire planet!
There’s something called the moment of inertia, which basically describes how fast an object
can rotate about its axis.
If the object is wider, it can rotate less-quickly, which is why Olympic divers curl up into a
tight little ball when doing those crazy flips, or when figure skaters spins faster when they
bring in their arms.
Raise a whole load of river water almost 600 feet into the air, and you’re gonna affect
the moment of inertia for the entire planet.
The end result?
Earth itself slows down!
The effect is of course, microscopic.
Microscopic as in, the Three Gorges Dam adds only 0.06 microseconds to the length of the
day.
Hey, those microseconds are gonna add up over time!
3 - Bottled Water Only Pollution in China is one aspect that’s
giving everyone quite the headache.
As China continues industrializing, pollution has increased exponentially.
For instance, on a couple of different occasions, the Yangtze river, which runs through several
major cities such as Chongqing in China, turned a bright shade of orange-red.
Water samples and investigation indicated that the color was probably due to some illegal
dumping, as there are several major factories along the banks of the river.
Air pollution is another major issue in China.
The particles that contribute to air pollution is measured in terms of particulate matter.
The World Health Organization recommends a daily level of 25 micrograms per cubic meter,
for particles less than two and a half micrometers or smaller, and 20 micrograms for particles
between two and a half and ten micrometers.
Levels greater than 300 micrograms are serious health hazards.
Beijing's air quality frequently surges past a level of 500, and back in January 2013,
the level soared to 755, one of the record high measurements in history.
In 2016, only 84 out of 338 prefecture-level or higher cities reached the national standard
for air quality.
On a side note, when there’s a problem, there’s always someone coming up with a
solution!
Entrepreneur Chen Guangbiao sells soda can sized pockets of air, supposedly from far-flung,
pristine regions of China.
In 2013, he stated that 10 million cans of clean air have sold in a mere 10 days as pollution
levels climbed to record highs!
2 - Geese Police Officials in rural parts of China’s Xinjiang
province are using domesticated geese to aid in law enforcement.
Apparently, the geese are more effective than dogs for a variety of reasons: They’re aggressive,
have exceptional eyesight, and, as anyone who has had to deal with them knows, they’re
loud and nothing can shut them up.
Among all poultry, geese are known for being extremely vigilant and having excellent hearing.
On top of that, geese are supposedly very brave.
Word has it that they spread their wings and attack any strangers that dares enter their
uh…..… territory.
In one case, some of the crime-fighting geese helped to catch a suspect who broke into a
police station, drugged the police dogs, and stole a motorbike.
The geese apparently fanned their wings and shrieked loudly until the sleeping officer
on duty woke up and apprehended the criminal!
1 - Internet censorship China operates the largest internet censorship
regime in the world, blocking access to thousands of websites, which include Google, Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram.
Internet controls also mean news and commentary critical of the ruling Communist party doesn’t
make it to the public.
Information about events such as the events back in 1989 at Tiananmen Square are almost
impossible to find online within China.
But millions of Chinese citizens circumvent China’s censorship system, known as the
Great Firewall, by using a VPN, allowing access to any website.
However, it was announced that China will completely block access to much of the global
internet as part of a crackdown aimed at suppressing dissent and maintaining the Communist party’s
grip on power.
The government has ordered China’s three telecommunications companies to completely
block access to VPNs, by February 2018.
The three internet providers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, are all state-owned.
Authorities have also cracked down on China's top video-streaming websites, removed foreign
TV shows from online platforms, required users to register to online forums with their real
names, and introduced laws that hold chat group admins accountable for what’s said
in their spaces.
New rules also require online news websites to be overseen by government-approved editorial
staff and for workers to have reporting credentials from the central government.
Here’s what’s next!