Unlike the belly button test that was purportedly “created by an American scientist as a test for obesity”, this latest meme doesn’t come with a backstory. However, it was still popular enough for netizens to post pictures online within minutes of each other last night.

As seen in the photographs, the rules are simple: fold your hands together palm to palm behind your back, and then see how high you can raise them. Some of them are raised uncomfortably high:

Just because there’s no basis to demonstrate that the “hands folded behind the back” test proves anything, it hasn’t stopped someone from making this helpful chart to distinguish a “loser”, those who can only raise their arms to the bottom marker, from a “goddess” at the top:

While for some this may just be natural flexibility, for others, it’s the result of years of practice, as appears to be the case for these yoga practitioners. However, the inclusion of a cell phone pressed between the palms likely isn’t part of any known yoga technique.

And while the majority of netizens posting photos are women, a few men are getting in on the action as well:

Some netizens are even going three-for-three, posting all three of this year’s selfie memes: the belly button test, the roll of coins on your collar bone, and the hands clasped behind the back:

Of course, if you’re savvy enough, you can always try to dupe others by pulling your hair over your face and pretending that your front is your back; that is if you can figure out the whole thumb issue:

The post China’s Hottest New Internet Meme: Hands Folded Behind The Back appeared first on The Nanfang.

It may boggle the mind to consider a movie star to be ugly, but then, we accept that different cultures have different beauty standards. For example, what a Chinese person may consider to be “beautiful” may get an opposite reaction from a laowai, the common Chinese term for foreigner.

Chinese people have often wondered: why do foreigners tend to marry Chinese women that are ugly? That’s the question posed by iFeng Beauty writer Xu Xiliang, and her answer is as praiseworthy of Western culture as it is dismissive of it.

Xu criticises Chinese society for not marrying for love, but for superficial reasons, and her proof is that Westerners knowingly marry ugly Chinese women because looks aren’t important to them.

Ouch? Or is there some kind of backhanded compliment in there?

Once we deny the idea that different cultures have different beauty standards, Xu gets down to brass tacks in a stinging critique of Chinese society, blasted for being too focused upon the material world:

When finding their (ideal marriage) partner, many foreigners aren’t like we Chinese in being so fixated on things like appearances, money, or power. Instead, they are looking for something compatible with (the other person’s) inner quality. They want to find a real, authentic soul mate.

Chinese have a strong belief in fate, and even have a special term to describe love that is fated by destiny (缘分, yuanfen). However, Xu says Chinese are incapable of understanding the “Western” concept of finding your “soulmate”. Instead, Chinese will be ridiculed for wanting a partner they share similar qualities with, and get labelled “immature” and “impractical”. Xu tears into the facade of Chinese culture that is trapped into making false choices:

If a man has a wife that is ugly, it is generally accepted that he is a loser. No matter which perspective you have, this is how common people with a material view of the world will think: a successful man should be accompanied by a beautiful woman. And what of ‘souls’? This is irrelevant. Everybody is putting on a show, and what Chinese are feeling inside is not taken into consideration.

And Xu isn’t afraid to confront the institution of marriage tradition in China:

How many beautiful women become brides just to improve the reputation of a man?

So it does not matter that these foreign men may actually find their own wives to be physically attractive — it’s what’s inside that counts. As Xu concluded:

Out of the two choices of being either a “flower vase” to some bigwig with money or an ugly woman brimming with inner quality that becomes the soulmate to a laowai, I believe (it’s the latter) which is the right choice.

It’s simply a shame we apparently can’t have two things at once.

The post Answering the Age Old Question: Why Do Foreigners Marry Ugly Chinese Girls? appeared first on The Nanfang.

Called the “belly button test”, or xuanfu (炫腹) in Chinese, it’s as simple to do as it is decisive in its evaluation: if you are able to reach behind your back with your arm and touch your belly button from the other side of your waist, this is supposed to prove that you are thin. If you can’t, this is supposed to reveal the harsh truth that you might need a bit more exercise.

It’s unclear by what scientific standard this is supposed to prove one’s ideal weight; but, media reports like the China Daily reference a mysterious foreign “US scientific researcher” who allegedly came up with the test.

