China is a land of paradoxes—ancient yet modern, secretive yet bustling, traditional yet rapidly evolving. From dynastic intrigues and cultural quirks to bizarre laws and forgotten scandals, this collection dives even deeper into the lesser-known corners of Chinese history, society, and everyday life. Ready to be surprised again? Let’s uncover 50 more fascinating facts that reveal the true complexity of China.
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1 Puyi’s Fall to Street Cleaner
After the Chinese Communist Party came to power, they dethroned Puyi, the last emperor of China. He then worked as a street cleaner. He frequently visited the Forbidden City as a tourist, pointing out various objects on display that he once owned as emperor.
2. In 1975, a dam failure in China resulted in approximately 240,000 deaths. The chief engineer had predicted the disaster beforehand but was removed from the project. Authorities covered up the incident for decades.
3. In China, individuals must obtain government approval to be reincarnated, making it illegal otherwise.
4. In the 19th century, a poor Chinese man named Hong Xiuquan failed the civil service exam and fell ill. After rereading a Christian pamphlet he had previously ignored, he hallucinated that he was Jesus’ brother. Consequently, he led a cult and rebellion, conquering much of southern China and crowning himself king. This civil war resulted in over 10 million deaths.
5. In 1900, explorers discovered a sealed cave in China’s Gansu province containing 1,100 scrolls and 15,000 Buddhist texts. Believed to have been sealed around 1002 A.D., the cave held lost texts and the earliest dated printed book, a copy of the Diamond Sutra printed in 868.
6 Shi Huangdi’s Son Tricked into Suicide
After the death of China’s first emperor, Shi Huangdi, his second oldest son forged a letter in the emperor’s name. The letter instructed the eldest son to commit suicide, allowing the second son to become emperor. It actually worked.
7. During the Beijing Olympics, a 9-year-old girl lip-synced a patriotic song at the opening ceremony. Officials later revealed that a 7-year-old girl, kept backstage due to not being considered attractive enough, actually sang the song to preserve China’s image.
8. In the UK, a six-year-old girl discovered a secret message inside a Christmas card reading, “Please help us and notify human rights organization.” Allegedly written by a prisoner in a Chinese factory, the message prompted Tesco, a British supermarket, to suspend card production at the factory.
9. Cheating is so prevalent in China that people have rioted when denied the opportunity. In 2013, over 2,000 individuals barricaded school staff after authorities confiscated students’ cheat sheets. They were chanting, “There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat.”
10. As of 2015, China is the most irreligious country on Earth, with 90% of residents expressing no interest in religion.
11 Officer Sinks Ship After Girlfriend’s Suicide
In 1978, a Chinese naval officer detonated depth charges on a Chinese destroyer, causing it to sink at port and killing 134 sailors. This tragic act occurred after he was discharged, following his girlfriend’s suicide, which happened because he had ended their relationship.
12. Chinese medical tourists who undergo plastic surgery in South Korea often struggle to re-enter China. Their new appearances frequently do not match their passport photos, creating identification issues.
13. Ching Shih, a former Chinese prostitute, was one of history’s most successful pirates. She commanded over 1,800 ships and up to 200,000 pirates, and remarkably, she retired peacefully.
14. In China, the “996” work schedule requires employees to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. This demanding routine contrasts sharply with the Western 9-to-5 workday.
15. In July 2017, the Chinese government banned Justin Bieber from performing in China. Officials stated the ban aimed to maintain market order and purify the performance environment from badly behaved entertainers.
16 Fake Musician Fooled King of Qi
In ancient China, a man named Nan Guo deceived his way into becoming a musician for the King of Qi without knowing how to play an instrument. He mimicked other musicians’ movements and earned a salary until the king’s death, after which he fled due to the new king’s preference for solo performances.
17. In 1995, the Chinese government kidnapped a six-year-old Tibetan boy, the Panchen Lama, and replaced him with a Han Chinese “fake Panchen.” Since then, no one has heard from the real Panchen Lama, who plays a crucial role in selecting the next Dalai Lama.
18. In 2019, a Chinese businessman hired a hitman for $282,800 to eliminate a competitor. The hitman subcontracted the job, leading to a chain of five more hitmen subcontractors. The last hitman simply asked the target to fake his death.
19. In Sichuan opera, Bian Lian, or “face changing,” involves performers rapidly changing theatrical masks with imperceptible speed. The sleight of hand technique is a level two national secret classified by China’s State Secrets Bureau.
20. Nüshu is a written script used exclusively by Chinese women, which facilitated the writing of letters, poetry, and autobiographies. Since men could not read it, women who knew Nüshu enjoyed greater intellectual freedom.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Zimbabwe Criticizes Small Chinese Condoms
In 2019, Zimbabwe’s health minister criticized Chinese-made condoms for being too small during an HIV/AIDS prevention event in Harare.
22. The whole of China uses a single time zone, China Standard Time, which aligns with Beijing Time, disregarding international time zones within its borders.
23. Chinese companies hire Caucasian foreigners to pose as employees or international representatives to enhance their perceived value.
24. In 2003, fishermen in China found their country’s submarine Ming III drifting after its crew asphyxiated due to the diesel engine consuming all the oxygen.
25. Imperial China mandated that commoners depict dragons with three claws, nobility with four, and only the emperor could use five-clawed dragons.
