The Guangdong provincial police seized 136,166 fake condoms and male performance enhancers in simultaneous raids made last August on factories located in Chaozhou and Zhongshan. The fake sex products, worth RMB 3 million ($483,870), were to be marketed online and sold to people in cities throughout China.

What is a fake condom anyway? Is it made of paper? http://t.co/TrDSlCotu4

— Michael Standaert (@mstandaert) January 21, 2015

Last April, 140,000 fake Viagra pills were seized in Shenzhen, while a pharmacy in the city’s Luohu District was busted for selling the fake pills back in 2012.

Photo: evolife

[This post contains material that may be offensive to some readers]

A shopping mall in Yan’an, Shaanxi is the scene of horrific crime today as a dispute between shopkeepers turned deadly when three people were attacked by a man with a knife.

The attack happened at around 1pm on the third floor of the Shengda International Shopping Plaza. At least two of the victims had a shop selling curtains on the floor, and were apparently in a dispute with the man accused of the attack. One of the victims was so badly cut that his head was severed.  A third victim was found on an escalator nearby. There are conflicting reports, but at least two of the three died in the incident.

The suspect was arrested at the scene, which has been sealed off by police tape.

Photos: China Business Report

Data released by the Interior Ministry of Taiwan say that 4,624 Hong Kong and Macau residents received permission to stay or settle in Taiwan in 2013, up from 2,908 in 2012 and 2,995 in 2011.

A Taiwanese official with the National Immigration Agency acknowledged the trend. “We have definitely seen an increasing trend in the past few years. We had a historic high last year in the number of Hong Kongers applying for residency in Taiwan. The amount of applications for permanent residence also hit a new high last year since China took over Hong Kong [in 1997].”

Hong Kong residents have been looking to Taiwan as an ideal solution to their discontent with the local government, high real estate prices, falling wages, a deteriorating social welfare system, and increasing pollution. The trend is encapsulated by a popular Facebook campaign called “Evacuation to Taiwan” that urges Hong Kong residents to make the move. Many see it as a more affordable alternative that still retains a similar language and culture, with the island’s democracy as a main selling point.

“Taiwan is the only place where the Chinese community enjoys its own system of democracy,” said US-educated businessman Tim Wong, who moved to Taiwan in 2012. “That democracy is not dominated by any ideology. I came to Taiwan to live my life in a place of mutual benefit and mutual contribution.”

However, Hong Kong residents that have made the switch are cautioning others to carefully reconsider. Those interested in relocating to the nearby island are being told jobs are hard to find, salaries are not competitive with the former British colony, and assimilation into its society to be difficult.

Photo: EJ Insight 

As simple and well-intentioned as this plan was, the couple now admits they were overly optimistic. Not only has the idea of recycling failed to catch on with their neighbors, but their recycling station was destroyed after having been the target of complaints and attacks by vandals.

A 13th floor property owner complained many times about the recycling station and was seen destroying it in a drunken stupor on January 15. He sprayed graffiti on the sign saying, ironically, “garbage”.

Ji said he tried to be reasonable about complaints. “If there’s something that doesn’t please you, just tell me. If there’s something that affects you in a bad way, I’ll change it,” he said.

The property management of the neighborhood has proposed a compromise by providing Ji and Xie with another spot for the station. However, the couple isn’t sure whether they’ll take it.

Ji leans toward re-opening because of support he says some in the community have shown him, but Xie has other ideas:

The point of making this recycling station is to encourage others [to recycle], it wasn’t [for us] to recycle this garbage ourselves. Since we’re unable to encourage anyone else to follow along, all we’re doing is collecting garbage.

As Xie admits, the couple has only been successful in converting two other families to recycle:

Now that the recycling station has been destroyed, assaults could follow. That’s why the recycling station should be closed. This is what you’d call learning from the “school of hard knocks”.

However, Ji is more optimistic, saying even the son of the man who destroyed his recycling station says he’ll start recycling.

None of this bodes well for the future of recycling in China.

Photo: People’s Daily Online

Chinese wood craftsmen, gold miners and jade merchants are now trapped in Myanmar and join approximately 2,000 refugees that have been displaced by the conflict between the local government and the Kachin Independence Army. Local aid workers say the refugees are in desperate need of food, clean water, and medicine.

Global Times reports Myanmar government forces are being sent to the area directly across from Lushui County in the Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture in northwest Yunnan where fighting with Kachin rebels is described to have “greatly troubled” villages on the Chinese side.

Even though the Myanmar government has been able to broker a ceasefire with many guerrilla factions, the Kachin have rejected all proposals.

In 2011, fighting between the two sides got as close as 65 kilometers to the Chinese border, causing 100,000 people to flee their homes. In 2012, the conflict caused Myanmar refugees to flee across the Chinese border, something the Chinese government tried to prevent.

Photo: Headline News

These photographs taken this morning in Shenzhen show an opening in an overcast sky that allowed the blue sky to peek through, giving the appearance of a “heaven’s eye” or “sky portal”.