Netizen response to this story has mostly been to answer that they have tried the test, with many admitting they fell beneath the standard. However, as pictures show, there are some that pass this “test”, and are ushering in what may be a new trend of selfies:

We’re left wondering if this is just another impossible beauty standard for women to meet, one that does not favor women with short limbs or limited flexibility. We just hope this doesn’t become a common beauty requirement, as have double eyelids, unbowed legs, or cleavage you can stuff a cell phone into.

The post New Chinese “Belly Button Test” Can Tell If You’re Fat appeared first on The Nanfang.

READ: Chinese Pedestrians Have No Problem Obeying Laowai Traffic Warden

A foreign exchange student at Beidong University, Asha has been in Shenyang, Liaoning for eight years. Concerned with Shenyang’s growing traffic problems, she decided to be part of the solution and dutifully, aid pedestrians at one of the city’s busy intersections.

Having a unique perspective on Shenyang, Asha has plenty to say about the state of Shenyang’s roads:

In the eight years that I’ve been here, traffic conditions have improved. The major traffic posts are still being manned by police officers directing traffic. As well, city residents are starting to comply with traffic regulations; there aren’t as many pedestrians running red lights as before.

Whether Asha will start a new trend among expats remains to be seen; however, given the traffic situation in most Chinese cities, pedestrians can use all the help they can get.

Related:

• Expat Cyclist Becomes Hero for Blocking Chinese Driver from Beijing Bike Lane
• Foreigner Gets Whipped With A Leather Belt In Beijing Traffic Altercation
• Mainlanders Perplexed by Polite Traffic Etiquette in Macau

Photos: Caijing

The post Russian Expat Working as a Traffic Warden in Liaoning appeared first on The Nanfang.

Large, doe-like eyes; smooth, porcelain skin; a tapered chin on an almond face—these features can be seen in the many selfies taken by China’s younger generation, especially girls.

But with the need to adhere to a standard of beauty that keeps rising, some women manipulate their images in order to look the part. They use photo booths, Photoshop, apps, and even cameras with special features to achieve their idea of perfect beauty. But now, there’s an app that does the opposite: removes the touch-ups to show what’s truly underneath.

Primo is a Japanese app that reportedly removes any enhancements to an altered image and restores a picture of a person to its original state. This means that Primo will undo the effects of eyes that have been enlarged, and skin tone and teeth that have been lightened.

READ: How to Attract a Chinese Man Part 1: A Cartoon You is a Sexier You

So far, the app is only available on iOS, but users say it helps them not feel “cheated” by images they see. “This software is simply out of this world; never again will I have to worry about being tricked by a picture of a girl,” one commenter said. Another opined, “Very useful; those people that would present a fake appearance to the world should be more careful now.”

Of course, applying this on photos that haven’t been touched up also gives interesting results.

To provide a clearer explanation of how this app works, here is an example:

Does a person simply look too good to be true? Let the Primo app do its work:

Primo is also being used on famous people:

With huge influx of selfies you have to wade through when using Chinese social media, it appears there’s finally a way to look someone in the eyes and see them for who they really are.

Photos: Xinhua, the Nanfang

The post Popular New App in China Removes Selfie Touch-Ups to Show What’s Really Underneath appeared first on The Nanfang.

Taiwanese actress, Lin Chi-ling, is famous for her “baby doll” voice, which many young women aspire to. But in recent years, she has been accused of faking her voice to sound sweet and dainty.

The latest plastic surgery trend gripping China’s youngsters is surgically tweaking one’s vocal cords to sound more appealing and “gender appropriate”.

A 23 year-old man named Lu Xiang recently underwent the surgery. “For many years, my classmates and colleagues made fun of me because of my voice, calling me a sissy,” Lu told the newspaper. “I couldn’t get a girlfriend. They didn’t see me as a real man, and instead treated me like one of their female friends because of my girly voice.”

Lu’s job as a call operator did not help either. According to Lu, customers often mistook him as a woman. Despite the risk of losing his voice completely, Lu jumped at the chance of going under the knife to lower his pitch and sound more “manly”. And Lu is not the only one.

Huang Yideng, a doctor from The Chinese People’s Liberation Army 118 Hospital, said he had performed more than 200 vocal surgeries over the last four years, which involves cutting a segment of cartilage from the larynx and injecting Botox into the vocal cords.