RE: Fact #4 (Hong Xiuquan Thought He Was Jesus’ Brother) – One guy bombed the civil service exam, another got rejected by art school.
RE: Fact #50 (Nude Loan Collateral Scandal in China) – These aren’t government loans; think more along the lines of borrowing from a loan shark or a payday lender.
RE: Fact #28 (China Destroys Motorcycles After 13 Years) – It’s the same in Delhi-NCR, India – 15 years for petrol cars and bikes, 10 for diesel. After that, it’s fine on private land, but the government will tow and scrap anything left on the streets. People often sell their old vehicles cheaply in the countryside because they don’t enforce those rules as much outside the big cities.
And yeah, the car companies pushed for this.
I heard it’s just Delhi-NCR, not everywhere. I thought it was just weakly enforced outside the cities.
This is totally insane! Does the used price for *every* brand just plummet after a couple of years?
So you could basically clean up a wrecked bike, right? Grab a new one that’s totalled, then find some cheap used parts to fix it up.
It steadily goes down for about 15 years, then practically disappears.
Man, someone would totally put a hit out on my old Jeep.
RE: Fact #11 (Officer Sinks Ship After Girlfriend’s Suicide) – Why’d they let him go just because his ex killed herself?
The story’s a bit hazy, but it sounds like the girl’s parents tried to get the Navy in trouble, and they just brushed it off. Or maybe they said he was nuts, but I doubt that’s the real story. Probably the first thing is what really happened.
He did kill himself and a lot of others, so the second point is pretty important.
This whole thing sounds fishy, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an accidental ammo explosion and the PLAN used this sailor as a scapegoat. Those kinds of accidents used to happen a lot, especially during WWII when they moved all that ammo by hand. I remember things like the USS Mount Hood, the West Loch Disaster, the Port Chicago Disaster, and unloading the USS Solar – and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head, there were tons more. Blaming one sailor to cover up a mess is also pretty common. Think of the Iowa incident – falsely blamed on a gay sailor – or the Bonhomme Richard fire. I bet there are more cases I’ve just forgotten.
I don’t know enough to say for sure what happened, but something doesn’t smell right. Maybe he *did* blow up the ship, but I need more info before I’m convinced.
So, what real proof do they have he blew it up? Was it just, “He was acting weird and happened to be around, so let’s blame him,” or did they find anything concrete?
RE: Fact #16 (Fake Musician Fooled King of Qi) – Those other musicians totally covered for him.
RE: Fact #44 (Tiananmen Soldiers Refused to Fire on Civilians) – Lots of those soldiers paid the price for what they did. Many lost their jobs, some went to jail, and others… well, nobody knows what became of them after that whole mess.
In 1989, Xu Qinxian refused to attack the Tiananmen protesters. Because of that, he lost his party position and spent five years in prison. For twenty years, nobody knew where he was.
He told his commanders he couldn’t follow orders like that unless it was a war.
He privately told friends he’d rather die than be remembered as a villain.
He got court-martialed and did five years, then was sent to Shijiazhuang and couldn’t go back to Beijing.
At his court martial, Xu said the PLA didn’t have a history of attacking its own people, and he wouldn’t be the one to start.
For twenty years, people thought the army had killed him, but a Hong Kong newspaper found him in 2011. He just said he travels between Shijiazhuang and Beijing freely and has no regrets.
Such a great guy
RE: Fact #36 (Developer Outsourced Job to China) – Send your work overseas: get canned.
Send 100 jobs overseas: get a raise.
Land a sweet automation gig and make a killing!
I automated some stuff at work last year, saved the company over $160,000 a year, and got nothing in return.
Nope, the automation person gets zilch. The boss is the one who cashes in.
That’s only for the rich!
RE: Fact #18 (Hitman Chain Ends in Fake Murder) – So, Ling told Wei about this whole hitman plot—six months in the making! They cooked up a fake death plan, sending photos up to Tan. But Wei went to the cops while Tan was looking at those pictures. Tan and the five hitmen got charged with murder, and the hitmen got two to four years. Tan got five because he was the brains behind it all.
Now he’s got five vengeful killers to deal with once they’re out.
He got a-Wei.
RE: Fact #40 (Chinese Eateries Laced Food with Opium) – Everyone’s gotta eat, right? So why bother with restaurants that don’t give away free drugs?
RE: Fact #40 (Chinese Eateries Laced Food with Opium) – It’s probably not much, unless their food’s pricey.
Edit: Nevermind, I read the whole thing. It’s poppy seed powder—cheap, not a great high, but super addictive!
Ever tried Burger King’s tacos? They’re made the same way.
How can you tell if you’re hooked on that food? It’s not like drugs where you know exactly what’ll fix the craving, right?
RE: Fact #50 (Nude Loan Collateral Scandal in China) – If this image database gets hacked and everything’s leaked, every student will be suing and getting free loans. Sweet.
RE: Fact #17 (Panchen Lama Abducted by China in 1995) – Maybe the real Panchen Lama’s stuck in an iceberg, waiting to break free in a century.
Apparently, China is a very appearance-driven country, placing great value on the appearance of people and country rather than personality and political realities. I’m not saying this to be true, just an assumption based on several of the facts I read here. I may be entirely wrong, however.
RE: Fact #10 (China Ranked Most Irreligious in 2015) – Lots of people aren’t officially religious, even if they’re kinda Buddhist or Taoist.
