The six-week course consists of three or four 90 minute classes per week. Activities include jogging, running, and maintaining an abdominal bridge (planking). According to the course instructor, Zhou Quanfu, only applicants with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 are eligible to enrol in the class. Zhou claims that due to the BMI requirement, only 60 percent of applicants are accepted. However, students with an average BMI are still allowed to audit the course.

In addition to regular exercise, students are required to count calories in a daily food journal and submit a weight-loss related paper at the end of the course. Topics submitted by past students include “how fat forms and decomposes in the human body “; “how fat influences students’ psychology”; and “how overweight college students control food intake”.

If offering academic incentives as a way to encourage obese students to lose weight sounds like a drastic measure, it’s because Nanjing schools have witnessed the fatal effects of obesity. Last October, a third-year student at a Nanjing university collapsed and died while attempting to complete a 1,000 meter race as part of a physical education examination. The 20 year-old student was 5’6 (168 centimeters) tall and 202 pounds (92 kilograms).

According to a report published in the medical journal The Lancet, there are an estimated 43.2 million obese men and 46.4 million obese women currently living in China, the most in the world.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that 12 percent of Chinese youth are overweight.

The post Nanjing University Introduces Biggest Loser Weight Loss Course appeared first on The Nanfang.

The accident occurred in the Pukou District of Nanjing, Jiangsu. The boy, Zheng Xuanxuan, was playing in front of his family’s business when the van struck him from behind and rolled over him.

Remarkably, Xuanxuan immediately stood up and took two steps before doubling over in pain.

The driver of the van, who failed to remain at the scene, was later apprehended by police. He claimed that he did not see the child, and thought he had just run over a manhole at the time. As seen in the above screenshot, the driver can be seen braking immediately after the collision. Given the ongoing investigation, no charges have yet been laid.

Xuanxuan spent three days in hospital, suffering only minor head wounds, and is said to have completely recovered.

Here’s the video:

The post Watch: Boy Miraculously Walks Away After Van Runs Him Over appeared first on The Nanfang.

In the December 28 incident, a married couple was jaywalking across a busy street when a man driving by on a scooter, kicked the woman as he passed on the left, causing her to fall. The man tried to confront the driver but the scooter took off. The couple however caught a break, as the entire incident was captured on a dash-mounted camera.

A number of similar kicking incidents had been reported in the area, as well as verbal attacks on pedestrians by passing motorcyclists. Although she could not explain how, Mrs Xu, the victim in this incident whose injuries can be seen above, suspected the motorcyclist to be a foreigner.

Both Mrs Xu and the police have said that the kicking motorcyclist was suffering from “psychological problems.”

Netizens continue to lash out about the road rage incident, particularly now that the suspect’s nationality has been revealed. Many believe the punishment is too light: “Only three days (of administrative detention)?” Another demanded that, “Laowai who commit crimes in China should face more severe punishment.”

Other Chinese insisted that the expat leave China: “Have him repatriated. Foreign trash is still trash.” Another said, “Scram back from where you came from. People like this have mental problems. China doesn’t welcome people like you!”

Aside from the violence of the assault, jaywalking remains a serious problem in China. Large-scale campaigns are being held in major Chinese cities to stop pedestrians from running red lights, and to punish those that break traffic regulations. The problem is so severe that Shenzhen police have taken to shaming jaywalkers by forcing them to wear taboo “green hats” and proposing city residents have their credit scores lowered as a result of their traffic violations.

Apparently, Mrs Xu and her husband have not been charged or punished.

Here’s the video:

The post Polish Exchange Student Arrested In Nanjing For Kicking Jaywalker appeared first on The Nanfang.

The hole opened up early Monday morning on Beijing East Road and is estimated to be ten square meters in diameter and one meter deep. Workers were seen putting up a temporary wall as someone approached the photographer who took the above pictures to force them to stop taking pictures (as seen in picture #3).

The sinkhole has caused traffic chaos in Nanjing, with traffic on the two-way street now just limited to one lane.

