The China Side

A mother in Longyou, Zhejiang Province was over the moon when she heard her son had been arrested for fraud.

Yu’s only son, Tong, left home in 2001 to travel to Wenzhou as a migrant worker.

Yu had not had any contact from Tong since he left; she assumed he was dead.

Tong has actually spent all his money he earned gambling and was too ashamed to contact his mother.

But on November 8th he was arrested for fraud. Yu received a letter from police informing her of the arrest — cause for celebration.

Wenzhou Metropolis News

A profoundly deaf woman in Jimo, Shandong Province has found her married life to be good therapy for impaired hearing and speech.

Liu became profoundly deaf after a high fever at the age of five. She met her husband last June and they married in September. Three days into the marriage she magically spoke her husband’s name.

Now liu is able to speak many words clearly and has regained partial hearing. She’s currently in hospital for further treatment in the hope that her speech and hearing may fully recover.

Bandao Metropolis News.

A man surnamed Wang who refused to pay his father’s living expenses has been jailed for 15 days in the city of Shaoguan, Guangdong Province.

He was also ordered to fulfill his obligations to look after his father after his release.

When Wang’s father took him to court earlier this year, the court ruled in favor of his father, but Wang ignored the ruling. The next step was jail.

Wang has the dubious distinction of being Shaoguan’s first person to be jailed for refusing to look after his father.

GuangZhou Daily

To cover for a drunken friend, a man claimed he was the driver at an accident. Unfortunately, he was also drunk.

At about 1 am on Wednesday, a taxi was hit from behind by a BMW on Tuen Mun Road in Hong Kong. The car was driven by a 33 year old man surnamed Ma.

Before the police arrived, his friend surnamed Wang arrived in his Mercedes Benz. When a police officer came to investigate, Wang claimed he was the driver even though the witnesses said otherwise.

The officer warned Wang, reeking of alcohol, of the seriousness of covering up a crime. Still, Wang insisted on taking the breathalyzer test. The result indicated his blood alcohol content (BAC) was triple the legal level.

Both Wang and Ma were arrested fro a drunk driving and perverting the course of justice.

Ming Pao

An inebriated Swiss tourist was arrested in Hong Kong after he forced his way into a mahjong club and smashed the furniture.

The 36-year-old man saw the mahjong club sign in Tsim Sha Tsui in the early morning hours of last Wednesday and mistook it for a nightclub. Despite the staff’s explanation, he refused to leave. He charged into the club, pulled an iron bar of the bathroom wall and started using it to smash furniture and windows.

He was arrested on vandalism charges.

Singtao Daily

Liu Songyun, 22, seemed unreasonably happy after being arrested for robbing 8 yuan($US 1.07 from a friend in Sanmenxia, Henan Province, last Wednesday.

Liu said he waned to go to prison to quit his internet addiction.

In many attempts over the past moths, Liu couldn’t stop his internet addiction played out in local cyber cafes.

To serve a jail term to break his internet addiction, he lured a net friend to the city outskirts then robbed him. Liu quickly surrendered to the police.

Henan Daily.

A group of 16 high school students and three teachers from the United States recently tried farming in Pangliu Village, Xian, Capital Shaanxi Provence.

The group of teachers and students, ages 14 to 17, arrived the Sunday before last for three days of living with rural families, working with them, and teaching them a little English.

Sanqin Daily

College students and even high school students are crowding into Biejing school hospitals for facelifts during summer vacation.

“By last week, all of our hospital’s 20 sickbeds were occupied by young people who want attractive face with double eyelids or the like,” said Huang Dayong, director of a hospital in Beijing’s Haidian District. “More than half the girls want the oval faces.” Similar situations were also reported in other hospitals.

Students are being cautioned by doctors against unnecessary plastic surgery, especially since unsuccessful surgery could be difficult to correct.

Beijing Evening News

An unmarried young man from Shenyang, Liaoning, sued a local company for a record 2.46 million yuan ($US 315,384) after being run down by one of the company trucks a year ago, resulting of impotence.

Of the compensation, Zhao sued for 1.5 million yuan for emotional damage, the highest such claim ever made in the province.

Last week a local court awarded Zhao only 500, 000 yuan for his injuries, with one-tenth of the settlement earmarked for emotional damage. Zhao is appealing the decision as “too small for the lifelong damage.”

Liaoshen Evening News

A Taiwan surgeon was repeated videotaped stealing in a bookstore starting last March.

When he recently appeared at the store he was taken to the manager’s office. After watching the videotapes the man admitted that he had stole - not for the books but strictly for the excitement.

United Daily News

Bipolar disorder is characterized by episodes of mania and depression.

The former phase becomes dominant in May and June in subtropical Taiwan, a psychiatrist at the department of health hospital in Taichung said yesterday.

Dr. Chen Chao-Cheng cited an example.

A public functionary, treated for bi-polar disorder for seven years, started speaking English when she made midnight phone calls, Dr. Chen said.

Her mania phase became dominant at the end of last month.

She couldn’t fall asleep, her husband complained. At midnight, she would pick up the telephone and call people at random.

The first words she said were always: “Hello - Nice to meet you.” Then she would continue to say “Well, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me” and wouldn’t let the man or woman at the end of the line talk. She hung up.

The China Post, Taiwan

Even many English-speaking travelers are puzzled when they read “Go Ahead 30M” on an sign in GuangZhou Baiyun International Airport.

The Chinese sign reads “30 meters ahead”. It is just one of the many incorrect English translations at the airport in the Guangdong provincial capital. The airport administration is planning to clean up its English translations.

GuangZhou Daily

A young man from a village near Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, says he lost all of his girlfriends he had over the years because of his effeminate voice.

Neighbors, he said, also discriminated against him because of his sissy voice. He was so depressed that he had to work outside his hometown and dared not to go home to visit his parents during the day in the past three months.

A doctor he consulted told him last week that his vocal cords can be changed a little surgically, but it would not help much. The doctor suggested he have a thorough hormonal checkup.

New Culture News

A man in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, had surgery to reduce his breast size at the No.1 People’s hospital late last week.

Wang, 32, a manager of a local company, said he never dared to swim or wear light-weight shirts because of his big breasts.

Doctors said no medicines could help him, so the operation was scheduled. He apparently took excessive tonic or medicine or ate too much when he was a child, the doctors said.

Yangcheng Evening News

A woman had the fright of her life when a “spiderman” appeared on her balcony in a 26 storey apartment block in Chingqing Municipality, causing her to faint.

When she came around, the man was standing beside apologizing profusely.

The man and his girlfriend share an apartment with the woman. The man pulled the stunt to scare his girlfriend after an argument.

Chongqing Business News