A passenger on the flight told Xinhua that smoke appeared in the cabin 30 minutes after take-off from Sunan International Airport. Although oxygen masks were deployed, the passenger said people had trouble breathing from all the smoke. The flight landed in Shenyang 10 minutes later.

The flight landed safely with its 60 passengers and 15 crew members. No injuries were reported.

The cause of the fire is not known.

The aircraft is a class #204, Soviet-era plane made by Russian manufacturer, Tupolev. Founded in 1950 in collaboration with the former USSR, Air Koryo’s fleet of airplanes date from the same time period.

Last month, Air Koryo began operating a direct flight between North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and Jinan, Shandong. The world’s only one-star airline also offers flights to Beijing and Shanghai.

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In less than a decade, it has drastically evolved. In fact, an unidentified bar in Shenyang, Liaoning distanced itself from the shopping and romance by providing a writhing dancer in a bikini for its patrons to freely pour beer upon.

Maybe it’s slowly becoming China’s version of the popular US “Spring Break”?

“Dancing in a wading pool covered in beer” isn’t normally a popular activity in China, a country known for its conservative attitudes towards sexuality, and was not well-received by netizens online. One person said, “Vulgarity without limits.” Another person wrote, “Despicable. This isn’t a promotion for a (bar), this is flat-out prostitution! People nowadays really have no restraints holding them back.”

Yet another person took the opportunity to point out: “I can see a police car outside the window (in the last picture).”

With this latest salvo shot in the War on Singles’ Day, who can say if November 11 will become the future date for wet T-shirt competitions and beer bong consumption in what will potentially be China’s own Spring Break festival.

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Police have yet to confirm the cause of death with reporters, saying only that the investigation is ongoing. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sources close to the victim wouldn’t reveal his name to reporters; but, they said he was a 57 year-old Shenyang native with a family. The victim was found with financial documents.

Shares on the Shanghai stock exchange have fallen around 16 percent this week after a disastrous crash on Monday, now known as “Black Monday”, which has been influencing downturns in other global markets.

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It has crossed our minds anytime we enter a creaky old elevator in China: is this thing safe? They almost universally are, but not always, as 12 people in Shenyang found out last week.

A group of staff from a media company got into the elevator in their office building when it suddenly came loose and started free-falling. It plunged 12 floors, injuring everyone on board.

Five victims remain in hospital with serious injuries, mostly broken bones. One victim has lost feeling to the lower part of his body.

Miss Li, who was in the elevator, gave this terrifying account of the fall:

At that time, the elevator began to sway back and forth with a banging sound as it descended while sparks began to appear from the elevator door. Then the ceiling and the fluoroescent lights began to collapse upon us, hitting the heads of some of the taller co-workers in the elevator, making them collapse to the floor. Wires from the ceiling fell down, snaring themselves around my head and neck. Everything in front of me turned dark…

Li said that upon impact, the ceiling completely fell upon the victims, trapping them. However, since the elevator doors were sealed shut, the victims were only able to escape from the elevator once rescuers arrived at the scene.

Elevator repairmen who arrived later said the elevator has been in operation for 15 years, and has had problems before. In fact, Miss Li said the elevator was already malfunctioning the day before on July 14:

At that time, we were very afraid. At the earliest moment, we contacted the property management using the elevator’s emergency telephone. But upon being notified, the worker with the property management didn’t appear to be very urgent about it. From this point alone, it appeared that elevator malfunctions is a regular occurrence for the property management that they’ve gotten used to.

Property management has already forwarded RMB 300,000 to be used towards the victims’  medical fees.

Elevators are normally extremely safe. Modern elevators are equipped with a number of fail-safes that are supposed to keep elevator passengers safe in case of any catastrophic situation, such as power failure or cable malfunction. Safety measures include a multiple set of cables, emergency brakes, and counterweights.

Related:

• Trapped in a Crowded Elevator, Chinese Passengers Use the Tools at Hand
• Shenzhen pledges to improve elevator safety after price war causes accidents

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The van partially fell into a manhole and got stuck, so the driver decided to abandon it. Of course, being Shenyang, the traffic implications have been, shall we say, significant.

Although the manhole has the city’s name on it and is marked “municipal administration drainage”, Shenyang authorities are refusing to accept responsibility, instead suggesting the driver pursue the case in court. That might make sense, but it doesn’t change the fact the road is still partially blocked by an abandoned vehicle. For his part, the driver rejected the city’s position and is seeking RMB 200,000 ($32,200) in compensation.