Turns out my family isn’t Buddhist or Taoist, it’s Chinese Folk Religion. Lots of my relatives follow it, too. They used to practice it secretly back in China because snitches could get you in trouble with the government.
The Chinese government’s pretty harsh if you show too much enthusiasm for anything that isn’t “China number one” and their whole unelected, god-like regime.
They’re also locking up tons of their own people in camps—Muslims, mostly.
Reminds me of that Silicon Valley episode – total freak-out when they find out a guy’s secretly Christian.
I met people who were really into China and had zero desire to travel anywhere else. Kids waving Chinese flags everywhere! People are super patriotic there, just like in America, Britain, and Australia.
China’s got a lot of national pride. The only reason I felt uneasy was because of what I’d read about their leader. If I hadn’t known that, I wouldn’t have felt like I was being watched. Plus, being white, I’d have stood out like a sore thumb anyway.
RE: Fact #46 (Hot Water Preferred in Chinese Culture) – A group of our Chinese colleagues trained with us for half a year. We had to unplug a water cooler because they weren’t drinking the water—it was too cold for them.
RE: Fact #47 (China Hid Poisoned Formula to Save Olympics) – Chinese still aren’t confident about the baby formula sold there, so people from China living elsewhere buy up lots of it, which sometimes leads to shortages.
I hear the Chinese navy’s known for doing that when they’re on shore leave in other countries.
Hold up, are Chinese sailors buying up foreign stuff while they’re on leave? Are they planning to resell it back home for a crazy profit?
RE: Fact #3 (China Requires Approval for Reincarnation) – Has anyone ever gotten busted?
RE: Fact #48 (Chinese Teen Graffiti in Egypt Sparks Outrage) – His parents had to say sorry! Looks like the kid needs to apologize and fix things. Actions have consequences.
No culture expects kids to deal with the fallout from their actions. That’s why parents step in – when a kid messes up, it’s on the parents.
Kids can be jerks, but upbringing plays a big part in how they turn out. And while I’ve heard that in Chinese culture, parents often apologize, I don’t know much about it, so I’m not an expert.
RE: Fact #23 (Firms Hire White Actors for Fake Status) – My job at a Toronto Chinese agency meant lots of meetings with other Chinese firms – they liked having a white guy around for appearances. I’d just sit there, pretending to pay attention, even though it was all Cantonese.
This reminds me of Dave Chappelle’s stand-up, “Killin’ Them Softly.” He’s got this bit about how every group of Black guys needs a white guy around… to handle the police.
That reminds me…Wasn’t that the part about the white guy with the black gang? He must’ve done something crazy to get their respect, right? So funny.
RE: Fact #43 (Last Eunuch Castrated for Deposed Emperor) – Thanks a ton, Dad!
Cut your penis off he said. You’ll be rich he said, you’ll have way better joys in life than sex he said.
RE: Fact #20 (Nüshu: China’s Secret Script for Women) – So, Nüshu was mainly used in 19th-century China, just in certain areas. Nobody really knows where it came from, but it wasn’t some big secret. Men knew about it, they just weren’t interested. The article basically said it was seen as similar to embroidery—a womanly thing. And, cool fact: unlike regular Chinese writing, Nüshu used syllables, so it needed way fewer characters.
RE: Fact #25 (Dragon Claws Showed Social Rank in China) – Messing up your claw number or colors? That was treason – your whole clan got the death penalty.
It’s a pretty stressful life when your whole family has to be smart, otherwise you’re toast.
Honestly, even now in China, your family could get you in trouble just for things like supporting pro-democracy stuff, criticizing the government online, or speaking up for human rights. So, authoritarianism’s still pretty much the same.
Way back in Imperial China, your whole family lived in the same town or village, maybe even the same building!
In Chinese culture, you’d have to be really dense not to see your brother pulling treasonous stunts—and stopping him was totally your job.
Hmm, maybe I’ll sketch an ox or a snake instead, to be on the safe side.
RE: Fact #34 (Man Had 20-Foot Tapeworm from Raw Beef) – For my bio lab, we dissected tapeworms we got from the local slaughterhouse.
Just another reason to ditch meat, I guess.
RE: Fact #19 (Face-Changing in Sichuan Opera Is Top Secret) – I saw it live in Chengdu. The switch is crazy fast.
RE: Fact #10 (China Ranked Most Irreligious in 2015) – Lots of superstition is going around, though. When does it become a stand-in for religion? I mean, stuff like keeping idols in certain spots in the house, lucky numbers, and seeing differences as fate, punishment, or warnings.
In my Eastern traditions class, we talked about “Pop Religion” in China. It’s not really about a structured religion there, more like people pick and choose bits from different faiths.
Pop religion isn’t just a China thing. It’s totally how a lot of folks around here show their spirituality—a mix-and-match of beliefs that fit their lives and let them believe in magic without joining a big, organized religion. Ask any suburban mom, and you’ll probably hear a bunch of Eastern philosophy mixed with the prosperity gospel, all tied up with shopping.
OnePlus skipped the OnePlus 4, that’s why.
Yeah, it’s all just wishful thinking.
RE: Fact #39 (Cockroach Farming Thrives Across China) – Just millions?
That article says the biggest farm has around six billion – way more than just millions.
China’s messing around with insects and animals without any rules.
