The China Side

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

Some female students in a university in Tianjin avoided a busy woodland area on the campus when a clock of crows passed through.

Fears of being covered in bird faeces and superstition that the birds’ raucous calls at night fall would bring bad luck prevented many students from walking through the area.

But experts said the students should not be concerned as the birds usually migrate to a warmer climate in winter.

www.sina.com.cn

An eight year old boy set fire to his house in Songyuan, Jilin Province late last week while trying the fire-control skills he had learned at school.

The boy set alight papers at his home but the fire soon flared out of control and he was forced to flee.

Neighbours saw the flames and smoke and called the fire brigade. Firefighters extinguished the blaze.

www.xinhuanet.com

Police are searching for a burglar in Ningching, Inner Mongolia Automous Region, who spent a week living in a house he had broken into after cleaning it of valuables.

The owner returned to the house late last week and reported the break-in to police.

An investigation found that the burglar had treated the house as his own home, even cooking for himself for almost a week.

www.xinhuanet.com

A woman sued a hospital in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, last week, seeking compensation of 1.13 million yuan (US$139,334) after it allegedly botched up her in virtro fertilization treatment last year.

The hospital was to use sperm of the woman’s husband for the procedure. She gave birth in March.

But the blood test revealed that the baby’s blood type did not match that of either of the parents.

Police conducted a paternity test that indicated the hospital may have used the wrong sperm in the procedure.

Chongqing Evening News