Chinese customers waiting outside an Apple store in New York.

When it comes to Apple’s iPhone 6, there is nothing Chinese won’t do to get their hands on one including, but not limited to, queuing day and night, sleeping on the sidewalk, or renting out a girlfriend to raise money for the phone.

Instead of waiting in line with fully-charged Apple devices like other Apple fans in Melbourne, Australia, many Chinese were seen getting by with a uniquely Chinese pastime: mahjong, Tencent News reported. Squatting on small chairs, nothing seemed to disturb those eagerly waiting from shuffling their mahjong tiles.

Interestingly, the report acknowledged a lot of Chinese faces waiting in the queues worldwide. Almost everywhere the iPhone 6 is available, including the U.S., Hong Kong and Australia, a sizeable number of Chinese – young, old, men, and women – made up large portions of the lines. This of course fuels speculation that Chinese buyers are scalping the phones to clients in China, where the phone is unavailable, at a significantly higher price.

In a six-minute video by Casey Neistat, Chinese were documented selling their newly acquired phones to other interested buyers. He claimed the Chinese lining up for the phones in the city were organized and managed by Chinese mafia groups.

We don’t know if there is any truth to Casey’s claim; but, if there is, judging by the dedication Chinese buyers have shown so far for the phone, the mafia were doing a good job keeping them in line.

See the photos below for more evidence of the Chinese love of the iPhone 6:

Chinese playing mahjong outside an Apple store in Melbourne, Australia.

Chinese customers waiting in line in California.

Several Chinese customers waiting outside an Apple store in New York broke out in a fight.

Scalpers selling iPhone 6 to other buyers in Hong Kong.

Photos: Tencent, Reuters and AFP

Song Jingsong, deputy head of Guangdong Urban and Rural Planning and Design Institute, was accused of raping a tour guide in Australia.

A Guangdong official accused of sexually assaulting a university student tour guide was found not guilty by a local court in Australia after the second hearing of the case, reported Nandu on August 19. Song had been accused of two counts of digital rape and two of indecent assault, according to an Australian newspaper, The Age.

Song Jingsong, deputy head of Guangdong Urban and Rural Planning and Design Institute (an organization under the provincial government’s housing and urban-rural development department) travelled to Australia about one year ago. The tour guide, a 33-year old student, was assigned to Song’s government delegation. The two were observed to be  drunk and flirting after dinner, according to CCTV footage submitted from the hotel and Crown Casino.

A local Melbourne Magistrate Court heard the case early last year and granted Song bail last August. In his decision, the Judge found the prosecution’s evidence insufficient to support the conviction of four charges. The Judge also found that the jury could not determine if Song was aware the woman was not consenting to sexual activity, or may not have been consenting.

The prosecution, however, believed the case needed a further hearing and restricted Song from leaving the country, Nandu said. This time, the jury found Song not guilty on charges of rape and indecent assault on Monday, after just four days of the hearing, Nandu said.

The Guangdong government had stated that Song was on a private visit, and had not been sent by the Institute, reported Global Times. The story sparked anger among Internet users last year when news of Song’s arrest surfaced on Sina Weibo, after Chinese newspapers failed to report the story.

One user commented, “Now we have someone spreading the communist ‘seeds’ all over the world,” SCMP reported last year.

Photos: Hubei TV

The product is a condom with extra room down below to envelop the scrotum along with the shaft of the penis. The entire contraption is held in place by a thong meant to be worn by the condom user. Investors thought the product had so much potential they poured US$320,000 into it.

READ: Guangzhou Students Design Innovative Condom
to Reduce Unwanted Pregnancies

The invention had won the Competition of Cultural Innovation held by the city’s Communist Youth League, and was inspired by the cash award offered by the  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “whomever designs the next generation of condoms”.

While 10,000 g-string condoms are headed to Australia for sale, the group of investors, which calls itself the “Eastern Resurgence” (seen below), has always maintained a Chinese perspective. Group leader Kong Yanxiang said, “Currently, sex education in China is quite backward and conservative. Condoms are a product into which little research is being done. So this is a market we could enter.”