RE: Fact #26 (Egg Fried Rice Posts Protest Mao’s Son) – So, the article explains why. Mao Anying, working with General Peng, was in Korea during the war. He slept in one morning, grabbed some of the general’s eggs, and was cooking breakfast—against orders, because of air raid worries. Apparently, he died in a napalm attack; the fire from his egg fried rice gave him away. Some people aren’t sure that’s exactly what happened, but every year around October or November, folks online share egg fried rice recipes as a way to protest the Chinese government.
Hey, as a fellow Chinese person, this story’s a good political yarn, but I’m not totally convinced it’s true. It’s just based on a bit of a military guy’s memoir from the early 2000s—back when censorship wasn’t as tight, so it’s not like others could’ve backed him up but were too scared to. And it only blew up recently—when you clamp down on stuff, people find new ways to complain.
So, I’d be a little skeptical. The cooking probably happened, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it causing his death.
What’s so great about cooking at night, when you can actually see what you’re doing?
Back then, they didn’t have fancy night vision or thermal stuff, so hiding the fire was easy, but not the smoke. They probably weren’t using a campfire, more like a stove in a tent with a chimney—the fire would be hidden, but that smoke plume during the day? Easy target for a bombing raid from miles away.
A lone campfire’s pretty hard to spot at night, but you can see the smoke from miles away during the day.
RE: Fact #46 (Hot Water Preferred in Chinese Culture) – In China, they think hot water fixes everything.
RE: Fact #41 (Drivers Sometimes Kill to Avoid Paying) – Retiring in China? Sounds like a risky move.
Seriously, check out YouTube dashcam videos—you won’t be sorry. I saw one where some guy totally face-planted into a parked car, cracking the windshield with his head.
I figured it was all about insurance payouts or lawsuits, but seeing those videos and GIFs? It all clicks now. Sweet retirement plan, if you survive, that is.
RE: Fact #41 (Drivers Sometimes Kill to Avoid Paying) – The logic’s sound. It’s the ethics that are questionable, not the thinking.
The legal system is messed up; families can sue for lost support in most US states, but focusing only on the person who died lets killers get away with it easier if they kill someone already hurt. It actually makes things worse overall—bad laws and bad driving are to blame.
Haha, a cop in Texas told me to off any home invaders—they can’t rat you out in court, right?
RE: Fact #39 (Cockroach Farming Thrives Across China) – This feels totally like Snowpiercer.
I heard the first draft had the lower class eating the upper class’s poop—apparently, it was too gross for the people who saw it. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it’s way worse than cockroaches, for sure.
RE: Fact #24 (Chinese Submarine Crew Suffocated at Sea) – Asphyxiation isn’t exactly quick. It’s more like they got sleepy and confused from lack of oxygen, then died slowly as their bodies gave out.
RE: Fact #5 (Diamond Sutra Found in Sealed Dunhuang Cave) – I’m really curious about what’s inside Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum’s main chamber. It’s over 2000 years old and still untouched! I hope I live to see it opened, but we’ll see.
So, I think there’s a ton of liquid mercury in his tomb. Makes sense, since he apparently chugged the stuff to become immortal. The guy was crazy!
RE: Fact #12 (Plastic Surgery Causes Chinese ID Issues) – That plastic surgery is amazing! It looks so real. No surprise so many YouTubers go to South Korea for it.
RE: Fact #44 (Tiananmen Soldiers Refused to Fire on Civilians) – The Chinese Communist Party used soldiers from the countryside, who didn’t even speak the same language, to do the worst jobs. That language difference made it harder for them to care.
Yeah, they were fed a bunch of lies about the protestors—that they were violent and full of criminals. It’s all part of the big con.
Reminds me of a Black Mirror episode.
RE: Fact #4 (Hong Xiuquan Thought He Was Jesus’ Brother) – They blasted Hong’s ashes from a cannon—no resting place for him, payback for the rebellion. Metal AF.
Wow, he totally owns the sky now! He’s even got control of your breath. Seriously, be impressed!
RE: Fact #32 (Boxer Rebellion Used Martial Arts Combat) – A lot of those rebellious fighters thought charms and talismans would keep them safe from bullets. They didn’t stand a chance against the British and their guns.
Yeah, turns out Kung Fu’s not a patch on a Maxim gun.
RE: Fact #30 (Ming Dynasty Bloodline Still Influential) – So, the UK has a similar story. A whole bunch of land there still belongs to the same families who got it way back in 1066 after William the Conqueror won. Their descendants still own tons of land almost a thousand years later.
RE: Fact #1 (Puyi’s Fall to Street Cleaner) – He was a real jerk, so don’t feel bad for him. Puyi was always pretty cruel, laying down really strict rules for his staff. Servants got whipped in the basement for things like chatting too much. “Take him downstairs” was a phrase that terrified everyone; he’d whip someone almost every day. He was into Buddhism, so he made everyone stop killing bugs and mice, but if he found any bugs or droppings in his food? The cooks got the whip. One time, a young guy ran away because Puyi was hitting on him, so Puyi had him beaten so badly he died. Then *he* had the guys who did the whipping punished.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for him, considering his upbringing. The guy never faced any limits; he got to do whatever he pleased, whenever he pleased. He never had to lift a finger, never heard “no.”
Kids are naturally self-centered. But give someone that kind of unchecked power from day one, and it’ll screw them up completely. He probably saw punishments as games, and everyone around him as toys. He basically had no parents or real friends, just servants who were kept at arm’s length.