However, this isn’t the first time that a sinkhole has appeared on Beijing East Road. As a matter of fact, there have been four other sinkholes that have opened up while tunnel construction is underway:

• A 40 centimeter-deep sinkhole that opened at October 29 at 5:40am
• A 1.5 meter-deep sinkhole that opened at October 29 at 9am, trapping a passing ambulance
• A 3 meter-deep sinkhole that opened on November 2 in the afternoon
• A 1.6 meter-deep sinkhole that opened on November 10 at 8am

But as news reports tell us, the sinkholes don’t have anything to do with the subway construction. According to a spokesperson for the Nanjing Subway Construction Unit, Monday’s sinkhole is the result of heavy rains that have been falling on Nanjing.

Explanations for the other four sinkholes weren’t mentioned in the report.

Sinkholes resulting from subway construction in China is not limited to Nanjing. This past August, a 300 square meter sinkhole appeared in a densely-populated part of Dongguan that killed a worker underground, while Shenzhen has seen four sinkholes this year arising from subway construction-related causes.

Other Chinese fatalities resulting from subway tunnels collapse during construction include a Shenyang victim last month, and another in Nanning last October.

The post Five Sinkholes Open Up During Construction of Nanjing Subway in a Single Month appeared first on The Nanfang.

A trampling incident involving an escalator has injured 16 primary students going to a playground at a mall in Nanjing, Jiangsu.

At around 10 yesterday morning, some 40 to 50 Grade 1 and 2 students from the Yuhuatai Experimental School were going to Happy World at the Rsun Mall as part of their annual autumn outing. As Sina News reports, the kids got onto an escalator to the third floor, but the double glass doors to the playground there were locked. The small platform on the third floor was only three square meters, so with kids coming up the escalator it quickly filled up leading to a pileup and injuries.

Nearly 20 students were on the escalator at the time of the incident. Sixteen were taken to Pukou Hospital, of which five are listed in serious condition and have been transferred to the hospital’s children ward.

Related:

• The Deadly School Stampede: China’s Annual Tragedy
• Shanghai Police Respond to Deadly New Year’s Trampling at Historic Bund Waterfront
• Fainting Passenger Sparks Panicked Stampede on Guangzhou Metro
• One Second a Woman is Riding a Department Store Escalator, The Next Second She’s Dead
• Boy Swallowed Up in Another Deadly Escalator Accident in China

The post Escalator Pileup Leaves 16 Primary School Kids in Hospital appeared first on The Nanfang.

Many netizens supported the “no food” on the subway policy, which passed in July 2014; but, many online commentators did not support the apparently hard line taken on bottled water. Public outrage centred around the lack of discretion, or exceptions, to the law. Netizens overwhelmingly believed that water did not qualify as “food” under the law. 

A spokesperson for the Nanjing Metro justified its strict policy by explaining how it was trying to improve Chinese society. The ban would ensure that rats weren’t attracted to sugary drink spills, puddles wouldn’t cause slip and fall accidents, and public order would ultimately be maintained.

Given the comments on the People’s Daily Online and CCTV Weibo accounts, netizens weren’t buying it:

好人没好报啊：
Not allowed to drink, but allowed to pee on the ground. [smile.emoji]

SL金玉锦绣：
I don’t think drinking water should be prohibited.

今日事不毕何不狗一带：
I don’t approve of this; water is colorless, odorless, and does not pollute.

欢喜脐橙的天外来客：
Don’t know just how many twenty and thirty year-olds are busy taking the subway to go to work or to school who don’t have enough time for themselves. Hey, so be it if you’re not allowed to eat or drink (on the subway). But what kind of logic is it when you can’t even drink water on the subway? (For the people) who make these laws, can you put yourself in their shoes?

朱偉—：
I can’t think of a country in which you can’t drink water on the subway…

Seo_He：
They should ban breathing on the subway because exhaling carbon dioxide gases inside a subway car may lead to a depletion of oxygen and eventually suffocation.

bbkll2015：
(They should) ban farting, which pollutes the environment. [contempt.emoji]

SALT一：
I refuse.

上体育课不是课啊：
Can you first outlaw thieves and perverts on the subway?!

蛋蛋已被强煎：
You must be crazy; even drinking water must be controlled? Subway workers, can you first take care of fare dodgers and uncivilized behavior?

不久以久：
If this were a ban just on drinking colored or flavored drinks, I could get behind it, but there shouldn’t be a ban on drinking water. If the subway aren’t able to solve this issue, then it should redesign and manage the subway so that there is no need to use such hard tactics to inconvenience the public.