Consisting of mostly women, the group emphasized that its product is an improvement over traditional condoms that mostly use oil-based lubricants, which can be irritating to the vagina. The g-string condom uses a soluble lubricant flavoured with Chinese herbs. The anti-slip micro-capsules reduce the risk of accidental pregnancy.

Based on our experience with condoms, we can’t figure out why the g-string apparatus would be needed unless the condom wasn’t fitting properly. To us, it seems like the simple condom is getting needlessly more complicated.

Related:

• Bringing Creativity to Safe Sex Through Condom Designs in Guangzhou
• Man Convicted of Rape After Refusing to Use Condoms
• Top Ten Things to Buy Now that FamilyMart Has Opened in Shenzhen

]]> http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/g-string-condom-invented-by-guangzhou-students-becomes-retail-product/feed/ 4 http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/mayor-of-sydney-interested-in-granny-dancing-china-says-take-them-all/ http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/mayor-of-sydney-interested-in-granny-dancing-china-says-take-them-all/#comments Wed, 28 May 2014 00:00:29 +0000 Natalie Wang http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/?p=24310 Continue reading →]]> The purpose of aligning two foreign cities as sister cities is to promote cultural exchanges and share experiences that could hopefully help a city grow into a modern metropolis, or at least a more lively one in Sydney’s case.

The Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, visited Guangzhou with this purpose in mind in advance of the 30th anniversary of the two cities’ friendship in 2016. Amazed at the sight of dynamic dancing Moore saw at Huadu square in Guangzhou, the mayor vowed to import “auntie square dancing” back to Sydney, Guangzhou Daily reported on May 26.

Moore said square dancing in Guangzhou is a way to invigorate urban residents and their communities, adding that Sydney has the public space to accommodate dancing groups in its neighbourhoods.

Dancing grannies seen at Louvre in Paris. Photo credit: weibo

Moore’s comments seemed friendly, but perhaps her staff had failed to brief her on the problems brought by the increasing tension between dancing grannies and annoyed residents across China. Her comments quickly drew netizens’ attention with many flooding the comment section with the words “Do not regret.” The tension between dancing grannies and residents annoyed by their actions have become so intense that the magazine World of Chinese calls it “a national issue”. 

Armed with rowdy music (often called shenqu 神曲 in Chinese) and portable sound systems, the country’s 100 million-strong middle aged and retired women have found themselves at a flashpoint of China’s urbanisation as the country grapples with increasingly crowded communities and their confined public space.

One Weibo user wrote: “Please take away all the 300 million dancing grannies to live their lives in Australia’s dancing plazas!” Another commented: “Please also take away the ones in Shanghai! Grant them technocrat immigrant status.” Still another warned that by the time that happens in Australia, Moore probably won’t be the mayor anymore.

Mrs Xiong, one of the victims of excrement bombs. Photo credit:39yst.com

Fed up with the noise from the dancing, many residents across the country launched a slew of conventional and some extreme attacks towards the dancing groups such as making verbal insults and threats or hurling paint and smelly tofu. Sometimes, they may go to extremes—using excremement bombs of human feces and unleashing dogs.

One of the latest counter-attacks launched towards the grannies was from 600 residents in Wenzhou, who bought an RMB 260,000 “treble cannon” that emits a loud and ear-splitting sound to scare away the dancing groups who had been occupying the square from 6am to 10pm every day, CRI reported in March.

We fear that soon the dancing grannies will have occupied Sydney’s opera house, and then it will be too late.

Home page image: Guangming

Baiyun Airport gets bigger, so will the number of Guangzhou’s airports
In the latest gathering of Guangzhou’s political decision-makers, the Standing Committee approved plans to construct a third runway at Baiyun Airport with construction starting this month. In other news, construction will begin on the airport’s new second terminal – just north of the existing facility – by the end of the year.

However, if that isn’t enough, China Daily reports that the airport extension is in line with current plans to create a second Guangzhou airport to the south of the city. If plans come to fruition, the PRD will become one of the most congested regional airspaces in the country catering for Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Shenzhen and Macau.