It’s scary to think what that kind of childhood would do to someone.
Imperial China wasn’t really like that back then. The days of totally tyrannical emperors were long gone. The Emperor had tons of strict rules and traditions to follow, and without the support of the warlords and the neo-Confucian government officials, he was basically powerless. Think of Empress Dowager Cixi – she put the Guangxu Emperor under house arrest when he tried to reform things! He became a figurehead, and real power went to the people around him. Puyi was the same – his life was totally controlled by tradition, and he only stayed in power as long as he acted like a good Confucian Emperor, or however the powerful people in his court wanted him to act.
Puyi became Emperor at age two – a powerless kid surrounded by manipulative eunuchs, generals, and the Empress Dowager Cixi, who used him for her own purposes. By the time he was an adult, he was a puppet of the Japanese.
That doesn’t excuse how he treated his servants, but his life was seriously depressing. It wasn’t all privilege and no responsibility; the crown was a huge burden.
RE: Fact #25 (Dragon Claws Showed Social Rank in China) – I really dig this kind of stuff.
One cool thing I learned: In Great Britain, sleeping with someone the king or queen is sleeping with is considered treason, married or not.
If the king’s sleeping with your wife, you’re stuck watching.
RE: Fact #21 (Zimbabwe Criticizes Small Chinese Condoms) – Some guys start measuring from the top, others from their, uh, you know… I start at the back of my neck. Gotta get that edge.
RE: Fact #12 (Plastic Surgery Causes Chinese ID Issues) – I went backpacking around Europe with a friend who’d dropped a ton of weight. Customs was a nightmare for her everywhere, but in Morocco, it was seriously dicey—looked like they weren’t letting her leave! I thought we’d miss her flight. Like, five people were scrutinizing her photo against her. First thing she did when she got home? Got a new passport.
It’s way easier to leave rich countries than get into them, from what I’ve seen.
It’s a lot simpler if you have a ton of money.
I almost missed my flight out of Miami because the airport staff had never seen the letters ä/ö/å on my ticket—they were showing up as “ae”. They said my name was wrong and my ticket was no good! Thankfully, a supervisor stepped in and sorted it out.
RE: Fact #9 (Chinese Students Riot Over Exam Cheating) – Gaming’s got a big cheating problem too. In World of Tanks, the Chinese server’s flooded with cheaters. Their excuse? “If you’re not cheating, that’s your problem, not ours!”
I’ve heard that in China, people think cheating’s no big deal—it’s all about winning, no matter how.
So next time you’re grabbing safety gear, food, or medicine from that country, remember this.
Loads of stuff like this has come out of China, but that melamine thing in baby formula was the worst. They were faking the protein levels by adding melamine, and it killed at least six babies and sent 54,000 to the hospital.
That doesn’t look good for a war.
RE: Fact #41 (Drivers Sometimes Kill to Avoid Paying) – Imagine you’re driving, totally normal day, then BAM! Suddenly, you’re faced with a terrible choice: owe someone your life or kill them. Seriously, how did that law even pass? It’s insane.
RE: Fact #37 (Mao’s Hundred Flowers Campaign Turned Trap) – Yep, classic communism.
RE: Fact #6 (Shi Huangdi’s Son Tricked into Suicide) – Turns out, it wasn’t the second son. Prime Minister Li Si and Zhao Gao, a eunuch, did it because they were scared of the eldest son’s favorite general.
Still ice cold, though.
I’m not a fan of a lot of “-ists,” but I’m totally down for being a eunuchist.
This guy and the Game of Thrones guy? Two for two! That’s a perfect score.
Ancient Chinese history—the super-short version—was basically a never-ending fight to the death between powerful officials, eunuchs, and warlords. The emperor, often a kid or someone controlled by the winners, just hung out, playing music or whatever, until *they* decided to kill him too.
I’d much rather have been a small-time landlord with a nice place and a few tenant farmers. Those guys usually survived most of the regime changes just by paying a bit extra in taxes.
RE: Fact #43 (Last Eunuch Castrated for Deposed Emperor) – Hey, fun fact: The first recorded gay marriage was Nero marrying some dude. Roman law didn’t allow it, so Nero got creative—chopped off his bits, made him grow his hair long, and boom, loophole! Not trying to be mean to anyone, just a weird historical thing they don’t always cover in history class.
Using “fact” to describe anything about Nero is a bit strong. Someone definitely said he did it, but Roman politics weren’t exactly known for sticking to the truth.
Yeah, I get it—a lot of the stuff said about Nero was probably just political mudslinging from his enemies. It’s like all the crazy stuff people on the far left and right say about each other’s politicians now, isn’t it?
RE: Fact #18 (Hitman Chain Ends in Fake Murder) – That’s some serious outsourcing.
RE: Fact #30 (Ming Dynasty Bloodline Still Influential) – Fun fact: The Tongs (a Chinese organized crime syndicate) want to bring back the Ming emperors. They even have a few seats in the Chinese parliament—the only non-communist party to do so.
China just got way more confusing.
What’s the deal with the current Chinese leader?
Besides those fun facts, after they kicked out the Qing, the revolutionaries briefly thought about putting a Han emperor back in charge, but decided on a republic instead.
So, are you saying the Chinese government’s basically a mob?
