50 More Bizarre Facts About China – Part 3

26 Jia Lijun’s Fatal Walrus Selfie

In May 2016, businessman Jia Lijun took a selfie with a walrus at China’s Xixiakou Wildlife Park. The animal then pulled him into its pool. Onlookers and staff initially mistook the attack for play, but when the walrus’s longtime trainer, Duan, jumped in to help, it dragged him under too. Both men drowned.

27. At China’s “Giant Panda Kindergarten,” 18 cubs born in 2018 had a joint birthday party in July 2019. The center had earlier struggled to breed pandas after keeping adults isolated in small dens. Researchers mistakenly believed that pandas preferred a solitary life, so they kept each panda in a tiny den; as a result, the pandas became depressed and lost their desire to mate. This situation all changed when researchers began giving potential mates time to become familiar with each other’s scent, alongside other changes to breeding and cub care.

28. In 2015, Cards Against Humanity paid for a week off for workers at the Chinese factory that printed its cards. The printer had no formal paid-vacation procedure, so the company bought the factory’s entire production capacity for a week and paid it to produce nothing. This was every worker’s first vacation.

29. The world’s largest fast-food chain by number of locations is China’s Mixue, which sells ice cream and tea drinks. A 2026 ranking lists about 53,000 Mixue outlets, ahead of McDonald’s 45,356 restaurants at the end of 2025.

30. During World War II, Chinese resistance commander Yang Jingyu fought alone for five days after Japanese forces killed the last two soldiers with him. Yang was encircled and killed after five days of fighting alone in the wild. An autopsy found only bark and grass roots in his stomach. His desecrated body was later given a proper burial due to fear of his ghost.

31 Shi Jianqiao’s Pardoned Warlord Assassination

In 1925, warlord Sun Chuanfang had Shi Jianqiao’s father, a rival military officer, beheaded and his head displayed in public. Shi found Sun in Tianjin ten years later and shot him during a Buddhist prayer session. Her act of filial revenge drew widespread sympathy; after a lengthy court process, the Nationalist government pardoned her in 1936.

32. Since 2013, the US has allowed chickens from the USA to be shipped to China for processing and then shipped back to the USA without notifying consumers the chicken came from China.

33. Since 2011, U.S. law has restricted NASA from bilateral cooperation with China, and China is not a partner in the International Space Station. Therefore, Chinese astronauts are officially banned from visiting the International Space Station.

34. Wealthy Chinese collectors have bought artifacts taken from China during the 19th century, hoping to bring them home. European museums holding such objects have also suffered targeted thefts. In one Norwegian case, police believed the thieves were hired but could not identify who hired them.

35. Chinese internet users have called June 4 “May 35th” to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown while evading censorship of the actual date. The invented date itself was later added to blocked search terms.

36 Jiang Qing’s Li Lili Persecution

Before marrying Mao Zedong, Jiang Qing acted under the name Lan Ping alongside film star Li Lili. Decades later, during the Cultural Revolution, Jiang personally ordered attacks on Li and her filmmaker husband, Luo Jingyu, according to an account by Li’s grandson-in-law. Both were tortured; Li survived, but Luo died.

37. In China, some unemployed people pay 30 to 50 yuan (about US$4 to US$7) a day to use a “pretend work” office. They can sit at a desk and follow a workday routine without an employer. Some use the space to conceal their unemployment; others search for jobs, study, or work on their own projects.

38. In 2012, 68 students who had spent four years attending classes on the Shandong Institute of Light Industry’s campus learned they were not enrolled there and would receive no diplomas. An outside training organization had recruited them and run their classes using space at the institute; its instructors were not institute employees. One student reported paying 11,000 yuan in the first year and 8,900 yuan in each of the next two.

39. Qian Xuesen earned a master’s degree from MIT and a doctorate from Caltech, helped found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and reportedly contributed to the Manhattan Project. During the Red Scare, U.S. authorities accused him of Communist sympathies and restricted his movements for five years. He returned to China in 1955, helped build its missile and space programs, and became known as the “Father of Chinese Rocketry.”

40. In one Chinese legend, the mythical pixiu defecated on the floor of Heaven. The Jade Emperor spanked it so hard that its anus was permanently sealed. It could still eat gold, silver, and jewels but could never expel them, making it a symbol of acquiring and keeping wealth.

41 Agricultural Bank Managers’ Lottery Robbery

In 2007, vault managers Ren Xiaofeng and Ma Xiangjing stole about US$4.3 million from an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Handan and spent nearly all of it on lottery tickets. They hoped to replace the money with their winnings and keep the profit. Instead, they had to steal more, bringing the total to about US$6.7 million, while winning only about US$13,000. They fled, were caught, and were executed in 2008.

42. In the earliest published version of Aladdin, the boy lives in China, where most of the story takes place. The North African magician is a visitor. The tale became part of The Arabian Nights through Antoine Galland’s French collection, although it was absent from the earlier Arabic manuscript he translated.

43. In premodern China, tongyangxi was a practice in which a family adopted a young girl and raised her to marry one of its sons. The children grew up together in the same household, often from an early age, and married when they were older. The arrangement helped poorer families secure a bride for a son while relieving the girl’s birth family of the cost of raising her.

44. China has a 26-story pig farm on the outskirts of Ezhou in Hubei province. The facility began taking in sows in 2022 and uses automated feeding, ventilation, and waste systems to raise pigs across its floors. It is part of a two-building complex designed to produce up to 1.2 million pigs a year.

45. In 2005, a Chinese man named Wang Diange was thought to have died from a lightning strike in Inner Mongolia. When his body exploded during cremation, investigators found a piece of metal in the furnace. They traced it to an unexploded weather shell fired to prevent hail; it had fallen through Wang’s roof and struck him. The local weather bureau later paid his family more than 80,000 yuan in compensation.

15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History

46 Shih Tzus’ Fourteen Founding Dogs

After the 1949 Communist revolution, Shih Tzu dogs associated with China’s imperial elite were killed, and the breed disappeared from the country. Modern Shih Tzus trace their ancestry to 13 dogs imported into England and Scandinavia between 1928 and 1952. Breeders also crossed a Pekingese into the line, bringing the recorded founding stock to 14 dogs.

47. In China, jump rope scores count toward school fitness assessments and, in some places, high school entrance exams. To improve their children’s scores, some parents pay for coaching that costs as much as $50 an hour. Some parents enroll children as young as 3 in jump rope classes.

48. Chinese warlord Zhang Zongchang ruled Shandong from 1925 to 1928 and earned the nickname “Three Don’t Knows.” People claimed he did not know how much money he had, how many soldiers served in his army, or how many women lived in his harem. At the height of his power, he reportedly kept 30 to 50 concubines and numbered them because he could not remember all their names.

49. In Yiwu, eastern China, diners wondered how the same couple seemed to run a restaurant from 6 a.m. to 3 a.m. every day. Locals nicknamed it the “robot couple restaurant.” In fact, identical twin brothers had married identical twin sisters, and the two couples worked alternating shifts to keep the restaurant open for 21 hours.

50. In 2018, a tiny convenience store opened on a cliff at Shiniuzhai in China’s Hunan province. Nicknamed the “most inconvenient convenience store,” it sits about 120 meters (393 feet) above the ground and sells water and snacks to climbers. One worker staffs the booth at a time and restocks it before dawn; bottled water cost just 2 yuan when the store drew widespread attention in 2022.

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