10 true Facts about China Shockingly Weird!

China is 3rd largest country in the world. It has a mixture of unusual old traditions and new advancements, strange people and culture.
Here, we've put together 10  unbelievable but verified true Facts about this incredible country.

Number 10: Ghost Marriage

Ghost Marriage is an ancient shadowy ritual, still practiced in certain parts of China, which aims to provide spouses for people who die unmarried.
Believers in the custom are practicing this for some 3,000 years. It ensures the unmarried dead are not alone in the afterlife.
Originally, the weddings were strictly for the dead, but in recent times some have involved one living person being married to a corpse.
In ghost marriages the "bride's" family demands a bride price and there is even a dowry, which includes jewelry, servants and a mansion.
Factors like age and family background are as essential as they are in more traditional weddings.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37103447

Number 09: Virgin Boy Egg

Virgin boy eggs are a traditional dish of Dongyang, Zhejiang, China in which eggs are boiled in the urine of young boys, preferably under the age of ten.

The dish is prepared by first soaking the eggs in the urine of young boys. The urine is sourced locally by each vendor. Then, the mixture is heated over a stove. After boiling, the egg shells are cracked around the entire surface of the egg. Afterwards, the eggs are placed back into the urine. The used urine is then replaced with fresh urine and the process is repeated. The soaking process allows the eggs to be become cured in the urine as they are left to simmer. The entire process is generally a daylong endeavor. According to some recipes, different herbs may also be added to the marinade. When finished, the eggs whites have a pale golden hue and the yolks turn green.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_boy_egg

Number 08: Single ladies rent boyfriend!

A women is in her late 20s, has a career and is unmarried. That sounds completely normal, doesn't it?
But many Chinese do not see it normally as you see. In their eyes, women should be wed by their late 20s.
Those who aren't, are branded "sheng nu" or "leftover women".
And it isn't only the older generation that thinks that way.
For many Chinese, the New Year is the only opportunity they get together with their families. Visiting home with boyfriend or girlfriend at New Year is pretty much like announcing your engagement.
In recent years, many people are renting boyfriends or girlfriends to please their parents and ease the pressure on them to marry. Taobao, China's largest e-commerce site used to had a section on their site, dedicated to renting boyfriends and girlfriends for New Year, but it has since been closed. Nowadays, everything goes through QQ, It is a China's equivalent of MSN Messenger or AOL, where you can find a rented boyfriend or girlfriend in about 1,000 RMB (roughly $150) per day.
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/05/time-fake-boyfriend-china-leftover-women-160519121232031.html

Number 07: In addition to bikinis, they have facekinis!

Qingdaonese swimmers have recently made waves on Chinese Internet sites for their bizarre swimming gear: colorful, full-face masks.
Dubbed "facekini," the fabric masks cover a swimmer's entire head and neck down to the collar bones. Holes are cut for eyes, nostrils and mouth.
According to some online sellers, the masks can also repel mosquitoes, and even sharks. Bright orange masks can help drive away sharks "because they fear this color the most."
"Facekinis" can be spotted in stores along the beaches in Qingdao for around RMB 15 (US$2.35) as well as on Taobao, China's retail website, for around RMB 25.
Source: http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/life/facekini-woman-chinas-latest-beach-sensation-680659/

Number 06: Traditional Chinese medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine is a style of traditional medicine informed by modern medicine but built on a foundation of more than 2,500 years of Chinese medical practice that includes various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage  exercise and dietary therapy. It is primarily used as a complementary alternative medicine approach. TCM is widely used in China and is becoming increasingly available in Europe and North America.
There are roughly 13,000 medicinals used in China and over 100,000 medicinal recipes recorded in the ancient literature. Plant elements and extracts are by far the most common elements used.
Some animal parts used as medicinals can be considered rather strange such as cows' gallstones, hornet's nest,leech  and scorpion. Other examples of animal parts include horn of the antelope or buffalo, deer antlers, testicles and penis bone of the dog, and snake bile.
Traditional Chinese Medicine also includes some human parts: the classic Materia medica (Bencao Gangmu) describes the use of 35 human body parts and excreta in medicines, including bones, fingernail, hairs, dandruff, earwax, impurities on the teeth, feces, urine, sweat, organs, but most are no longer in use.
Human placenta has been used an ingredient in certain traditional Chinese medicines, including using dried human placenta, known as "Ziheche", to treat infertility, impotence and other conditions. The consumption of the human placenta is a potential source of infection.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine

Number 05: Obama Fried Chicken

In Beijing, China, there was  a restaurant named OFC with a logo that looks alarmingly like the Ex US President Obama.
The restaurant's sign was first spotted by TheShanghaiist.com and picked up by msnbc.com.
The owners were forced to change the name from OFC to bizarrely, choosing UFO. Although no one knows quite why they’ve chosen that, but Obama like logo still remains.
The restaurant was set up in Beijing by three university students., which serves hamburgers, chicken pieces and chips.
Source 1: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044016/Obama-Fried-Chicken-Is-President-giving-Colonel-Sanders-run-money.html
Source 2: http://metro.co.uk/2011/10/10/obama-fried-chicken-forced-to-change-name-to-ufo-amid-kfc-legal-threat-3427327/

Number 04: 30 millions of chinese man are staying single

China has many millions more men than women, a hangover of the country's one-child policy, which was overturned in 2015, though its effects will last decades more. The gender imbalance is making it hard for many men to find a partner – and the gap is likely to widen. By 2020, it’s estimated there will be 30 million more men than women looking for a partner. In his book, The Demographic Future, American political economist Nicholas Eberstadt cites projections that by 2030, more than a quarter of Chinese men in their 30s will not have married.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170213-why-millions-of-chinese-men-are-staying-single

Number 03: Time in China

Although being the 3rd largest country in the world and Geographically covering five time zones. However, the standard times used in Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan Province are the same, for they are all in the same time zone (UTC+8), 8 hours ahead of the Universal Time Coordinated.
In Xinjiang, two time standards, namely, Beijing Time and Xinjiang Time, are used in parallel.
Xinjiang Time is set due to its geographical location in the westernmost part of the country.The time offset is UTC+06:00, which is two hours behind Beijing.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/time_difference.htm

Number 02: The one-child policy

The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 and began to be formally phased out in 2015. The policy allowed many exceptions. For example, in 2007, 36% of China's population was subject to a strict one-child restriction, with an additional 53% being allowed to have a second child if the first child was a girl.

Problems with enforcing the policy:

Those who had more than one child didn't receive these benefits and were fined.
Many people claim that some women, who became pregnant after they had already had a child, were forced to have an abortion and many women were forcibly sterilized. There appears to be evidence to back up these claims.

Impact of the policy

The birth rate in China has fallen since 1979, and the rate of population growth is now 0.7 per cent.
There have been negative impacts too - due to a traditional preference for boys, large numbers of female babies have ended up homeless or in orphanages, and in some cases killed. In 2000, it was reported that 90 per cent of foetuses aborted in China were female.
As a result, the gender balance of the Chinese population has become distorted. Today it is thought that men outnumber women by more than 60 million.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/population/managing_population_rev3.shtml

Number 01: More than 30 million people in China live underground in caves

Tens of million in China have gone underground — to live.
Over 30 million Chinese make their homes in caves, according to a recent report by the Los Angeles Times.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/30-million-people-china-live-underground-caves-article-1.1046872