RE: Fact #32 (Boxer Rebellion Used Martial Arts Combat) – That’s way better than my usual lazy day of underwear-clad fact scrolling here.
RE: Fact #7 (Lip Sync Scandal at Beijing Olympics) – This story really hasn’t helped China’s image.
RE: Fact #42 (China Offers Professional Mistress Hunters) – I’ve read a bunch of Chinese novels, and “face” and “saving face” come up all the time. Is that a real thing in everyday life?
RE: Fact #31 (Astronaut Says Great Wall Not Visible) – Chris Hadfield said you can totally see Toronto’s Highway 407 from space.
RE: Fact #27 (1626 Beijing Explosion Still Unexplained) – The Wanggongchang Armory – one of six Beijing gunpowder factories run by the Ministry of Works, and a major storage depot for weapons and ammo – was ground zero. I have a hunch about what caused that explosion.
Extraterrestrials?
The article also says that while it seems simple to think it was a fire, the lack of burning at the center and the fact that people’s clothes were ripped off (lots of historical accounts say this) point more towards a huge pressure wave than a fire.
That’s exactly how black powder goes boom. It’s not some 80s movie explosion; it’s super fast, and if there’s a fireball, it usually shoots straight up after the initial blast. It also tends to rip clothes right off people – you often see bombing victims with their clothes blown away.
It’s not a nuke, so it doesn’t burn with a bright light like in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
And it couldn’t be a meteor because those are supersonic – you’d hear the sonic boom *after* the explosion, not before.
That roaring sound was probably black powder, because it can burn like a rocket. It’s even used in some solid rocket motors, which are known to blow up sometimes, causing nearby black powder to explode too. Sound-wise, a barrel of black powder burning like a rocket would be crazy loud, like an F-15 – you’d hear it for miles.
RE: Fact #14 (996 Work Culture Pressures Chinese Workers) – I had this crazy tech job in China—996, but the work was a joke. I’d finish my stuff in two hours, but everyone else dragged it out all day, then got mad at me for being done early! So I had to fake it, too.
We also had these two-hour lunches and people took tons of smoke breaks, calling them “meetings.” I even started smoking just to fit in.
It felt awful knowing customer service and the warehouse were killing themselves while we were goofing off, only pretending to work when the bosses walked by.
Yeah, that’s totally expected. Most people can only really focus hard for a few hours a day, so expecting 12 hours of top-notch work is unrealistic, unless it’s really easy physical work. Even then, you’re bound to make mistakes after a long shift like that—it’s just not a sustainable way to work.
I should clarify: I’m not saying physically demanding jobs aren’t incredibly hard, especially with long shifts. But some jobs aren’t super physically tough *or* need super intense focus, and *those* might allow for 12-hour shifts without a big drop in quality. But still, I don’t think shifts should be that long, for everyone’s well-being.
And, yeah, healthcare workers often do 12-hour shifts. It’s a balancing act – long shifts mean fewer handoffs, but also more tiredness and mistakes. Too many handoffs risk crucial info getting lost.
The numbers on worker productivity tell the whole story: Chinese workers aren’t very productive per hour.
It’s a real thing I’m dealing with. My job’s all computers, and I’m the only millennial – and youngest – employee. I work way faster than everyone else, and they’re not happy about it. One coworker, a total “Dwight Schrute,” even said something rude about me getting paid for nothing. I just got a great review, though, and clients love me. It’s even worse because we have to be in the office five days a week to be a “family,” haha, yeah right.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could all just go home after finishing our work? Or, if they needed us on call, at least we could chill and play games or watch stuff.
I worked in a building with international tech support – 24/7 teams from China and India.
We called the Chinese tech workers “the blazin’ Asians.” They’d take smoke breaks every 20 minutes, downstairs, for ten minutes at a time. Twelve hours of that, then they’d pile into a van and head back to their place. The next shift would do the same thing all night.
Sales were always making jokes about them, and the cleaning crew complained constantly about all the cigarette butts in front of the building.
Now I get it.
RE: Fact #35 (Chen Sheng Wu Guang Uprising) – I was going to be late for work, so I just decided to embezzle $20,000.
Time to get embezzling!
RE: Fact #49 (Fake Chinese Harry Potter Book) – No way! Frodo takes down Dumblydorf!!
RE: Fact #47 (China Hid Poisoned Formula to Save Olympics) – It caused a baby formula shortage in Australia because Chinese buyers were buying up all the formula and sending it to China to resell.
They’re still sending our baby formula back to China.
They’re also snapping up Aussie houses, which is pushing prices higher.
RE: Fact #43 (Last Eunuch Castrated for Deposed Emperor) – Guys kept the bits they cut off to show they were still men.
They supposedly wore their cut-off body parts in jars around their necks, like some kind of weird ID.
Getting rid of the testicles, not the whole thing, is called castration. It’s common in farming, for horses that aren’t used for breeding, and even with some pets.
Why not just stash them away until you need them? Like, in his pants?
RE: Fact #15 (China Bans Justin Bieber from Performing) – We totally missed a huge market!
RE: Fact #3 (China Requires Approval for Reincarnation) – I’m curious how they actually make sure people follow that rule, haha. Just don’t say you’ve been reincarnated, and you’ll be fine.
RE: Fact #15 (China Bans Justin Bieber from Performing) – That’s typical of China, but I find Tyler the Creator’s UK ban really strange.
