From Rags to Riches: How a Viral Photo Turned a Street Beggar Into an Online Celebrity
Four years ago, Rita Gaviola was a 13-year-old street beggar in the Filipino town of Lucban. Since then she has worked with some of the world’s hottest brands as a fashion model, starred on hit reality TV shows and gained over 100,000 Instagram followers. And it was all thanks to a random photo… Rita Gaviola’s […]
Online Shopper Pays $6 Million for His Own Commercial Rocket Launch
They say you can buy just about anything on China’s leading online shopping platform, Taobao. Well, you can now add “commercial rocket launch” to that list as well. In what was originally deemed an April 1st joke, Chinese media recently reported that an anonymous online shopper paid 40 million yuan ($5.6 million) for his very […]
Controversial “Class of Life” Has Primary School Children Eating Fish They Helped Raise
Japan’s “Class of Life” is a controversial school project that aims to teach students about valuing their food and the environment by having them raise and then eat animals like fish and chicken. We first featured the Class of Life a couple of years ago, when a video showcasing its implementation at an agricultural high-school […]
Dad Creates Custom Baby Safety Pod to Protect His Child from Coronavirus Infection
A young Chinese dad spent a month converting a cat carrier backpack into a safety pod for his baby. His invention allegedly protects the child from infection and pumps purified air into the pod with an electronic fan system. 30-year-old Cao Junjie, a tech-savvy father from Shanghai, China, wanted something that would allow him and […]
Japanese “Cosplay Queen” Shocks Fans by Revealing That She Is Actually a Man
A popular Japanese cosplayer known for transforming herself into real-life versions of hot female anime characters, recently came out as a man who uses makeup, wigs and various accessories to achieve a shockingly feminine look. With over 65,000 followers on Twitter, and several other thousands on Instagram, Rei Dunois can safely be described as a […]
Japan’s Yearly Truck Gardening Contest Takes Landscaping to a Whole New Level
Every year, landscaping experts from all over Japan get together to compete in the Key Truck Garden Contest, a unique event that has participants turning the beds of mini trucks into the most impressive miniature gardens they can.l The results are nothing short of awe-inspiring. The Kei Truck, or “kei-tora”, is a small yet practical […]
Man Brings Home Severed Human Hand, Asks Wife to Cook It for Dinner
An Indian man was recently arrested after bringing home a human hand that he had allegedly taken from a crematorium and asking his wife to cook it for dinner. The disturbing episode unfolded last week in Tikkopur village, India’s Uttar Pradesh and sent shock waves through the entire area. The accused, known only as 32-year-old […]
Man Reserved Then Canceled 1,873 Stadium Seats At Baseball Games So He Could Have More Space
A Japanese man is facing serious charges for allegedly causing serious financial losses to his favorite baseball club after reserving and then cancelling nearly 1,900 seats for two of their league games, so he could have more space and stand out on TV. 41-year-old Kiyoshi Shibamura, a fan of the Orix Buffaloes baseball club from […]
Man with 30-Year-Long Amnesia Suddenly Remembers His Home While Watching Coronavirus News Report
A Chinese migrant worker who lost his memory in 1990 due to brain injuries recently remembered his hometown while watching a news report about the coronavirus outbreak. Thirty years ago, Zhu Jiaming, a young man from Guizhou Province in south-western China, left his home to work construction in the central province of Hubei. Unfortunately, that […]
The Controversial Story of a Teacher Who Started Dating His 13-Year-Old Student and Married Her When She Turned 20
This is a somewhat older story that was originally reported by media primarily in Indonesia and other East-Asian countries back in 2018. It got a lot of attention because it touched on a very taboo topic – the romantic relationship between an adult male teacher and a 13-year-old schoolgirl. Erwin Pangaila was 27 when he […]
Quarantined Students Spam Homework App with 1-Star Reviews to Get It Removed from App Store
Chinese schoolchildren in Wuhan and other areas where school has been suspended because of the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak have apparently been trying to have a homework app taken down from the App Store so they could enjoy their vacation. The threat of Covid-19 is no joke, but for Chinese students the shutdown of schools in […]
The Curious Case of a Double Amputee Whose Transplanted Hands Have Changed Color
Indian doctors recently reported the curious case of a young woman who underwent a double hand transplant almost three years ago and whose hands have changed color to match her skin tone. 21-year-old Shreya Siddanagowder lost both her hands in a freak road accident in 2016, when travelling from her hometown in Pune to her […]
103-Year-Old Man Marries 27-Year-Old Woman in Controversial Arranged Union
Since late last month, Indonesian social media has been buzzing with news of a controversial wedding in South Sulawesi, where a 103-year-old Dutch colonial war veteran recently married a 27-year-old woman. Photos and videos of the unlikely couple on their wedding day have been doing the rounds online for over a week now, sparking both […]
Chinese Man Finds Online Success Livestreaming Himself Sleeping
An amateur actor has become an unlikely celebrity on Chinese streaming platform Douyin by livestreaming himself sleeping to hundreds of thousands of curious viewers. The man, who goes by Yuansan on the internet, originally livestreamed himself sleeping on Douyin on February 9th, allegedly to verify whether he snores. When he woke up, he was shocked […]
Japan’s Ingenious Solution to Help Turtles Cross Train Tracks
Turtles may be cute, but they are also slow and clumsy, which doesn’t really help them when they are trying to cross train tracks. Luckily, for the turtles in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture, railway operators and a local aquarium teamed up to find a solution. Between 2002 and 2014, disruptions of train operation caused by turtles […]