高晓泽童鞋：
Where is the sugar in bottled mineral water?

木可爱段小妮子：
Not allowing the drinking of water is getting a bit out of hand.

18岁的海底针：
Don’t understand, don’t accept.

Sunny男神：
This policy is outright ludicrous.

小丑Ghost-Z：
Because it’s hard for them to control, they simply ban it. Isn’t this the one option for those that govern?

Rgr综合工业：
Seeing all these comments have made me crazy. [doge.emoji] It’s no wonder why regulations on mainland subways need to be so strict.

Given the opinions expressed, we bet that Nanjing will see a sharp increase in sales of bottled water and reusable water bottles in the near future, as well as a number of people suddenly getting very thirsty during their commute!

The post Forget Eating, the Nanjing Metro Won’t Even Let You Drink Water appeared first on The Nanfang.

Two African men, completely without morals, prop up their legs on a pole, pick at their feet, and make a loud hubbub in full view of everyone as they ride the Nanjing Metro Line S8 on the evening of July 10.

Despite a lack of detail or corroborating facts, dozens of news outlets picked up the story, attracting several hundred comments from Chinese netizens.

We’ve seen cases of expat misbehavior before, such as the recent case of a foreigner throwing a four-year old into a pool and increasing drug use in Beijing. It seems, however, that the comments on this story have taken a racial turn:

玉树临风4455：
Guangzhou has 500,000 black devils from Africa…

琴师-我的梦：
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

老年011：
They’re just picking up on Chinese habits.

臣尝有罪：
Black people from Africa… do we really think all laowai have better morals? We just think we Chinese have inferior morals whenever we compare ourselves to foreigners. It’s how we become ‘high class’ when we travel to North Korea. 

高钟昊:
Africans are simply without morals!

加鲁博士:
Not all laowai have high morals, just the same way not all Chinese have low morals. You can’t lump them together.

熊猫天上飞:
Serving in the capacity as the media, shouldn’t you be taking a more objective perspective for this report? Shouldn’t you call them ‘two commuters of foreign nationality’?

用户omq8vdjzn5:
There are few corrupt African officials!

茆猫好电影推荐:
Can we not inflate the hype of individual cases? There are more cases of Chinese people with low morals in the subway.

颠覆她的城：
Line S8? I suspect they are students at the Nanjing University Of Information Science & Technology?

我是李西东：
There are two types of people I despise most: racists, and black people.

沉默不是我想沉默：
In China, foreigners are considered gods.

谢小小娜_：
Oh my goodness. Simply speaking, their armpit odor reeks.

懒虫姐777：
Black laowai are garbage that won’t change. They don’t pay fares when taking taxis, and buy the cheapest beer when drinking in bars.

向阳定会花开:
Why is it that whenever blacks and foreigners misbehave in China, it must be reported without restraint? Just what are they hinting at?

一吃一大碗o一睡一整天:
Get out of China!

朝天宫一姐在此:
This only concerns these two people who clearly don’t have any morals and have lost face. They don’t represent any country, just the same as with Chinese people.

豚鼠大仙:
They’re just migrant workers from Africa.

披头士比女王更代表英国：
No matter if they’re male or female, black people behave immorally in public places.

家肥屋润CPI:
Wrong! Our Chinese morals are the same as these black laowai. There’s no need to look down upon them. We display the same traits whenever we go out.

蓝天白云2576:
Foreign trash.

此寅敞亮:
Many of these Africans have visas that have expired and are illegal immigrants. They should be repatriated (back to Africa).

出埃及的摩西:
You are what you are influenced by… [a pun on the concept that something ‘black’ is a corruptive element]

九子九字:
It’s actually white people that discriminate the most against yellow people, and after that is black people.

八百年前的老同學:
I feel as though the term ‘black African person’ is a bit discriminatory.

Being black in China has not been easy, as tensions have boiled over a few times, particularly in Guangzhou which is known colloquially in China as “Chocolate City“.

Chinese, likewise, have complained about discrimination in South Africa.

The post African Expats Incite (Racist) Online Firestorm By Putting Up Their Feet appeared first on The Nanfang.

Adding to the number of savvy Chinese that can spot such a scam, Weibo user “Piggy Sister That Doesn’t Want To Grow Up” published pictures that show “a clear and brazen case of the broken vase scam”.