RE: Fact #37 (Mao’s Hundred Flowers Campaign Turned Trap) – If they were trying to wipe out government critics, they totally nailed it.
That’s what everyone thought the campaign was about.
See who criticizes communism, then kill them.
For Chinese Communist genocides, this isn’t even top 5; it barely topped 2 million deaths. That’s just above the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries (1.2–2 million) and below Land Reform (3–5 million). And that’s not counting the 12 million sent to forced labor camps—those deaths are included in the Laogai genocide figures.
So, that’s just the direct campaigns. What about the Great Leap Forward’s mess? The famine? How many people died from sickness and starvation? Ten million? Twenty million?
After they sidelined Mao, the CCP blamed Khrushchev, saying the weapons Stalin gave China weren’t gifts, they were loans. But really, it was all Mao’s fault.
Mao spent the rest of his life scared his successors would tell the real story and blame him. That’s why he locked up all those good communist leaders during the Cultural Revolution.
I’m not into conspiracy theories, but I think when the Cultural Revolution flopped, he freed Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, making them promise to keep quiet about his failures and blame his wife instead. They happily went along with that, and she got executed.
Mao was a jerk.
That’s so communist.
RE: Fact #6 (Shi Huangdi’s Son Tricked into Suicide) – Hey, it’s me, the Emperor – not your brother. Get rid of yourself and make my second oldest brother the new emperor.
RE: Fact #49 (Fake Chinese Harry Potter Book) – For science, I swapped “wand” for “wang” in the first Harry Potter book. The results were… interesting. Like, “they snapped my wang in half!” And Harry really looked forward to a magic wang. His mom bought a nice one, but his dad preferred mahogany. Harry used it like a firework. Hermione even grabbed it! It even ended up in a troll’s nose, covered in goo. He even used it to save someone from a fall and then zapped dementors. I’ve found definitive proof J.K. Rowling is a sneaky one. Harry held his wang, trying not to think about his mom. Then, something huge burst out of it. He poked it, and then had to fight his uncle off.
That reminds me of when I replaced every “punch,” “beat,” and “hit” in Fight Club with “finger.” At the projectionist union, Tyler cracked up after the president fingered him—one finger sent him flying! He just sat there against the wall, laughing. He was saying, “Go ahead, you can’t kill me! You idiot! Finger me all you want, but you can’t kill me!”
I also once did a find-and-replace on 50 Shades of Grey, changing “lips” to “pussy lips.”
RE: Fact #31 (Astronaut Says Great Wall Not Visible) – It was always a silly idea. If you can spot the Great Wall from space, you’d see any major highway, right?
It’s kind of a judgment call what counts as human-made and visible from space, since a huge city would definitely qualify. You can spot cities from way off.
At night, the planet’s lit up like a Christmas tree these days.
RE: Fact #14 (996 Work Culture Pressures Chinese Workers) – Lots of Chinese companies, especially internet ones, break the law with their 996 work schedules (9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week). It’s still pretty uncommon though; most people work a normal 9-to-5.
Most people aren’t working a standard 9-to-5 day here in China; it’s almost always 996. Bosses just ignore the rules, and if you push back, they use their connections. It’s pointless to even mention the laws being broken.
The job market’s really tough, so people grab whatever work they can find and put in the hours their bosses demand. Even if it *says* 9-to-5, everyone knows the real hours are way longer. That’s why the big cities are buzzing after 9 pm – everyone’s finally getting off work. I only go to the Changsha IFS mall before 6 pm because it’s dead compared to the evening rush.
RE: Fact #17 (Panchen Lama Abducted by China in 1995) – So, it’s a long-running Chinese plan to undermine Tibetan Buddhism. Losing or replacing the Panchen Lama means there won’t be another Dalai Lama after the current one dies. China will either skip appointing a successor or install a puppet. Either way, the real Dalai Lama title is finished.
RE: Fact #33 (Over 1 Million Live in Beijing Bunkers) – Uncle, what happened to the sky?
RE: Fact #7 (Lip Sync Scandal at Beijing Olympics) – The opening ceremony showed off lots of people in traditional ethnic minority clothing, but they were all Han Chinese in costume.
Chinese blackface.
No way they’d do that!
Seriously, given how the Chinese government treats non-Han Chinese, that whole thing feels super fake and icky.
No coincidence there—it was totally planned, part of their whole plan to wipe out minority cultures that might not like how the CCP runs things.
RE: Fact #4 (Hong Xiuquan Thought He Was Jesus’ Brother) – That civil war? Over ten million people died. And that’s a lowball figure. We don’t know the exact number for the Taiping Rebellion, but it’s usually put at 10 to 30 million. Either way, it was one of history’s biggest bloodbaths – all because of Hong Xiuquan, a real head case who flunked a test.
Hong Xiuquan was a bit of a loon who flunked a test—that’s a simplified story. The Taiping Rebellion wasn’t the only show in town; other rebellions popped up around the same time. Besides religious fanaticism, there were serious economic and social problems—floods, famine, the Han majority getting tough on minorities, especially in the south, and that whole opium thing. The opium wars really messed things up. You could even say the Taipings were a nationalistic pushback against the Century of Humiliation, especially after the second Opium War and the Treaty Ports. Their propaganda focused more on the Qing’s weakness to Western influence than their religious ideas. It’s a complicated mess, really. Basically, late Qing China was about to explode anyway.