China Southern’s first A380 international flight
There was a lot of hype, fanfare and attention on China Southern Airlines (CSA) newest arrival, the double-decker A380, last year. Then it headed into a year-long domestic exile. Now though, it’s going international: It’s off to Hollywood.

The carrier’s upgraded service will take off on October 12 as the first and only Chinese superjumbo to head across the Pacific.

While China Southern already flies to Los Angeles, it believes it can tap into a greater share of the Trans-Pacific market. In doing so, Airline Route reckons overall capacity will soar 78 per cent, meaning CSA has its work cut out for itself.

CSA has three superjumbos in its fleet with two more on the way, which will be deployed on international routes and primary domestic cities.

India’s SpiceJet heads to the PRD’s busiest airports
India’s budget airline SpiceJet has won government approval to expand international operations, starting with daily services to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The Nanfang earlier reported on India’s aviation reforms aimed at revitalising the sector.

As SpiceJet plans for a China arrival, Dragonair prepares for a second Indian landing
Dragonair is extending its reach away from the Far East and South East Asia. Starting November 2, a new four-times-a-week service to Kolkata, in the eastern state of West Bengal, will take off. The move will also help support Cathay Pacific, its parent company, as a feeder and codeshare airline. Cathay already flies to five major Indian cities.

And two major updates on stories The Nanfang trailed last week on Shenzhen-Sydney, Delhi-Hong Kong-Osaka Kansai and Delhi-Hong Kong-Seoul Incheon. Air India is resuming flights to Seoul Incheon and Osaka Kansai via Hong Kong earlier than planned. The Delhi-Hong Kong-Osaka Kansai route resumes with three weekly flights starting on August 21 and Delhi-Hong Kong-Seoul Incheon resumes the following day with four flights a week.

Hainan Airlines has postponed resuming its Sydney service until December 3.

Referred to as a “Spinster”, “Australian”, “English speaker and coffee lover”, Zhang remains a passionate, cheerful, vibrant, and humorous woman. Her only qualm is the occasional pain in her knees: “Perhaps Yan Wang Ye, a figure in Chinese mythology who takes away the dead, has forgotten about me!” she says. “I think it is my disciplined lifestyle and hard work that keep me healthy.”

Zhang decided at a very early age that she would be single her whole life, a decision she remains at peace with. And yet despite being separated from her family, and no shortage of adversity, when Zhang reflects upon her nearly 100 years on the planet, a child-like grin comes across her face: “I come from a big family that was very poor,” says Zhang. As a result, Zhang was forced to become financially independent at a very early age. The second of 14 children, and eldest girl, she was sent to live with her aunt in Hong Kong when she was only 4-years-old. There she worked as a live-in maid for a rich family, where life was anything but easy: “I missed home every single day”, she says. But for the sake of her brothers and sisters, she worked ever harder.

After ten years in Hong Kong, Zhang moved to Singapore, where she worked for a British serviceman’s family. Knowing no English and unable to communicate with her employer, she had to study the language in her free time. Several years later, the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan meant Zhang once again had to move; this time to Australia. Despite the distance, Zhang thought of nothing more than her family back in Zhongshan, and continued to send nearly all of her money home to support them.

Years of living abroad have left their mark on every facet of Zhang’s life, particularly for the simple things, such as food. Even today, she enjoys bread and coffee for breakfast, serves guests salad, and criticizes the butter in China as “inauthentic”.

Early in the last century, Zhang’s home village of Xianlong, whose population was only a few hundred, had a system which saw nearly twenty single women like Zhang move abroad so they could work and provide remittance for their families. But today, there are only three women taking part in the program. Unlike the other two (one went to Singapore and the other to Malaysia), upon her return to Zhongshan, Zhang didn’t seek to regain her Chinese citizenship. She remains an Australian citizen, albeit for one very practical reason: the pension in Australia is much higher than in China.

Here’s wishing Zhang many more years of happiness, fresh bread and authentic butter.