READ: What the Broken Vase Scam Is, and How to Avoid Being Duped

The photographs show a man with an injured leg in the middle of the road outside the Nanjing Red Cross Society Hospital on the morning of September 17. A three-wheeled vehicle idles beside him as pedestrians and cyclists simply pass the fallen man.

When a non-Chinese man wearing dark green clothes comes forward to give help, he is criticized for having fallen for the “broken vase” scam. Of this, the Weibo user said, “The laowai can never understand…”

Many local shop owners said the incident happened after 7am when a non-Chinese man was seen speaking to the victim. Then he left, according to a reporter.

“Reminded Me of My Mother”

The reporter was able to track down the would-be good samaritan, a 30-something expat from the USA named “Sam” (a pseudonym) who is currently working in Nanjing. Sam said seeing the victim reminded him of his own mother, who was recently involved in a traffic accident herself.

However, Sam said he became very doubtful when he saw bystanders gathering to laugh at him. One bystander waved a hand at him and shouted, “No, no, no!”

READ: Guangzhou Drunk Drivers Extorted in Staged Collisions

Sam was not able to communicate with the man, who would only cover his forehead with his left hand and sporadically let out a shrill cry of pain. Sam saw he couldn’t do anything, so left. He said he couldn’t understand why the bystanders were trying to get him to stop.

“Broken Vase” or No “Broken Vase”?

For this to be a “broken vase” scam, the con artist would try to blame the fraud victim (Sam) for the accident and attempt to extort money, which didn’t happen. However, local Nanjing residents were still suspicious because the incident happened just outside of a hospital.

The Yueya Lake police sub-station confirmed the incident was not a “broken vase” scam, but something else entirely.

The story is this: Police from the Yueya Lake sub-station responded to a burglary at 1pm at Zhonghe Bridge after a man fell from a second story apartment. This unidentified man was not confirmed to be a thief, and was taken to Nanjing Red Cross Society Hospital to treat his broken leg.

The police say the unnamed man blamed police for the fall, and wants them to pay his hospital bill. Upon being discharged, the man lay down in the middle of the road as a way to claim his rights.

Related:

• Foreigners Ripped Off After Being Lured Into Shanghai Karaoke Den
• Hong Kong Taxi Scam Targets Drunk Foreigners
• 81 year-old woman knocked down in Guangzhou, bystanders ignore her
• Wolf of Wall Street? These are the Wolves of Shenzhen
• Beware: WeChat (Weixin) random hookup results in scam in Dongguan

Photos: 163.com

The post American With Good Intentions Ridiculed For Helping Victim In China appeared first on The Nanfang.

As revealed by one worker, the trees were hurriedly brought in and transplanted during the wrong season, leading to their early demise.

Yesterday, workers dug out the dead trees and left them at the side of the road, waiting to be moved. The trees were 20 to 30 centimeters in diameter, and measured five to six meters high.

The Nanjing Olympic Village officially opened on August 12 to host athletes for the Youth Olympic Games, held from August 16 to 28. It was a fantastic opening ceremony, as Xinhua reported:

Pre-school girls clad in bright pink dresses with huge bows in their hair danced with great enthusiasm while official IOC guests waved plush Games mascots in sync with the music.

These trees appear to have served their use well in making the YOG a success.

Photo: Caijing

The post Trees Sent to Nanjing for Youth Olympic Games Left for Dead appeared first on The Nanfang.

The woman plunged into the river just a tour boat was passing by. The foreigner, on board the boat, noticed the woman in the water and dove in to save her. The woman’s boyfriend was also on scene and helped in the rescue effort.

Fortunately the woman appears to be okay.

UPDATED 11:40am August 19: Here’s a video taken at the scene:

Related:

• Man Jumps from Seventh Floor of Guangzhou’s Tee Mall in Suicide
• Guangzhou’s Image Tarnished By Attention-Seeking Bridge Jumpers
• Threatening to Jump, Woman in Zhongshan Falls Asleep During Suicide Attempt
• Guangdong schoolgirl attempts suicide because teacher disapproved of hairdo

Photos: DQ Daily

The post Foreign Tourist Dives Into Nanjing Lake to Save Suicidal Woman [UPDATED] appeared first on The Nanfang.