As the only warning given to drivers about the faulty manhole cover was a squashed traffic cone,  the unnamed driver remains confident he has a good case. And he maintains he’d lose the case if he moved the van, saying:

I can not move the car, because then I would not have anything to reason with!

Leverage indeed. We wish the driver the best of luck. And wish the drivers attempting to drive around his minivan the best of patience.

The post Quintessential China: People Drive Around Abandoned Van In Middle of the Road Rather Than Move It appeared first on The Nanfang.

The court is on top of a building occupied by a bank on Fengtian Road near Shifu Boulevard, and has apparently never been used. Constructed five years ago, the court never had its basketball nets installed, nor any fencing or protective barriers.

Long a curiosity in the city, the bank’s Public Relations Secretary, Zhao, explained why the basketball court was built in the first place:

The initial plan was to provide a way to allow the staff to stay healthy and fit, and to utilize the space on the roof as a basketball court. But since playing basketball up there constitutes a risk from ‘dropped balls’, we considered the possibility of constructing a protective enclosure. However, since the cost was too high, we abandoned the project.

Zhao didn’t say whether the space would be used for something else.

The post Would You Play Here? Photos of a Sky-high Rooftop Basketball Court in China… With No Fence appeared first on The Nanfang.

It’s a tough job being the parents of China’s “little emperors”, the sons and daughters of China’s one-child families. No one understands this better than the parents who just sent their children off to the Shenyang Aerospace University in China’s northeastern Liaoning Province before the start of the new semester.

After labouring all day, lugging heavy luggage that their precious little emperors were too cool to carry, the parents who weren’t able to book return tickets back home curled up on sleeping mats and slept through the night on the floor in the university’s stadium on August 30, China News reported.

According to the university, more than 400 sleeping mats were distributed to parents to temporarily accommodate them in the stadium. From the images shown in the report, parents were scattered around the floor, using their backpacks or bags as pillows.

The story has drawn a lot of sympathy online; most empathize with parents’ willingness to sacrifice for their children, quoting the Chinese phrase “nothing is as touching as parents’ love (可怜天下父母心)”.

But for the little emperors sleeping soundly in their comfortable beds, the phrase might be something they fail to fully comprehend.

Photos: CFP

The post Parents Sleep On Gym Floor After Dropping Kids Off At University appeared first on The Nanfang.

The ride consists of a 60-metre vertical drop. The 58 year-old native of Hunan Province said he would have stayed on even longer if a thunder storm hadn’t begun, according to the paper.

He Kuiming comes from Shenyang City and after retiring he came to Dongguan to live with his daughter. From 2:45 p.m. until around 7 p.m. he rode the roller coaster, occasionally snacking on bread during intervals.

He first experienced this type of theme park ride in Shenzhen in 2009. Although it made him dizzy, he got addicted. He later discovered that for 198 yuan, he could ride enjoy any ride at Dongguan’s Xinhua South Mall throughout the day.

He’s other hobby is bungee jumping, but because of his age, he is often refused the opportunity to bungee jump. “On October 1, I intend to go to Guilin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to attend the World Bungee Jumping Championship,” He told the paper.

“I want to enter the Guinness Book of Records for doing the largest number of consecutive bungee jumps,” said He.

However, in spite of his good health, he may not receive permission to attempt this because he has no formal training in bungee jumping.

The post A 58-year-old spends 4 hours on Dongguan roller coaster, wants to set world record appeared first on The Nanfang.

The country’s more than 60 million disabled people meet with slightly less discrimination now, and one Shenzhen man is making his own contribution to the cause.

Holding a sign explaining that he is travelling across China to raise awareness, Jiang Wenshan was seen on a street in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province offering handshakes July 15, according to local media. Around 40 percent of pedestrians stopped to shake his hand, said the man, Jiang, aged 30.

Why were the remaining 60 percent of pedestrians so standoffish? Jiang says it’s perfectly understandable, and you may agree. Jiang does not have a left hand, so what you would be shaking is a stump.

Jiang intends to do this in 88 cities, travelling over 30,000 kilometres, he claims. He has already travelled over 17,000 kilometres and Shenyang is his 36th city. His next port of call will be Changchun.

Jiang told reporters that he was an introverted child who would spend most of his time in his room looking at maps, dreaming of travelling the world. He intended to start such a trip in 2005, but his father had a car crash putting great financial pressure on the family, forcing Jiang to work several unglamorous jobs.

His still intends to take 3 or 4 years to travel the world and he has already collected over 30,000 yuan in donations to pay for this.

In 2006, a campaign was introduced on the streets of Beijing, Changsha and Xi’an to offer free hugs to strangers. However, police stopped it shortly after.

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