Officially
known as the People's Republic of China (PRC), China China is an East
Asian country that has a unitary one-party socialist republic system of
government. The currency used in China is Renminbi [yuan; ¥] (CNY).
Despite
being a very large country (9,595,961 km2), China has a single time
zone - UTC+8. China is the fourth largest country in the world by total area.
The official languages in China are Standard Chinese and Simplified
Chinese. China may be popular for being the most populated country in the
world (1.4 billion people - 2016 estimate) but there are other unique facts
about China that makes the country so exceptional. 20% of all humans are
Chinese. Better said, one in five humans alive today are Chinese. Other
extraordinary facts worth knowing are detailed below.
1. A dish
called 'Virgin boy eggs' - eggs boiled in the urine of young virgin boys is a
delicacy in China. The Virgin boy eggs dish originates from Dongyang, Zhejiang,
China. The urine of boys with maple syrup urine disease is usually sought after
for its sweet taste.
2. Food
safety is a pertinent issue in China. There are several documented cases of
food poisoning and addition of toxic material to food in a bid to increase its
shelf life or to deceive consumers on the nature of the food. In 2009, a string
of restaurants in Qingdao were caught marinating duck with goat and sheep
urine, in a bid to sell the duck as lamb. In recent years, Clenbuterol dubbed
"lean mean powder" - a pharmaceutical decongestant - has been
regularly used on pigs in a bid to add muscle and strip fat off the pigs. The
consumption of pork from such pigs has resulted in more than 18 outbreaks of
food poisoning across China, with thousands of people getting poisoned by the
meat.
3. Dogs may
be your favorite pet but they are a favorite source of meat in China. China is
the world's largest consumer of dog meat, as they kill roughly 20 million dogs
for consumption annually. In Mandarin Chinese, dog meat is sometimes called
"mutton of the earth" or "fragrant meat". The Chinese
believe that eating dogs brings good luck and health.
4. Beijing,
China, holds the record of the longest traffic jam ever recorded. In August
2010, there was a 62-mile long traffic jam that lasted for 12 days along the
Beijing-Tibet expressways.
5. Based on
gross leasable area, New South China Mall in Dongguan, China, is the largest
mall in the world. However, the mall has been 99% vacant since its opening in
2005.
6. Geese are
preferred over dogs in law enforcement, in certain parts of China, like
Xinjiang province. Geese are extremely vigilant, loud, aggressive, and have
exceptional eyesight and hearing and are considered more effective than dogs
for these reasons.
7. China
executed more people than the rest of the world combined in 2016. Prisoners on
death penalty are also the main source of organs harvested in China. An Amnesty
report revealed that farmers were more frequently sentenced to death than any
other group in China.
8. Diapers
are expensive in China so poor parents use crotchless pants (trousers) for
their kids, and are allowed to poop or pee wherever.
They just get to squat and ease
themselves. Some kids don't wean themselves of this habit as they grow, so it
is not uncommon to see teens crapping in public. The use of subway bins - like
the Guangzhou subway bins - as toilets is yet to be sanctioned in China.
9. Ghost
marriages are practiced in China. According to Chinese tradition, a ghost
marriage is a marriage in which one or both parties are deceased. The practice
aims to provide spouses for people who die unmarried. Believers in the custom say
it ensures the married dead are not alone in the afterlife.
10. Single
women in China can rent fake boyfriends for the Chinese New Year. This is
usually done to appease their pushy parents during family gatherings. A pretend
boyfriend can cost up to depending on the service they offer. Some males on the
Chinese rental websites offer their services for free during the holidays as
they say they have no one to spend the holidays with.
11. Women who
are unmarried by the age of 27 in China are derogatorily termed
"Shengnu" or "leftover women", and are stigmatized.
12. Facebook
has been banned in China in 2009 since its use in the perpetuation of riots in
Xianjiang, a western Chinese province.
13. More than
35 million people in China live underground, in caves. Many of such dwellings
can be found in Shaanxi province, as the region has porous soil that suits easy
digging.
14. China is
currently the world's largest pork consumer. China consumed 54,070 metric tons
of pork in 2016, which accounted for over half of the world's pork consumption
in 2016.
15. Poverty
in China is defined as living with less than 2,300 yuan ($334) in annual
income. As of March 2018, 43.35 million people in China live on annual incomes
below 2,300 yuan a year.
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