The Taiping Rebellion popped off eight years after the First Opium War ended, and it was still happening during the second one. The “century of humiliation” usually starts with the first Opium War and wraps up with the Chinese Revolution. It covers a lot, like the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, the Boxer Rebellion around 1900, the May Fourth Movement, and the Japanese invasion/occupation and the following civil war.
But the Treaty of Nanking had a real impact. It opened five more ports and ended the Canton system, breaking the monopoly on foreign trade in Guangdong and leaving a lot of people broke. That’s where Hong Xiuquan started building his following.
This war might have been even deadlier than the Second Sino-Japanese War. Seriously, World War II isn’t even in China’s top five deadliest wars. There was a war almost 2000 years ago that was way more costly in lives than the Chinese part of WWII. Think about it: we’re comparing a modern war with all the Japanese atrocities and advanced weaponry to a war fought with spears and swords around the time of Jesus, while Rome was still a thing! It’s crazy, and we barely know anything about it in the West. We never hear about the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Three Kingdoms wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the An Lushan Rebellion… the changeover from the Ming to Qing dynasties in the 17th century alone killed 25-30 million people! China and its neighbors have probably seen more fighting and destruction than most of the rest of the world combined over the last two thousand years.
RE: Fact #36 (Developer Outsourced Job to China) – So, Verizon’s digging found Bob’s side hustle spread across a bunch of local companies – pulling in hundreds of thousands a year while only paying his Chinese ghostwriters around $50,000. Seriously though, this guy’s totally middle-management material. He’s resourceful, good at delegating, has zero ethical qualms, and works way harder than any other middle manager I’ve dealt with—I mean, the guy sends out daily work updates!
RE: Fact #19 (Face-Changing in Sichuan Opera Is Top Secret) – Want to see how it works in slow motion? It’s at 1/8th speed.
His left thumb’s in a black loop on the mask, which he just pulls off. Probably uses different loops for different mask layers.
I was in Chengdu twice this year, and the artist even let me touch the mask!
RE: Fact #18 (Hitman Chain Ends in Fake Murder) – That sounds like a pyramid scheme.
RE: Fact #16 (Fake Musician Fooled King of Qi) – Yep, I used that trick in music class all through elementary school.
RE: Fact #11 (Officer Sinks Ship After Girlfriend’s Suicide) – It’s best to let people go on Friday. There’s a good reason for that. Don’t do it when they could hurt someone else.
My old job was real slick about firing people. They’d send you home for the day, then FedEx the termination papers overnight. Most folks thought they were just getting a day or two off – total surprise! So glad I left.
They’d tell you to take the next day off, saying they’d chat about [the issue] on Friday. You’d think everything was fine, go home happy, and then bam! They were already printing the FedEx label before you even left the parking lot, almost every time.
My wife’s work just deactivates people’s keycards. Imagine showing up and not being able to get in!
I saw a tweet saying Obsidian once threw a party for their QA testers, then, when everyone was outside, they got fired and their access cards deleted.
RE: Fact #43 (Last Eunuch Castrated for Deposed Emperor) – I lost everything, and you can’t even hold onto your power?
The emperor was just a little kid when everything went down—only six years old!
RE: Fact #27 (1626 Beijing Explosion Still Unexplained) – No way that blast was as big as Hiroshima. Seriously. The Halifax explosion was the biggest non-nuclear blast ever, and that was less than a third the size of Hiroshima.
Nah, that sounds way too big to be a nuclear blast. Unless they buried, like, a whole neighborhood under four feet of gunpowder – but that’s pretty far-fetched.
RE: Fact #20 (Nüshu: China’s Secret Script for Women) – The article says this, but there’s no real proof for any of those ideas.
RE: Fact #28 (China Destroys Motorcycles After 13 Years) – I bet hardly anyone in China buys 12.5-year-old motorcycles!
Ugh, I wonder how much shipping one of these would be.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth it. I bought a brand new 125cc bike from China – way cheaper than a used Honda – but it was a total lemon and croaked after only two years. It cost me £900 ten years ago, and a big part of that was shipping. Maybe Chinese quality’s better now, but back then, when those bikes were made, it wasn’t great.
Most Chinese people aren’t big on used cars, it was a surprise when I moved to the US.
RE: Fact #2 (1975 China Dam Collapse Kills 240,000) – That’s a pretty good cover-up.
RE: Fact #38 (China’s ‘Citizen Score’ Ranks Behavior) – Stifling new ideas and squashing chances to get better by making everyone the same.
RE: Fact #22 (China Uses One Time Zone Nationwide) – It’s not just China; every country helps set up the international time zones within their own borders.
China’s time zone thing is really messed up for its western areas; they’re forced to be three hours ahead of what makes sense.
Australia is so weird. They only really need two or three time zones, tops. But they’ve got seven? And one’s even offset by 45 minutes? Seriously, what’s the deal?
Turns out, that +8:45 time zone is a kinda unofficial thing, used by a tiny local government—less than a thousand people.
It’s like three, but not everywhere does it.
Two states are huge—like, almost as big as all the others put together, population-wise. They’re in the same time zone, making things much simpler for most people.
QLD’s in the same timezone half the year (no daylight savings there), but WA is always behind.
Nobody lives in SA, NT, or TAS.