A number of women with low-pitched voices also had the surgery to have their voices sound more “girly,” Huang said.

It’s not just Chinese surgeons that are riding this business trend; South Korea is getting in on the action as well. Zhou Meiling, manager of the Seoul based Yeson Voice Center, said that Chinese demand for the surgery is rising. Last year alone, the clinic’s Chinese customers had grown to around 100, up from 20 four years ago.

Photos: Soadmin.com

The post Hot Trend: Chinese Going Under the Knife to Sound Sexier appeared first on The Nanfang.

It’s one thing to criticize China’s national soccer team, which has an abysmal record. It’s another to take aim at its cheerleaders, the girls who jump up and down, waving pom-poms to cheer them on. But that’s what Nandu, a newspaper in south China, has done.

It filed a report saying while China’s football team is bad, it’s cheerleaders are equally as a bad. Photographs of the country’s football cheerleaders are always showing girls with distorted faces and their mouths agape, the newspaper wrote. “[Their appearance] prevents the public from looking at them further,” it wrote.

In contrast, the cheerleaders on the basketball court are always gorgeous, smiling, attractive and sexy, it said. So why do the ugly ducklings end up on the soccer pitch? The paper said because fans in football stadiums sit further away, they aren’t close enough to see the girls clearly. If the audience is going to have a hard time seeing their faces, why bother to find beautiful ones?

The second reason the newspaper gave is that football cheerleaders often perform outdoors, which means a gust of wind or inclement weather could cancel out their efforts at looking beautiful. This makes it harder to look good and perform well outdoors, the report said.

So what do you think? Is this characterization of Chinese football cheerleaders unfair? Here are some photos.

Photos: Nandu

The post Newspaper Blasts China’s Soccer Cheerleaders For Being Ugly appeared first on The Nanfang.

When women enter beauty pageants, they are essentially putting their bodies out there for judges to render their verdict. But some might not be aware the judging doesn’t stop at the official judges table.

Netizens have ganged up on contestants for the Miss Asia pageant in Guangzhou, with many ugly comments circulating online. So many people have taken part in the bashing that it’s become a trending topic on Sina Weibo.

Here are some of the comments about the photographs (placed here in no particular order unless a contestant’s number is specifically mentioned):

老佛爷来了来了：
Each one is scary. [sweat.emo]

南粤乔木：
Unemployed workers in Dongguan changing careers and looking to become the new Miss Asia?

Parker-Ave：
Is it just me who lingered on #2 for a while, and then quickly browsed through the rest?

王思聪外甥：
Contestant #2 is alright.

芬尼杨格：
(Allow me to bring up the) crackdown on Dongguan. So, what do you guys want to do: still want to continue looking, or not?

很明显是我：
These are all without make-up, right? Sooo beautiful. [cool.emo]

宇宙无敌小蛮吉：
Husband, based upon the the quality seen here, you’re able to marry a champion and bring her back home.

Varuni-Koo：
Who was it that tricked me by saying beauty pageant contestants all have hot figures?

广州城堡堡主:
I couldn’t help myself from clicking on the picture, and now I strongly suggest other users to never ever do the same. [sick.emo]

鹏城曹鹏：
Who was it that said that Chinese men aren’t good looking?

LEODANLING系长裙控：
Guangzhou has lots of beautiful girls, its just that none of them are interested in participating in a beauty pageant.

逸绝尘-snda：
This is the last stop for my cheap hand. (Meaning that since the hand is cheap, it has clicked on something a non-cheap hand wouldn’t have.)

cheerysky111：
All I can say is that they are very ugly.

yl安晴：
Would a true beauty have to lower herself to participate in something like this?

荷塘夏色柳林风声：
They look like men.

辣椒和薄荷叶：
They’re fat. It’s clear that they aren’t in the habit of exercising.

穿马甲的小羊：
Disaster.

枝丸子丶：
They’re ladyboys.

And so, it seems like the most empowering thing about putting on a swimsuit and having your picture published online in China is to become a subject for complaints.

Here are more photos:

Photos: Weibo (2, 3)

The post Netizens Blast Guangzhou Miss Asia Contestants in Ugly Online Comments appeared first on The Nanfang.

Weekend Gallery is our seven-day wrap up of pictures from around the internet.

