多棱鏡MISHMASH

CRASH-TRIMONY

When divorces roll around it’s only a matter of time before the property disputes begin in earnest, especially when the couple is rich but shallow, the defining characteristics of China’s reviled tuhao nouveau riche. For a couple in Foshan, Guangdong, things came to a collision, quite literally, when the husband crashed his Mercedes directly into his wife’s BMW in August, trashing both cars, with a combined value of nearly two million RMB. One assumes there were hard feelings. The couple had been quarrelling over how to divide their property. Perhaps this simplified things? In any case, the police are now involved. Fingers crossed their cars remain unharmed.

TAI CHEATER

In China, what teachers generally lack in salary they gain in respect—or occasionally cash, that too. A tai chi teacher in Chengdu, Sichuan Province was flabbergasted when one of his students demonstrated that respect with a cool million in RMB, stacked up in piles. The teacher, Li Guangjin, to his credit, was not impressed by this attempt to buy goodwill and berated the student for his crassness. He told the kid that he didn’t even need the cash and he was just trying to teach martial arts; life is just so damn difficult when people are throwing mounds of cash at you! The apprentice took on the advice, putting his ridiculously wealthy tail between his legs and taking the money back.

SLAPDASH SOLUTION

The price you pay for displeasing your girlfriend can be huge—silent treatment, guilt trips, maybe even a shouting match. Fortunately, in this story, the man in question analyzed his behavior, figured out the flaws in his relationship, and addressed them like a sensible adult. Just kidding. In August, the man was taking a long trip to Nanjing with his girlfriend, and somewhere around Hefei, Anhui Province, they started arguing. His solution was to begin slapping himself until he passed out behind the wheel. Fortunately, he was able to pull the car to one side before he passed out. Local traffic police found him and sent him to hospital. No word on what the argument was about or whether they patched up their relationship, but we wouldn’t want to just slap together a contrived happy ending.

230,000 REASONS TO GO PRE-PAID

When you lose your phone, it’s pretty frustrating, especially when you’re overseas. But hey, it happens. Life goes on. This is what happened to a woman surnamed Cai, who lost her phone while on vacation in Barcelona. Now, Barcelona has something of a reputation for pickpockets and thieves, and it would appear that her phone was liberated by someone who was really into long-distance calls. By the time Cai returned to China in August, she was told the roaming charges had racked up 230,000 RMB. To make matters worse, in order to apply for a new SIM card, one needs to provide ID and clear all previous phone debts. Ouch.

JAYWALK OF SHAME

The Shenzhen traffic police will cuckold you—well, kind of. In an effort to combat “Chinese-style street crossings”(when pedestrians wait until they have massed enough troops to pit the strength of the herd against traffic) they instituted a plan which forces reckless jaywalkers to wear green caps and vests. Basically, they are conscripted into directing the traffic at busy intersections while wearing a silly outfit. Police reported that they dealt with some 11,000 lawbreakers in one day, mostly during peak hours. The thing is, a green hat has certain connotations in China. “戴綠帽子” (wearing a green hat) is a derogatory expression that refers to a man whose wife is cheating on him. Basically, the Shenzhen police were trolling the hell out of jaywalkers. One male offender refused to wear it, and the cops played it totally innocent, saying “it’s just a coincidence”. After some arguing, they let the man off the hook with a 20 RMB ticket. Perhaps it is predictable that in China men will always prefer a fine to wearing a green-colored cap in front of others, but that kind of misses the point of shaming them.

SWEET COP

Murder, rape, robbery—police get all the worst phone calls. Nobody ever calls the emergency line just because they want to have a pleasant chat (don’t do that, seriously, people need that line free). Sometimes, however, things aren’t all that dire. A record of a police phone call recently went viral on Weibo, revealing how a citizen in Nanjing had called up with a truly dire emergency: his watermelon didn’t taste sweet. Oh the humanity. Mysteriously, instead of abusing the fool for wasting police time, the police actually went out there to settle the dispute. The policeman brought the watermelon back to the office and, well, he did his duty. He tasted the watermelon. The record now shows “the watermelon was truly not sweet”. – SUN JIAHUI (孫佳慧)