Called hole punch clouds or Fallstreak holes, scientists don’t agree on what precisely causes this phenomenon, but see it as the collaboration between natural and artificial forces. A common theory supposes that an airplane traveling through a cloud influences supercooled water to form crystals without coalescing around a dust particle, from which the Fallstreak hole is formed when the water evaporates.

Some people have taken Fallstreak holes as proof of a hidden conspiracy or evidence that UFOs exist.

The phenomenon hasn’t turned up in Chinese media, leading one online user to ask, “Why hasn’t a specialist been interviewed in order to explain this phenomenon [to us]?”

Other users have taken this to be a bad omen. One user said, “There’s a catastrophe coming, pack up your valuables and run for your lives!” Another glumly pointed out, “The truth behind the unlimited bounds of your dreams has been revealed to be nothing!”

Whatever it may signify, the “wormhole” opening up over the skies of Shenzhen clearly shows a sky so full of blue that not even clouds can hold it back.

Photos: Sina Guangdong

Greatfire is reporting that China’s DNS poisoning system, which forbids Chinese internet users from accessing websites banned in China like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, has received an upgrade. No longer do you just see a message saying the request has timed out. Now it’s much more interesting.

One of Greatfire’s users reports being sent to a government website in Korea when trying to access Greatfire.org. Another was sent to a Russian website when trying to access Facebook, and yet another said he was sent to a German porn site when trying to access a webpage for a VPN provider.

Greatfire says this effectively results in a DDoS attack against foreign websites. The site points out the upgrade disables many anti-DNS poisoning tools:

Chinese internet users have grown accustomed to websites timing out – and many make the connection with censorship. Maybe the authorities think that, after a transition period, internet users will become accustomed to the new model of DNS poisoning as they have with websites timing out. We do not anticipate that Chinese netizens will react negatively to this change as many are already familiar with such tactics.

We can tell you The Nanfang has experienced similar issues online. When previously trying to access this site, we were redirected to the website seen in the screenshot above, one associated with the Australia Electoral Commission. Now during preparation for this post, the same request now sent us here.

Screenshot: AEC

On January 12, the Health and Family Planning Commission of Guangdong announced there were two new confirmed cases for the H7N9 virus, a 42 year-old Shenzhen man and a 52 year-old Dongguan woman.

On January 13, the health agency announced another two confirmed cases of H7N9 infection in Shenzhen, a 57 year-old woman named Fang, currently in critical condition, and a 41 year-old man named Zhuang in stable condition.

Then on January 14, two more confirmed cases of avian flu were announced. Both from Dongguan, they are a 52 year-old woman named Zhang, and a 37 year-old man named Xu.

These six cases join the three cases announced at the beginning of the year that include a 56 year-old man from Zhaoqing, a 36 year-old Dongguan man, and a 6 year-old Shenzhen girl.

With authorities closing live poultry markets and stopping shipments of poultry found to be infected with the H7N9 virus, governments may still have to do more to placate an anxious public. Today, Taiwanese officials released a statement refuting a rumor that chicken infected with the H7N9 virus was being sold in local markets.

Related:

Photo: People’s Daily Online

While it’s hard not to notice China’s air pollution problem from the ground, it’s an entirely different experience observing the smog from the air. When there are no buildings and limited visibility, the severity of the situation quickly becomes even more apparent.

A reporter with Chinese Business News, and frequent flier, has spent three years compiling aerial photographs taken from the window seat of an airplane. The photos show huge clouds of smog enveloping various cities around China.

Here’s a small collection along with notes about where and when each photo was taken:

Taken in Tianjin on a flight to Shenyang on December 17, 2014 (above).

Taken during descent into Shenyang on China Eastern flight MU2263 from Xi’an, on March 25, 2014.

Taken during descent into Xi’an on China Southern Airlines flight CZ6469 on March 19, 2014.

Taken after a stopover in Shijiazhuang on Beijing Capital Airlines flight JD5304 from Changchun to Xi’an on January 28, 2014.

Taken on descent into Xianyang Airport on Beijing Capital Airlines flight JD5304 from Changchun to Xi’an on December 31, 2013.

Taken above Shijiazhuang Airport on Beijing Capital Airlines flight JD5304 from Changchun to Xi’an on December 31, 2013.

Taken on descent into Xi’an on Southern China Airlines flight CZ6469 from Shenyang to Xi’an via Taiyuan on Mar 19, 2014.

Shot after taking off from Changchun Longjia Airport in which a haze can be seen enveloping the city in the distance on November 11, 2013.

If you’d like to see more pictures, here’s another collection from the beginning of last year.

Photos: Shijiazhuang Weiba

This poker face is effectively represented in this video by comedy troupe MAMAHUHU in a compilation of all the same things that a Chinese person are likely to say to an expat in conversation (or what passes for conversation).

Here it is on Youku:

This video counters one previously made by MAMAHUHU about all the things expats are prone to say to Chinese (“You know what China should do…”). You can watch it below and experience how the other half lives:

Photo: Youku screencap