We had previously featured the process of animization in our feature “How to Attract a Chinese Man Part 1: A Cartoon You is a Sexier You“, and here are some more examples on how to flatten your face and give yourself flawless skin in the perfect makeover you’ve been waiting for:

And here’s the ideal example in both human and anime forn, Fan Bingbing:

On the related topic of ideal optimization of physical appearances, a Weibo user named “Shallow Creek Luo” (罗浅溪) has taken the trend of bodypainting on pregnant bellies to the next level by painting 3D pregnancy x-rays:

Photos: (Animization) Weibo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8); (3D Pregnant X-ray body paint) Weibo

The post Weekend Gallery: Look Your Ideal Best Through Animization and 3D Pregnancy X-Rays appeared first on The Nanfang.

Hey, expat ladies: does being single in China suck? Are you tired of being an amazing catch that no fisherman is interested in? Take our Nanfang China Insider Sex Tips for the easy way to make yourself more appealing to the Chinese man!

As the prominence of social media continues to grow, so too will your appearance online. For you to properly send out the right signals, you’ll need to look your best in order to compete with the many pictures of last night’s dinner on Weixin.

We are all for being fabulous and free as a single woman in your thirties, but it remains that Chinese men are fickle with their choices. Don’t wind up being a leftover!

Entire lives and websites are devoted to fashion styles, clothes and make-up in China, but for this installment of Nanfang China Insider Sex Tips we’re going to focus on one thing: how to have an aesthetically-pleasing online appearance by Chinese standards.

If you thought posing like an alluring Chinese girl was as easy as flashing the peace sign, well sorry, girlfriend—you just Dewey Decimaled yourself a place back up on the shelf. It’s high time your avatar got a makeover.

Taking a headshot and digitally adding stars and rainbows is so pre-millennial. Nowadays, all the hippest Chinese girls are going back to the drawing board—literally.

Chinese women are taking pictures of their faces and accomplishing what make-up and plastic surgery can never do: becoming the paragon of pulchritude that is a cartoon character:

Finally, ladies—we can look our best without tramping around in high heels all night. Apply the Chinese aesthetic to your own face: flatten your face, enlarge your eyes, and make your skin into smooth, creamy porcelain. And get rid of that nose while you’re at it.

Animization isn’t just about making your character portrait into a cartoon profile, Another popular method is to enhance reality into the idyllic dream it ought to be:

If the Chinese man of your dreams has been obsessing over a two-dimensional fictional character, why let that stop you? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

Here’s a picture of fine, young Chinese woman. She’s very pretty, and that wink is a nice touch:

However, by online standards in the ever-competitive world of social media, that isn’t enough. Ladies, you’ll need to bring your A-game to the table, and by “A” we mean “Anime”:

Animization—it’s even better than the real thing.

If fumbling with phone apps of a foreign language or bugging your creepy co-worker to sketch you up isn’t a job in the cards, well don’t fret, you can still get of picture of the “ideal you” that has been waiting to transcend from its boring reality equivalent.

With so many people using smart phones to take “selfies”, it’s high time that a camera was specifically made for this purpose. And that’s what the Casio EX-ZR1000 is: a camera that is designed to be held at arm’s length and pointed at your own face. This camera has a screen that swivels out to allow us to take proper pictures of ourselves without needing to stand in front of the bathroom mirror.

And to help us ladies out, the Casio EX-ZR1000 is equipped with a number of built-in features that allow us to skip the hassle of Photoshop and other programs (Math and sciences—yuck! Am I right, ladies?) A special feature of this camera is a make-up filter that lightens the skin and softens the tone of everyone in its field of view—in up to twelve separate increasing increments!

We’re not sure if increasing the size of the filter will make your smile bigger, or in fact makes you truly happier.

(No word as to what will happen when a user with beautiful dark skin uses this filter, but then this problem likely has solved itself by not being on sale in places that aren’t in Asia.)

Chinese culture has its own standards of beauty, and while there isn’t much you can do to change your physical features, there is a lot you can do to change the way your physical features appear.

Ladies, it’s time for you to be fabulous and become the sexy cartoon character you’ve spent your entire career trying to overcome.

Photos: Weibo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), Youtube screencap

The post How to Attract a Chinese Man Part 1: A Cartoon You is a Sexier You appeared first on The Nanfang.